Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

An investigation into school inspection policies in Western Australian state education performed by the Expert Review Group

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Educational Research for Policy and Practice Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The aim of this work is to learn more about the Expert Review Group (ERG), a small but powerful team of bureaucrats in Western Australia’s Department of Education whose role is to inspect the quality and standards of pre-K to year 12 government schools. Critical education policy analysis is utilised. Iterative understandings were developed through historical and contemporary document analysis of legislature, policy documents, department reports, academic journal articles, media reports and social media information. This study makes transparent why the ERG was created and how it functions today. ERG school inspections are of proportional, risk-based type, targeting only those schools operating extraordinarily below or above the official measurements of adequate school performance. Very limited public analysis of the ERG had been undertaken prior to this study; thus, the data explored here are original and new to the public record. The ERG’s work and influence have expanded over its first decade of operation. However, there is no publicly available evidence that draws a link between ERG inspections and subsequent improvement in school performance for any ERG-inspected school.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. In order to comply with the university’s standards of ethical research, it must be noted that, when research data are presented in the following pages, in order to ensure that ERG staff and WA public school stakeholders are protected as well as possible from identification, school names are omitted from the text and APA referencing is not conformed to regarding the authorial acknowledgement protocols usually found within in-text and end-text referencing.

  2. In the Australian literature, rather than the more commonly used term ‘inspection’, which is often used in the international literature, ‘reviewing’ schools is the jargon used to confer the same meaning. This is noted because, when searching for similar literature, ‘review’ is not a keyword that finds many links, whereas ‘inspection’ proves quite successful. Whichever terminology is used, inspection or review, in WA they are synonyms for processes involving inspecting, evaluating and judging whole school communities’ performance and reporting it back to the Department of Education, which ultimately reports to the education minister in the state government.

References

  • Apple, M. W. (2006). Educating the “Right” way: Markets, standards, god and inequality (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barcan, A. (2011). Public schools in Australia from the late 1970s to the late 1980s: The seeds of change. Education Research and Perspectives, 37(2), 1–37.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baxter, J., & Clarke, J. (2013). Farewell to the tick box inspector: Ofsted and the changing regime of school inspection in England. Oxford Review of Education, 39(5), 702–718.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Biesta, G. J. J. (2010). Good education in an age of measurement: Ethics, politics, democracy. Boulder, CO: Paradigm.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blackmore, J. (2011). Bureaucratic, corporate/market and network governance: Shifting spaces for gender equity in education. Gender, Work & Organization, 18, 443–466.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Byrne, P. (2016). A fair go? Reviewing schools and leaders. Retrieved http://www.sstuwa.org.au/news-home/2016/september/fair-go-reviewing-schools-and-leaders. Accessed 28 February 2018.

  • Cowie, M., Taylor, D., & Croxford, L. (2007). ‘Tough, intelligent accountability’ in Scottish secondary schools and the role of standard tables and charts (STACS): A critical appraisal. Scottish Educational Review, 39(1), 29–50.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cuttance, P., Harman, G., Macpherson, R. J. S., Pritchard, A., & Smart, D. (1998). The politics of accountability in Australian education. Educational Policy, 12(1&2), 138–161.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • De Wolf, I. F., & Janssens, F. J. G. (2007). Effects and side effects of inspections and accountability in education: An overview of empirical studies. Oxford Review of Education, 33(3), 379–396. https://doi.org/10.1080/03054980701366207.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Department of Education and Training. (2008). School improvement and accountability framework. Western Australia: Department of Education and Training.

    Google Scholar 

  • Diem, S., & Young, M. (2015). Considering critical turns in research on educational leadership and policy. International Journal of Educational Management, 29(7), 838–850.

    Google Scholar 

  • Diem, S., Young, M. D., Welton, A. D., Mansfield, K. C., & Lee, P. L. (2014). The intellectual landscape of critical policy analysis. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 27(9), 1068–1090.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Du, M., & Zhang, Q. (Ed.) (2013). Chinese schools get independent education inspectors, people’s daily. http://en.people.cn/203691/8408056.html. Accessed 28 February 2018.

  • Duggan, M. (2009). School accountability in the Western Australian public education sector: Perceptions of leaders in the field. PhD Thesis: Murdoch University.

  • Ehren, M., & Shackleton, N. (2016). Risk-based school inspections: Impact of targeted inspection approaches on Dutch secondary schools. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, 28(4), 299–321. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11092-016-9242-0.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ehren, M., & Visscher, A. (2006). Towards a theory on the impact of school inspections. British Journal of Educational Studies, 54(1), 51–72. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8527.2006.00333.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ehren, M., & Visscher, A. (2008). The relationship between school inspections, school characteristics and school improvement. British Journal of Educational Studies, 56(2), 205–227. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8527.2008.00400.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Exley, S. (2014). Scrapping schools inspections is a bad idea, warns Finnish expert, tes connect. Retrieved https://www.tes.co.uk/news/school-news/breaking-news/scrapping-school-inspections-a-bad-idea-warns-finnish-expert. Accessed 28 February 2018.

  • Franklyn, M. (2016). SSTUWA submission to the inquiry into the Department of Education’s IPS Initiative. Perth, WA: State School Teachers of Western Australia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gilbert, I. (2012). Foreword. In J. Beere (Ed.), The perfect Ofsted inspection: 2012 Ofsted framework. UK: Independent Thinking.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gobby, B. (2013). Enacting the independent public schools program in Western Australia. Issues in Educational Research, 23(1), 19–34.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grimley, J. (1986). Critical educational policy analysis: A discussion of perspectives. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 11(2), 19–26. https://doi.org/10.14221/ajte.1986v11n2.2.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hoffman, N. (1994). Devolution of decision-making authority in the government school system of Western Australia: A report by the Ministerial Independent Assessment Group on Devolution. Perth, WA: Education Department of Western Australia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hopkins, D. (2007). Every school a great school. Maidenhead: McGrawHill and Open University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hunt, B., Deacon, H., Harris, J., & Shuttleworth, D. (2015). [Name] senior high school: Performance study report. Expert Review Group (August 2015).

  • Hutchings, M. (2015). Exam factories? The impact of accountability measures on children and young people. London, UK: Communications Department of the National Union of Teachers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kimber, M., & Ehrich, L. C. (2011). The democratic deficit and school-based management in Australia. Journal of Educational Administration, 49(2), 179–199.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Misich, T. (1996). Options for self managing schools in Western Australia: A discussion paper for WA school leaders. Report on New Zealand and Australian Principals’ experience and recommendations for self management by schools. A discussion document for the WA Primary Principal Association.

  • Monje Herrero, F., & Onega Onega, J. (2006) The inspectorate of education of Spain, p. 1–22. Retrieved http://www.sici-inspectorates.eu/getattachment/1b37e769-a3d4-44d0-88f2-4f977e2b2a42. Accessed 28 February 2018.

  • O’Neill, S. (2016). Department of Education annual report 2015–2016. Western Australia: Department of Education.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Neill, S. (2017). Department of Education annual report 2016–2017. Western Australia: Department of Education.

    Google Scholar 

  • Phillips, Y. (2012). The best and worst of WA schools. Sunday Times (online). Retrieved 25/08/2016 http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/the-best-and-worst-of-wa-schools/story-e6frg13u-1226347574382. Accessed 28 February 2018.

  • Prunty, J. (1984). A critical reformulation of educational policy analysis. Victoria: Deakin University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rata, E. (2014). The three stages of critical policy methodology: An example from curriculum analysis. Policy Futures in Education, 12(3), 347–358. https://doi.org/10.2304/pfie.2014.12.3.347.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sahlberg, P. (2012). Quality and equity in Finnish school. School Administrator, 69(8), 27–30.

    Google Scholar 

  • School Education Act 1999 (Western Australia). Retrieved https://www.slp.wa.gov.au/pco/prod/filestore.nsf/FileURL/mrdoc_6464.pdf/$FILE/School%20Education%20Act%201999%20-%20%5B00-00-00%5D.pdf?OpenElement. Accessed 28 February 2018.

  • Shine, R. (2016). [Name of] school violence: Damning report finds inadequate leadership. ABC News Online. Retrieved 23/01/2017 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-20/damning-report-on-kalgoorlie-school-released/7646064. Accessed 28 February 2018.

  • Srivastava, P., & Hopwood, N. (2009). A practical iterative framework for qualitative data analysis. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 8, 76–84.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • State School Teachers of Western Australia (SSTUWA). (2012). Expert Review Group: School review process. Power Point presentation.

  • Webb, R., Vulliamy, G., Häkkinen, K., & Hämäläinen, S. (1998). External inspection or school self-evaluation? A comparative analysis of policy and practice in primary schools in England and Finland. British Educational Research Journal, 24(5), 539–556. https://doi.org/10.1080/0141192980240504.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Edith Cowan University, Perth, WA, Australia

    Christine Cunningham

Authors
  1. Christine Cunningham
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christine Cunningham.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Cunningham, C. An investigation into school inspection policies in Western Australian state education performed by the Expert Review Group. Educ Res Policy Prac 18, 39–58 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10671-018-9227-5

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10671-018-9227-5

Keywords

Search

Navigation