“Students are numbers, and so are teachers”
How quantification impacts the work experiences of teachers
and managers in secondary schools in the Netherlands
Lars Hendrix
10597921
lars-hendrix@live.nl
Supervisor: Olav Velthuis
Second reader: Bowen Paulle
Amsterdam, 9 July 2018
3
Table of contents
Foreword ... 4
Summary ... 5
Why do we measure? ... 8
Theory & Literature review ... 10
New Public Management ... 10
Managerial ideal types in education ... 11
The effects on teaching staff... 13
The different forms of numbers... 14
Positive or negative ... 15
Methodology ... 18
The interviewees ... 18
Sampling ... 20
Organizing the data ... 21
Complications and shortcomings ... 21
Findings ... 24
The number of registrations ... 24
The Inspection ... 31
The national exam ... 37
Direct quantification of teachers’ work ... 39
Discussion ... 44
Conclusion ... 45
4
Foreword
This thesis is written at the end of my master education called Social Problems, Social Policy, at the University of Amsterdam. The goal of this thesis is to demonstrate that I am able to perform sociological research to academic standards. This last year has prepared me for this, as I have taken courses on theory and data analysis. As English is not my first language, this master has also helped me developed my ability to write in academic English.
I would like to thank those who have helped me write this thesis. First of all I would like to thank my supervisor Olav Velthuis. He has helped me make important decisions during this thesis, and had helpful advice during at every stage. The quality of this research would certainly be lower if he was not there to help me. I would also like to thank Bowen Paulle for being the second reader of this thesis. I can only imagine how busy he is during this period, as he also supervises students doing their master thesis.
Of course, I want to thank all fourteen teachers and managers that allowed me to interview them. I realise that teaching and education in general are stressful jobs, so I appreciate that they took time out of their busy lives to help me. All interviews were friendly and pleasant, and I have learned much about what it means to work in education.
At last I would like to thank all my friends and family that supported me while writing this thesis. In particular I would like to thank Saskia Mekers, with whom I could share my frustrations and difficulties the last couple of months. In addition to this, she also offered her insightful opinion which made me rethink certain parts of this research, and I believe it has become better because of it.
5
Summary
We live in a society that increasingly uses numbers to order the world around us. This has resulted in a regime of new public management (Van der Sluis et al, 2017; Enders & Westerheijden, 2017). In this regime, difficult and abstract concepts are put into a number, which is called ‘quantification’. The field of education is no exception to this; quantifications have produced important indicators that measure the quality of education, for example. While this has been documented very well in terms of student achievement, it has not been documented as thoroughly in terms of the experiences of teachers and managers. This research fills that gap, as it set out to answer the following question: how does quantification impact the work experiences of teachers and managers in secondary schools in the Netherlands?
This research uses concepts such as neoliberalism, audit culture and accountability. We see that these terms are used when talking about education, as they illustrate the current situation of education in western societies (Frelin & Grannäs, 2013; Gewirtz & Ball, 2000). In addition to this, ideal types of school management are used: welfarism and new managerialism (Gewirtz & Ball, 2000). Furthermore, we expand on literature that details how teachers experience the increase of this line of thinking (Ball & Olmedo, 2013; Von der Embse, 2016; Ryan et al, 2017). In addition to this, we make the distinction between quantifying, economising and marketising (Kurunmäki et al, 2016). These concepts help us understand what how to interpret the quantifications, and allow us to be careful as not to interpret them in the wrong way. Finally, we use the research of Noordegraaf (2008) to illustrate that quantification can also be positive and that we should not write it off before having done a proper analysis.
For the gathering of the data, interviews were being held. This is the best way to gain insight into the mind of the interviewee and allows them to tell their story (Silverman, 2014). I used multiple forms of sampling; random sampling, my personal network, and a message on teacher groups on Facebook. In total fourteen interviews were held with fifteen respondents, as one interview was done with two people at the same time. The audio of all the interviews was recorded and transcribed. To organize the data I used ATLAS.ti, and coded in multiple rounds in order to be thorough and organized.
The findings show that here are four ways in which quantification impacts the work experiences of teachers and managers in education: (1) the number of registrations, (2) the Inspection, (3) the national exam and (4) direct quantification of teachers’ work. The number of registrations is very important for secondary schools in the Netherlands, as schools are financed according to the number of students they have enrolled. This means that schools and staff need to present themselves to potential students and their parents. They use
6 events like open days, boast with the vision or innovative methods of their school, or use other tactics in order to gain more students. If they don’t gain enough students, staff might lose their jobs as the school has to shrink. In this way, the result of quantification is fear. Not only does the staff fear for their own jobs but also for the jobs of their colleagues. Then there is the Inspection, a government organisation tasked with auditing school. The Inspection uses many quantifications to label schools in the Netherlands. They measure the performance of schools by using certain indicators. If schools are continuously performing below par, their financial budget can be cut, or even worse: the school can be shut down. This creates frustration for the staff (Shore & Wright, 2015) and lowers their ability to be creative in their work (Gewirtz, 1997). It also shows that the theoretical difference between welfarism and new managerialism, as described by Gewirtz & Ball (2000), is too simplistic to capture the situation. The third way in which those working in secondary education are affected by quantification is via the national exam. This translates into a pass rate, which is hugely important for both the Inspection and the general reputation of a school. This again leads to less creativity and frustration, as teachers must ensure that their students perform well on this exam. If they don’t, their reputation takes a hit and the number of registrations could drop. In one special case, a school didn’t place as much emphasis on the national exam. This school presents itself as inherently different and does not compete in the same market as other schools. As a result, the quantification of the national exam doesn’t possesses the same power over this school. The fourth and final level is that of the teachers. They are being quantified by the Inspection and by management from their own school. Teachers explained they experience being quantified for the academic results of their students, and some stated that they experience a gap between their priorities and those of management (Shore & Wright, 2015). Others appreciate the constant effort to improve the quality of education.
After the findings, there is some discussion about a few particularities I encountered while doing this research. I note how there are certain situations illustrated in the literature which I expected to find, but didn’t. For example, teachers did not blame management for taking away their power, nor did they refer to their workload as a consequence of quantification. Then I discuss how teachers expressed that they are not satisfied with the current way finances are distributed in education in the Netherlands; on the national level schools are financed in a lump sum model.
Concluding, this research has shown what the effects of quantification are on the work experiences of teachers and managers and filled a gap that existed in scientific literature. This research also shows the importance of the distinction between economising and marketising. The distinction helps while analysing the impact of quantification on work experiences. This thesis also adds to existing literature by showing that fear can be an
7 important consequence of quantification in education. Moreover, this research showed that managers and teachers don’t act in accordance with the management type of new managerialism or welfarism, but somewhere in between.
8
Why do we measure?
Researcher: “So there is somebody who tells you what grades you have to give, more or less? Interviewee: “Yes. […] After the Inspection was more positive about us we didn’t have to anymore. Indeed, it had a huge impact on my freedom as a teacher”.
We should be thankful for society. According to the influential sociologist Max Weber, we live in a society because it allows us to share our problems (Hopmann, 2008). Society enables us to collective distribute resources in order to establish security in everyday life. Prime examples of these are physical safety, elderly care, and education. As a result, society established institutions such as the police, nursing homes, and schools. These institutions make sure that we can live our lives without having to fear for the stability of these basic conditions of life. However, our need to reduce individual problems and make them collective has no strict boundaries. This allowed these institutions to keep on growing and expanding (Hopmann, 2008). But of course, the resources that are available to the collective are not infinite, and therefore we have to draw a line at some point. There has been a ‘crisis of the welfare state’, as we cannot be sure anymore that we are capable of dealing with every problem we encounter in the future. For example, many people fear collective problems such as immigration, globalization, and outsourcing labour (Hopmann, 2008). To deal with this, society has used certain methods in to deal with this insecurity. In the last few decades, we have shifted towards a “management of expectations”, in which the finite resources we have
are used to at least diminish the problem. In order to do so, benchmarks and indicators are defined so that we can make sure those resources are being put to good use. But benchmarks and indicators can only be used when the problem can be presented objectively, and as a result, everything needs to become measurable; it has to be defined as a number. In other words: everything needs to be quantified. The management regime that emerged from this idea is called new public management.
In the quotation at the top of this page, the grades are a form of quantification: they capture the academic progress of the students in numbers. This allows students to track how they’re doing, but also allows society at large to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of this school and its staff. After all, can a school be performing well if many students fail their tests? The importance of making everything measurable becomes clear when we look at the differences in education before new public management and now; in the past teachers could exercise their profession in the way they saw fit because fewer external institutions measured and quantified how they were performing (Hopmann, 2008). Now there are benchmarks that have to be met. The quotation at the top is an example of this: the grades have to hit a certain benchmark, as they are an indicator of the quality of the school. Certainly, this benchmark was not put into place because it would benefit the students: their
9 grades are, in part, determined before they have even made the test the students are supposedly graded for! We see here that making things measurable can have consequences that were not intended, and teachers and managers in education have to deal with this.
This thesis aims to research how professionals and managers deal with the consequences of quantification. As it would be impossible to research the whole public sector, this thesis limits itself to the field of education. Originally, I set out to research different forms of ratings and rankings that occur in the secondary education in the Netherlands, similar to how Espeland & Sauder have researched this for law schools in the United States (2007). However, during this research quantification in itself proved to be more interesting than rating and rankings. While rankings about Dutch schools are being produced, for example by media agglomerate RTL and weekly magazine Elsevier (RTL Nieuws, 2016; Elsevier, 2018), they are not very impactful for the teaching staff of these schools.
For this thesis, I interviewed both teachers and managers to answer the following research question: how does quantification impact the work experiences of teachers and managers in secondary schools in the Netherlands? I decided to focus on the experiences of teaching staff because these have not yet been researched in the Netherlands in this context. While there has been researching done about other aspects of quantification, for example standardised testing (Cabus & Cornelisz, 2017; Noailly et al, 2012), the effects of quantification on the work experiences for those who work in education have not yet been researched. This thesis aims to do develop a better understanding how this regime of new public management impacts those who work in the public sector.
The structure of this thesis is as follows: first, an overview of scientific literature is presented which helps understanding important concepts and ideas for this research. I draw on concepts such as new public management, neoliberalism, audit culture and accountability. In addition to this, I also discuss similar research that has been done in other countries. Afterwards, I describe how I gathered my data, why I choose for these methods, give some detail about the interviewees, and explain what the shortcomings of this research are. After this, I present my findings and connect them to the literature. Then, there is a brief discussion about the shortcomings of the literature used for this research. In the end, there is a conclusion in which I note the most interesting findings and answer the research question.
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Theory & Literature review
In this chapter, it is intended to outline the different concepts that can be useful when analysing and understanding how teachers experience quantification. First I will discuss the dominant managerial regime in education in the Netherlands: new public management. I will show what its characteristics are and how it is different from other managerial regimes. Then I discuss how it has been introduced in the Netherlands in particular. After this, I will establish how it is connected with neoliberalism and with a general tendency to focus more on quantification. In addition to this, the effects of new public management on teachers are discussed: how they deal with this and how it is different for them than other regimes. Finally, I will present important considerations that need to be done in order to avoid mistakes when analysing this complex matter.
New Public Management
During the past few decades, there has been a change in how the public domain in Western societies structure organizations. These are the result of the interrelated developments of neoliberal policies, the rise of audit cultures and the introduction of new public management (Van der Sluis et al, 2017). This has, among other things, resulted in requests for transparency, accountability, and attempts to increase efficiency. The main aim of these policies belonging to new public management (NPM) is to guarantee that institutions and organizations become more effective and more efficient. These have propelled a wider societal trend of quantification.
NPM emerged in the UK during the Thatcher governments of the 1980s, but it should be noted that NPM is an umbrella term, and has a slightly different meaning in the UK and the Netherlands. Enders & Westerheijden note that in the Netherlands, in general, NPM is ‘softer’ than it is in the UK (2017). This is to say that NPM in the Netherlands doesn’t lead as far as in other countries, for example the UK. They then describe four ways in which NPM in the Netherlands changed higher education. First, re-ordering the various aspects of the relationship between government and universities as one that is focused on output control. Second, strengthening the market and competition for institutional funding. Third, empowering the universities to gain more leadership and become more autonomous. And finally, a focus on output, performance, money, and auditing (Enders & Westerheijden, 2017).
While this is regarding higher education, something similar can be described when discussing secondary education; there has been a shift in the way the Ministry of Education,
11 Culture, and Science1 influences secondary schools. What used to be a more traditional
input-oriented model has changed into a more output-oriented model (Van der Sluis et al, 2017). In other words, the Ministry used to define what and how students are being taught but is instead now monitoring the outcomes of education. These outcomes are indicators, which then, in turn, identify the quality of a school. The schools then have more freedom to teach as they see fit, as these outcomes can be achieved in different ways using different educational methods. It is important to point out that this means that the Ministry actually has less responsibilities than before the shift towards NPM; the Ministry used to perform many tasks that have since been given to the schools themselves (Van der Sluis et al, 2017). However, the indicators that the Ministry has set are objectives which the schools must achieve, like a certain average grade on a national test or other benchmarks. Just as in higher education, we see a re-ordering of the relationships between government and schools. We also see that schools are becoming more able to make their own decisions and that schools are putting more emphasis on certain outputs, measured in indicators.
Managerial ideal types in education
Now, I shall outline how NPM works inside secondary schools themselves. Generally, two ideal types of school management can be defined: ‘welfarism’ and ‘new managerialism’ (Gewirtz & Ball, 2000). The former was more prominent in the past, before the international move towards NPM, but we have seen a gradual shift towards the latter. A school which acts according to the welfarist ideal-type is driven by certain moral standards and values. Examples of this are equity, care, and social justice. This type focuses more on the needs of the public, and therefore it can be said that the head principle is more of a ‘public servant’ (Gewirtz & Ball, 2000). Within new managerialism, the head teacher is likely to focus less on these aspects of education and more on predetermined benchmarks and indicators. The latter type tries to raise the current standards by looking at the school in terms of certain output-related numbers; the indicators and benchmarks set by the Ministry (Van der Sluis et al, 2017). The effectiveness and quality of education can be measured in numbers; academic results, for example, are being quantified in order to be interpretable. As a result examination is increased, because it is increasingly important to know where the school stands in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. In this line of thinking, schools are subject to immense competition as an increase in quantification of academic results means that it is possible to ascertain which school is the best, i.e. most efficient (Gewirtz & Ball, 2000).
12 Frelin & Grannäs (2013) also talk about this ideal-type of new managerialism. They note that this discourse has been strengthened by the neoliberal ideology. In neoliberal ideology, it is necessary to continuously gather new evidence that things are being done efficiently, as it promotes a mind-set in which we can distinguish who is performing well and who isn’t. This has gone so far, that we can now speak of an audit culture (Apple, 2007). In this culture, it has become a standard routine to make people accountable. There is a constant production of evidence to ensure that things are being done “efficiently and in the correct way” (Apple, 2007). This ultimately leads to an increase in evidence-driven teaching, where teachers are instructed to improve results that can be measured. In order to audit the efficiency of a school, it is important to measure the students’ academic performance. Because of this schools pay increasingly attention to standardized testing, nationally and internationally.
In the Netherlands, we see audit culture in various shapes. A perfect example of this is the ‘Central Final Test’, a standardised test all pupils in the Netherlands must take during their last year of primary school. This test is a rebranded version of the ‘Cito test’ which used to be standard before it was discontinued in 2014 (College voor Toetsen en Examens, 2018). Both tests were introduced to objectively determine which type of secondary education the pupil can choose after finishing primary school, though its result is not binding. The Cito test, first introduced in 1970, was not mandatory, but many schools had their pupils take this test. As of 2015, it is mandatory for primary schools to make their pupils take a final test, though it does not have to be the ‘Central Final Test’, it can also be one of the four other providers of tests (Rijksoverheid, 2018). All possible tests must be approved by the minister, which happens every year. This ensures that all tests are standardised, as the minister decides whether the test can be used in order to quantify the quality of schools, its teachers and the academic capabilities of the students.
Another way in which we see audit culture is the founding of an institution called the Inspection of Education2. While this institution was founded in 1801, it has become
increasingly important during the past decades (Braster, 2012). The role of the Inspection has changed in the same way the role of the Ministry has changed; it used to prescribe what and how to educate, but now focuses on outputs (Braster, 2012). This similarity is not surprising, as the Inspection is part of the Ministry (Van der Sluis et al, 2017). The Inspection takes certain indicators and benchmarks as outputs and monitors if schools achieve these. If they don’t, the Inspection demands change. If, over time, change doesn’t occur the Inspection has the power to decrease financial funding for this school, and can eventually close the school (Inspectie van het Onderwijs, 2017).
13 As we have seen, certain outputs are regarded as a reflection of the quality of the school. One of these is the academic achievement of students (Inspectie van het Onderwijs, 2017) This prohibits schools from focusing on other aspects of education, like social achievement and community building, as they are difficult to measure and create accountability for (Hopmann, 2008). An example of this can be found in the American policy called ‘No Child Left Behind’, where students’ annual progress is being measured in ways which are ‘statistically valid and reliable’ (Hopmann, 2008, p. 429). This aspect is thus not deemed as of equal importance as the aspects of education which can be easily measured. The way the policy works is that the state or relevant legislative organ provides a certain set of criteria that schools can be held accountable by. The federal government holds the various district administrations accountable, which in turn hold the school leaders accountable (Hopmann, 2008). These standards are universal in the sense that all schools under this legislation must conform to them. It becomes counterintuitive for schools and teachers to focus on aspects of education that are not being tested; why focus on the aspects that you are not held accountable for? Obviously, this example is situated in the United States, and could certainly be different in the situation of the Netherlands. However, the mandatory central tests at the end of primary school illustrate a similarity between the two countries.
The effects on teaching staff
In a managerial regime of NPM we rarely realize how normal it has become to be constantly monitored and audited (Shore & Wright, 2015). While Shore and Wright don’t talk about teachers, they note that in public management it happens that power is taken away from professionals, and given to managers and administrators (Shore & Wright, 2015). They are in charge of ensuring that certain targets are met, but they themselves are not directly contributing to these targets. Professionals are often not able to engage in conversation with the policymakers, and therefore have no real influence or possibility to change or alter this current paradigm (Shore & Wright, 2015). On the other hand, managers are, to a certain degree, free to manage in the way they see fit, as long as they reach the target they are supposed to. This can lead to a misunderstanding between professionals and managers about what they think is important (Shore & Wright, 2015).
Also, the increase in accountability can have perverse effects for professionals. In the field of education, teachers are for example blamed for the failure of their students (Berryhill et al, 2009). Furthermore, testing and competition tend to produce frustration, discouragement, depression, and demoralization of teachers and students (Ball & Olmedo, 2013). Teaching, in general, is known to be a profession that carries a lot of administrative tasks which make it very stressful to be a teacher. Research suggests that an increase in
14 accountability adds to these tasks and makes the profession even more stressful, regardless in which geographical location they teach (Von der Embse et al, 2016). Furthermore, an increase in high-stake testing is also being linked to an increase in teacher attrition and burnouts (Ryan et al, 2017). This is further illustrated by Gewirtz (1997). She shows that in secondary schools in the UK, an increase in accountability has led to a different regime of management; one that is focused on surveillance. This audit culture leads to qualitative changes in the tasks of teachers. By this, she means that not only the amount of work that teachers do changes but also what they do. She distinguishes three different types of consequences: emotional changes, changes in social relation, and pedagogical changes. First, there are emotional changes, which translate to the way teachers feel about changes. She describes, for example, the pressure that teachers feel to conform to the standards that are being set for them. Also, most teachers resent the surveillance work they have to do, as it distracts them from what they see as the ‘real work’ (p. 225). Second, there are changes in social relations. This has to do with the relations of teachers with their colleagues and their management. Even though teachers reported that they are having more meetings than ever before, they find that they have less time to discuss the ‘real work’ that they do, as an increasing amount of time is being spent on accountability. Due to the increasing time spent on surveillance and paperwork, they also report that they have less time to socialize with their colleagues. Third, there are pedagogical changes. Some teachers reported that they feel that the surveillance interferes with the real work they do. An increased emphasis on exams and outcomes limits the creativity that teachers are able to use when deciding what and how they teach. Teachers have less input than before on what they teach (p. 227). There is also an increased focus on so-called ‘borderline students’; students who are on the threshold of obtaining a certain grade that is the supposed norm.
The different forms of numbers
On the basis of what I wrote before, it would make sense to turn against this increase of surveillance, and think that accountability, audit culture and NPM are inherently ‘bad’ things which we should oppose. But the reality is, of course, not that simple. Kurunmäki, Mennicken & Miller (2016) claim that we should make a distinction between quantifying, economising and marketising. Quantifying is merely counting and measuring. Examples of this are the number of births, the number of deaths, and the number of migrants or, indeed, the number of students that pass a certain standardised test. At this point, it does not really matter as they are just that, numbers. It starts to matter when we attribute to these numbers the capacity to “oust judgement” when we see them as objectively true (Kurunmäki et al, 2016). Economising is the discourse to see individuals, institutions, activities, and many more, as
15 merely economic actors and entities. For example, economising entails seeing two very separate things and being able to compare them with the same quantifiable scale: money. In this sense, we can talk about almost everything in financial terms. Economising means, for example, to see education as an investment: something you pay for now but will benefit from, financially, in the future. A part of economising is accounting. Lastly, there is marketising, which is inherently different from economising, though they often appear simultaneously (Kurunmäki et al, 2016). Marketising goes one step further than economising, because it links these costs to the market. Simply analysing the financial costs and benefits of a certain activity does not necessarily link it to the market that exists outside of that activity. An example of this would be the decision of a high school to implement a certain innovative method of teaching; there probably would be an analysis of how many teachers are needed to develop and implement this method, how many hours it would take and what this financially means for the school as opposed to a different method. But it doesn’t have to do with marketising as it doesn’t compare the quality of that method to the other method, or that particular school to another school. However, it could also be marketising if this method was only introduced in order to be perceived as a better school than others.
It is important to make this distinction between quantifying, economising and marketisation because in general people confuse these forms and think they are one and the same (Kurunmäki et al, 2016). This leads to us attributing many things to the market when in fact they have little to do with it, even though they have to do with quantifying and economising. Quantifying added to economising makes people think in terms of efficiency. It makes people think about the possible return on something they could do, and whether or not that warrants them carrying out this activity. Quantifying together with marketising makes people think about competition and competitiveness (Kurunmäki et al, 2016). For example, when schools advertise with the average grade their students earn on a standardised test.
I draw extensively on this conceptualisation because I believe it to be very applicable to the field of education. Marketising and economising are inherently different, and we should decide for ourselves which we fear and which we embrace. It is important to do this as the literature suggests that this ‘governing by numbers’ or audit culture, is not going to decrease or stagnate soon (Frelin & Grannäs, 2013; Ball & Olmedo, 2013; Apple, 2007). Throughout this research I will try to not fall into thinking they are the same and will highlight the difference wherever possible.
Positive or negative
Not only do we have to ask ourselves whether we deal with economising or marketising, but we should also be aware of the potential upsides that quantifying in itself may have, whether
16 it is economising or marketising or neither of the two. There has been debate on this topic already, where certain authors have argued for the positives of this increase of surveillance, and the fact that these are hardly acknowledged in scientific literature and general discourse. Noordegraaf (2008) argues that in general the ‘dark side’ of this phenomenon is being studied. He calls these forms of management ‘meaningless management’ and he distinguishes three different problems that can arise. The first is the constrained nature of performance measurement and management, in which the measurements themselves have faults (Noordegraaf, 2008). The second is the contra productive nature of measurement, where measurements can lead to a certain bias or focus, which can harm equity and equality. There can be so-called perverse effects, where the measurement promotes outcomes it didn’t intend to promote. The third is the inevitable colonizing effect of these measurements. The measurements become so prevalent that we can now speak of audit cultures, in which professionals cannot escape from the reality that is ever growing measurement, which can lead a life of its own (Noordegraaf, 2008).
However, Noordegraaf also argues that measurements may have a ‘positive’ side. He researched the so-called ‘Safety Index’ used by the city of Rotterdam to measure safety in the city. It was used by policymakers, police, politicians and so forth (Noordegraaf, 2008). He argued that this way of making something very abstract, like safety, into something that can be measured was beneficial for the understanding of policymakers of the current situation and improvement of this situation. Moreover, the index itself paints a picture of what the socio-political landscape in Rotterdam looks like. It is not purely objective because the measurements are objective, but it is also important to look at what is being measured and why it is being measured. As Noordegraaf explains it: “Measurement instruments like the Safety Index are not instrumental, but drawn into routinized practices and ways of working; they are attached to political ambitions and frontline attitudes, and they are institutionalized through decisional platforms, procedures and meeting formats” (Noordegraaf, 2008). These particular benchmarks and measurements reveal what it is that we find important, and also details what the current position on the matter is. After all, the Safety Index would never have been created if there was no discussion about the safety of the city.
In summary, the Netherlands commits itself to a managerial regime which we label as New Public Management. As a result, we can describe a shift in how education is managed. Schools have more say in how they teach but have to achieve certain benchmarks or indicators installed by the government. Two different management types can be described, the most prominent of which is called ‘new welfarism’. This is closely related to neoliberalism, as it focuses on being efficient in terms of spending, and achieving certain outputs. This
17 leads to an increase in quantification, as everything needs to be measurable. Then, everything is being audited in order to be able to hold those people accountable who are not achieving the predetermined outputs. This can lead to feelings of frustration, discouragement, and depression for those who work in education. We distinguish three types of changes that occur because of this regime: changes in emotion, in social relations and pedagogical changes. However, it is also important to distinguish marketising and economising. Moreover, we should address the positive side of an increase in measurement instruments; being aware of these possible positive effects of numbers allows us to better understand the complexity of certain situations, because it warrants we do not automatically subscribe to the opinion that all these forms of management are inherently bad.
18
Methodology
In other to gather data for this research, I opted to do interviews. This is the best method for this type of research, where the goal is to gain insight into the experiences of individuals. By doing interviews it is possible to build rapport with the interviewee and to provide ‘an atmosphere conducive to open and undistorted communication’ (Gubrium & Holstein, 1997, p. 116, cited by Silverman, 2014 p. 178). The nature of this research is exploratory, where unexpected topics may arise. Open-ended interviews allow the best tools in order to fully grasp this, as they allow the researcher to focus more on a mutual understanding of the experiences of the interviewee (Silverman, 2014, p. 179). An important note to this is that people differently attribute meaning to the world and its circumstances. Because this research is set out to discover the experiences of certain occupations, it is interested in the meaning those people give to their experiences. Qualitative research, which these interviews were a form of, helped me see the world through the eyes of the people that I studied (Bryman, 2012, p. 399).
In the Netherlands, no previous research has been done about this particular issue, which makes it hard to predict what systems of rating and ranking are applicable to high school education. Because of this, the initial interview guide I made proved to be just that; initial. I had made some bullet points and thought about topics that I wanted to cover, which resulted in a more or less unstructured interview, where the interviewee has a lot of freedom to answer according to his or her own interpretation (Bryman, 2012, p. 471). After a few interviews, I revisited the interview guide and made some changes based on the information I had gathered. I noticed that my initial guide was too long, as interviewees could talk about a single topic for an extensive period of time. Therefore I created a much shorter interview guide that fitted the purpose of this research much better. The interviews that were done from this point were more or less semi-structured, where I decided which topics were relevant but the interviewee had enough freedom to answer the questions to their liking (Bryman, 2012, p. 471). The interviews had, even with a less extensive interview guide, a high density of information.
The interviewees
The interviewees for this research had to meet one specific requirement: they had to work at schools that have competition of other schools in the vicinity. If there is no other school in the vicinity that offers the same educational level, the lack of competition could mean that they experience less pressure to conform to the norms imposed by rating and ranking systems, especially for information-oriented systems. In order to overcome this, the school had to have at least one competitor.
19 In total fifteen teachers or managers were interviewed over the course of fourteen interviews. Two managers wanted to do the interview together because they basically have the exact same workload as one is the other’s assistant. Of these fifteen interviewees, four are working in a managing position, and ten work primarily as a teacher. One interviewee works as a teacher now but had several managing positions in education in the past, and therefore was able to answer questions from both perspectives. In total the fifteen people that were interviewed work at ten different high schools, located in six different cities. Most respondents were interviewed at their workplace, either in their office or in the classroom they teach in. Two interviewees preferred to be interviewed in their homes, one was interviewed in a café for practical reasons and one interview was being held over the phone, as this person preferred not to meet face-to-face. Additional information is presented in the table below.
Interviewee Gender Teaching Subject
Manager position Location Type of school
Level of education
1 Woman German Subject
Chairwoman
Almere Regular vwo
2 Man Social studies Deputy Headmaster
Amsterdam Art vmbo, havo
3 Man Dutch Amsterdam Regular vmbo, havo,
vwo 4 Woman Previously: Vocational teacher Utrecht Regular vmbo
5 Woman Economics Purmerend Regular vmbo
6 Woman German Subject
Chairwoman
Amsterdam Dalton, Art vmbo, havo, vwo
7 Man History Amersfoort Regular havo, vwo
8 Man German Haarlem Private vmbo, havo,
vwo
9 Woman German Subject
Chairwoman
Almere Gymnasium vwo
10 Woman Department
Leader
Almere Regular vwo
11 Woman German Subject
Chairwoman
Almere Dalton vmbo, havo, vwo
12 Man Deputy
Headmaster
Almere Dalton vmbo, havo, vwo
20
Leader vwo
14 Man Assistant
Department Leader
Almere Regular vmbo, havo, vwo
15 Woman Mathematics Almere regular vmbo, havo,
vwo
Sampling
For the purposes of this research, I used several forms of sampling. Firstly, I used a form of random sampling. While this form of sampling is normally used for quantitative research, Bryman notes how this changes for qualitative research into probability sampling (2012, p. 416). This form of sampling tries to ensure all possible interviewees are eligible for this research, as no non-probability measures will be taken in order to diversify the interviewees and their answers (2012, p. 418). For practical reasons, it made sense to reduce the geographical scope of this research. The limited time period that was available for the gathering of data reduced the possibility to travel across the country for just one particular interview. Therefore, I started by contacting schools in Amsterdam, making my sampling style also a form of convenience sampling (p. 418). A list of schools is publically available: the website of the municipality of Amsterdam has a list of all 73 high schools located within the city. At the start, I emailed every fifth school in alphabetic order, and a couple of days later I proceeded this process until all schools on this list had been reached out to. While a few schools did respond positively and eventually agreed to an interview, most stated they were too busy or simply did not reply at all.
Secondly, I broadened my geographical scope and also included cities surrounding Amsterdam, but made certain that all interviewees work in an area with numerous other schools in the Area, so that competition would actually be a probable topic. I decided to broaden my scope because the first form of sampling was simply not bringing enough interviewees in. I posted on numerous Facebook groups where teachers debated their subject, and as a result of this, I also got interviews with people who work in Purmerend, Haarlem, Utrecht, and Amersfoort. While this form of sampling did provide good results, many of them responded very slowly to my efforts to schedule an interview. In addition to this, I forgot about the existence of a two-week vacation the high schools in this area have at the end of April.
Lastly, I used my personal network in order to speed up the process of finding eligible interviewees. A family member has been working as a high school teacher in the city of Almere for close to twenty years, and I had gone to school there myself as well. Because of this, I knew a lot of teachers and supervisors, either directly or indirectly, in multiple high
21 schools in Almere. Also, it proved to be difficult to find supervisors with the other methods, and this method made sure I found some others who were willing to do an interview.
Organizing the data
Soon after an interview was over I started transcribing. This allowed me to be aware of certain mistakes I made during the previous interview, such as interrupting the interviewee as he was about to say something that could have been important, assuming too much, or missing valuable opportunities to ask questions based on what the interviewee just said. After around eight interviews were taken and transcribed, I started coding.
For the purpose of coding and organizing my transcripts, I used the program ATLAS.ti. At first the coding process was open coding, where every even remotely interesting line was coded. After I had done this for five interviews, I revisited the codes I made and determined if I had made any mistakes. As a result of this, I changed a few codes in the interviews that were transcribed first, as they were not specific enough. An example of this is the code ‘importance of applications3’ which was too broad and did not fully convey
what the interviewee meant. I created multiple different codes that more accurately specified why this part was important. Examples of this are ‘applications important for job security’ or ‘applications important for reputation’.
At the end of the entire coding process I had gathered multiple hundreds of different codes. To make things more organised I combined different codes which were similar, and as such created a more comprehensive overview of the most interesting bits the interviewees had talked about. These groups represent the most extensively discussed topics. The code groups helped me very much to further develop my knowledge and essentially laid down the fundamentals for the findings of this research.
Complications and shortcomings
During this research I encountered several shortcomings. The first apparent issue is the interview location. I preferred to do the interviews in their respective workspaces, as this would provide the least amount of inconvenience for the interviewees. However, the interviews that were done at home felt more personal and provided good data as well. The phone interview was not a great success; while the interview did provide useful information the interviewee did not really allow me to ask many questions. There is an upside to this, as
3 At this point it is probably important to mention that the interviews were done in Dutch, and as a
result the coding was done in Dutch as well. The codes I mention in this section are a rough translation of the codes I used.
22 the rambling of the interviewee shows what he or she sees as relevant and important (Bryman, 2012, p. 470). But the interviewee also touched upon a lot of topics that were not relevant for this research. I tried to interrupt the interviewee, but they really would not let me and just talked over me. Undoubtely, part of this has to do with the inability to observe body language through the phone, which limited my ability to estimate in which direction the interviewee was going (Bryman, 2012, p. 488). Fortunately it was a relatively long interview, and as a result, it did provide some very interesting information.
Another issue is a difference in willingness to talk about certain topics. In two interviews it felt as if the interviewees that I knew through my personal network were less eager to talk in a negative way about their workplace or certain aspects of the educational system. They provided rather short answers, dodged the question by talking about something similar or were very vague in their response. In one of these cases, the interview was being held with the direct supervisor of someone in my personal network. It is possible that the interviewees of this interview did not feel certain that the provided information would remain confidential. In the other instance, I am not entirely certain why this was the case, as the interviewee’s workplace is not related to me in any way. I assured every interviewee which I gained through my personal network that the entire conversation was anonymous and that I would guarantee that no one they personally know would have insights into the conversation. In most cases, except the two I just highlighted, the interviewees seemed to talk without a filter.
There is one other subject that certain interviewees would not really talk about. This is only regarding the interviewees that are managers or worked as managers in the past. In hindsight it seems as if they dodged questions about how they rate the teachers that they supervise. None have stated that they dismissed teachers for not maintaining certain standards, for example. While I can’t be certain that they do this, it does seem to be the case when analysing the interviews with the teachers. This is something I realised only after I had done all the interviews, unfortunately. Luckily, the teachers did provide information on how they experience to be rated and ranked, so there is substantial information to write about. But my insights could have been substantiated better if I would have had data on some topics from both teachers and their managers.
A fourth shortcoming was the broadness of my questions; I tried to formulate my questions as broad as possible in order to not steer the interviewee in any way. While this did prove to be useful, as it highlighted that certain topics can be looked at in very different ways and from very different angles, it also created very different interviews. In many cases, I ended up using examples as a stimulus to make the interviewees talk about a certain topic. This seemed effective, but in some interviews the questions were so broad that respondents answered in very different ways, which led to me trying to guide them in the right way.
23 I should also add that all interviews were done in Dutch, and that every quotation in this research is translated to the best of my ability in order to preserve the original meaning.
24
Findings
In this chapter, I present four general ways in which teachers and managers in education are affected by quantification. First, I show the importance of the number of registrations a school receives for the following year. While it has to do with financial reasons, the reality is much more complex than simply ascribing this to neoliberalism and NPM. Second, I describe the importance of the government institution called the Inspection, which monitors and audits all secondary (and primary) schools in the Netherlands. They use different benchmarks and measurable indicators in order to label the school. The school tries to obtain a good label, as they otherwise face unpleasant consequences. Third, I show how importance a single quantification is for a school and its staff: the pass rate for the national exam. Fourth, I show several ways in which the effectiveness of the teacher is directly quantified. This direct quantification either happens by management or by the Inspection. While some teachers don’t agree with the methods being used, others do and appreciate the feedback. Afterward, I summarise the most important findings presented in this chapter.
The number of registrations
The first way in which the education staff of high schools in the Netherlands experience quantification has to do with the number of registrations a school has for the upcoming year. So we see that quantification is not just about measuring academic performance, but can be about other things as well. When I wanted the interviewees to talk about schools being rated or ranked I started with the broadest question I could imagine: what is the reputation of this school? In this question, I did not specify what I mean by reputation, because I wanted the interviewees to define for themselves what this means. And interestingly enough, a lot of very different answers were given. However, a common theme was to talk about the number of registrations the school has for the following year. The following excerpt of an interview with a teacher illustrates how registration contributes to the reputation of a school: (11)
“I think we have a good one [reputation]. When I started working here eight years ago, we were seen as a bad school. […] This was because of some bad results: pass rate, documents of the Inspection and Elsevier4 […]. We have worked very hard and improved the quality, so
nowadays our reputation in [city] is good. You can see that by looking at our registrations; last year we even reached capacity and we had to threaten people with a draw. Eventually, we didn’t have to do this, but it shows to me that we have a good reputation”.
Foremost, it is noteworthy that the way this teacher made sense of the word reputation is to look at the number of registrations they got. When their number was low the school had a
25 bad reputation, and when the number of registrations is increasing the school has a good reputation. This way of interpreting ‘reputation’ was done in the exact same way by the deputy headmaster of the same school; when I asked him about the reputation of the school, one of the criteria he mentioned was that the school had to have a high number of registrations. He mentions that this number had fluctuated a lot in the past, noting that they will have six hundred students more next year than they did eight years ago. This was for him an indication that they were doing better. We clearly see here that the number of registrations is quantified together with marketising (Kurunmäki, 2016). The number of registrations is seen as the outcome of marketising; it is their way to compete with the market, i.e. other schools. They are the competition, in this sense, as they also try to gain those students as ‘customers’.
Having a high number of registrations is an indicator of the reputation of a school, as voiced by my interviewees. It is, in this sense, the potential students, and their parents, who decide which schools are ‘better’ than the other, and which are ‘worse’. One way to measure this, according to my interviewees, is to look at the number of registrations a school has received. This form of quantification is very important, as it has a major impact on the work experiences of teachers and managers. This is best illustrated in a conversation I had with a high school teacher who had a function in management previously. He told me the competition is “killing’ and that his school had fewer registrations than previous years. When I asked him how the school deals with this he responded as follows: (3)
“Yeah, we are sorry about it. It means that we have to retrench. Some people may have to be fired. You lose them, and if you grow again you don’t have them anymore. And it is very difficult to get people, so you have to calculate very well when you take somebody in.”
It becomes clear here that schools don’t want to have the highest number of students so that they can increase their reputation. They also not do this to be better than other schools, or to have the most financial funding in comparison to other schools. They try to gain more students because if they don’t have enough, some staff might lose their jobs. In the Netherlands, public schools are funded by the government per student they have. We immediately see here that while there is in fact quantification, it is not associated with the regime of new managerialism, but more with welfarism (Gewirtz & Ball, 2000). NPM, in this way, supports moral values like securing your own job and the jobs of your colleagues. This is also very apparent in the following excerpt of an interview I had with a teacher: (11)
“[…] we were under a lot of pressure, we had to kind off sell ourselves, right? Like: what can we offer [to potential students]? Every ten students are one vacancy. So we have to make sure we present ourselves well. […] it literally can cost us our job. That used to happen, people had to be let go constantly. So you’re scared for your own job.”
26 Teaching staff in high schools in the Netherlands fear that they lose their job in case their school has fewer registrations, as the Dutch government provides a budget to the school per student that goes there. Another interesting part of this quote is the need to present yourself well. Every interviewee emphasized that it is important to present yourself in such a way that students will want to go to your school, and that the parents will let them. So in what ways do the students decide to which school they want to go? How do the different schools present themselves? In order words; how do schools compete with each other in order to gain the maximum number of registrations? How does, in practice, marketising and quantifying cross paths, as theorized by Kurunmäki et al (2016)? There are multiple different ways that schools try to do this, and I will illustrate the most apparent ones.
The first way in which schools present themselves is by hosting an open day or evening. During this event, potential students and their parents go to the school to take a look around. The teachers, managers and sometimes students that already go to this school will give demonstrations and presentations or in other ways present themselves in order to convince the potential student and their parents that this school is the right choice for them. The following quote illustrates the importance of such a day. It is important to note that this interview was done with two department leaders; one is the assistant to the other. (13)
Superior: “We expect everyone to be there [open day]. You tell them: “it matters to us all”. So whether you’re pouring coffee or handing out flyers or giving a presentation or doing
something with children; everyone is present.”
Assistant: “Or you’re standing there for your department5, for example. You explain what your
subject entails at this school. Everybody has a role on such a day.”
The significance of such a day is illustrated by the fact that everyone has to be there. Also, it becomes clear that schools use these events not only to convince students to register at their school but also to inform them about the particulars of that school. But sometimes, teachers feel as if they don’t represent their school accurately, which is clearly illustrated in an interview I had with an economics teacher: (5)
Interviewee: “You see that every subject gives a presentation. […] I had a minimarket where second-year students would sell their own products and give a presentation of their business plan. But that is only a project of three months in the total period of three and a half years. […] they get a twisted image [of our school], I think.”
Researcher: “So you present yourself differently than you really are?”
5 With the word ‘department’ I mean the group of teachers in a school that teach the same subject.
They coordinate their curriculum with each other, exchange tests they made and discuss the difficulties and problems of teaching their subject. In Dutch the word is ‘sectie’.
27 Interviewee: […] “At every school they do experiments and stuff, at the previous school I taught we did consumer research where we were testing potato chips. Of course, everyone wants to go to the classroom where the potato chips are, that’s how simple it is. So you’re presenting yourself differently than you actually teach. That is the case at every school.” This quote highlights that open days and evenings are taken very seriously. While it is not the case that every interviewee agrees that their school is not accurately represented during these events, most did agree that these events are very important for the growth of the school and as a result are important for the safety of their job.
Open days and fun experiments are not the only tactics teaching staff have to make their school look more appealing; they can also use the particularities of their school and present those as a positive feature. For example, a school which pedagogical view is far from traditional might use that to their advantage. The following quote from an interview with a deputy headmaster: (12)
“Yes, the success of the school is located in what I already told you: the Dalton Plan, the beta profile. Those are successful and those get us a sufficient number of students to keep the school affordable. […] They [parents] see for example that you have a Technasium6, or the
fact that you teach according to the Dalton Plan, those things play a big role. […] There can be reasons for students to travel a greater distance to go to school”
This shows that the pedagogical vision of a school is not only a set of beliefs, it is also a tool schools use to rake in potential students. It also enlarges the pool of possible students, as some students are willing to travel longer distances in order to go to a school which stands out in such a way. But particular pedagogical visions like the Dalton Plan are not the only aspects of education that schools use to distinguish themselves from other schools. For this next school, the national examination, which students need to pass in order to graduate, doesn’t really impact their reputation at all with regards to the registrations. It seems that they don’t compete with the other school because they have a sufficient amount of registrations anyway. This is due to the fact that they are so heavily focusing on art subjects, as becomes clear from the following quote from an interview with a deputy headmaster: (2)
Interviewee: “I know it’s very different [their situation compared to other schools] because I worked at normal schools as well. […] this school is located in [city], but 25 to 30 percent of the students are from outside of [city]. They are prepared to travel one and a half hours per trip, sometimes. We have one student, I say he’s crazy, but he comes from [distant province] every day. […]
Researcher: Does this mean that you experience less competition?
6 This is a certain program the school offers where the students have the possibility to focus more on
28 Interviewee: We have a small amount of competition when talking about art schools. There are other schools like [names two examples of other art schools]. But not in [city], or even in the Netherlands do they offer the same number of art subjects as we do. […] we can do all that stuff here, so we have to do it. But people come from [names many different places], the circle is pretty big. They are all willing to come here, and that’s not because they think ‘jeez, we are about to receive some quality education in mathematics!’”
With that last sentence, he was referring to what he told me earlier, that his school belongs to the worst one percent when it comes down to academic results on the national exam in the subject of mathematics, which is one of the most important subjects in the Netherlands. A similar thing can be said for another school, which was very different because it focused on international education. A teacher from that school told me that they had a pass rate of 80 percent, but it didn’t affect the number of registrations they received at all. So they don’t have to play by the same rules as the regular schools are; they don’t have to focus as much on certain statistics. The deputy headmaster stated it as follows: (2)
Interviewee: “We don’t really suffer from it [increase in accountability] when talking about the registrations. We do suffer from it when talking with parents, especially in the higher years. They want to know what the situation is. The closer the national exam comes, the more important it gets. We suffer from it in terms of publications7, in terms of supervision from the
inspection. Sure, we suffer from it.”
Researcher: “Not with regard to the registrations?”
Interviewee: “No. Last year we had the worst exam results in years and we have never had so many registrations. There is no correlation between those two.”
What we see here is that certain numbers and statistics that are very important at other schools, like the pass rate or the average grade or something similar, are just not that important for these schools, because they have no fear for having not enough registrations. The pool of potential future students is so much larger for these schools because they are inherently different. Thus, they are not directly competing with other schools in the area because they occupy this a separate niche. The potential students and their parents don’t look at numbers, the quantification of standardised testing for example, but look at the qualitative differences between this school and ‘regular’ ones. The deputy headmaster of the first school also told me that he sees teaching art as a value: (2)
“[…] thirty, forty percent of our students, vmbo, and havo, will go to an art institute. The inspection doesn’t give a shit about that. They are not supposed to, but it is what is important for us.
7 The interviewee is hinting at reports written by either the national Inspection, or the inspection that
29 One could argue that they are less prone to submit to the management regime of new managerialism and instead act more like the welfarism type of management (Gewirtz & Ball, 2000). But, one could also argue the contrary, as increasing the number of students to increase financial funding is typical of new managerialism. This shows that reality is more complex than the dichotomy that Gewirtz & Ball describe. The deputy headmaster also stated that even though they are in the bottom one percent in mathematics of all secondary schools in the Netherlands, they still choose to teach more art instead of more mathematics. This makes them not only partially immune to the competition of registrations but also partially immune for the Inspection, as they can’t hurt their reputation. They do however still try to hit certain benchmarks and indicators because otherwise, the Inspection would close the school.
Another way in which schools can differentiate themselves is by placing a strong emphasis on the new and modern methods they created. In one of the interviews I had with a teacher, she mentioned she chooses to work at this particular school because it tried to innovate, and she liked that idea. I asked her why the school had recently decided to innovate, as it had a reputation of being a more traditional school compared to those in the vicinity. She said that they innovated because the school was having trouble attracting future students, and the new headmaster started this program in order to gain more students. I asked how she feels about this and the following conversation ensued: (14)
Interviewee: “Yeah, and I have mixed feelings about it, because when you look at it from an administrative level than it is something to attract students. […] But for me as a teacher, […] I just don’t agree with the old education system. […] I much prefer to teach them skills; research skills, things that connect with the real world, with their future education. And the old education system doesn’t provide that if you ask me. I hope the [innovative method] can make a
difference. […] For me it is not just to attract students. For me, it really is because I stand behind it and hope to prepare students for their follow-up education”.
Researcher: “Yeah. So for management, is the teaching of skills not important? Do I assert this correctly?
Interviewee: “Well, I think that they also think it’s important, but they are managers who also think it’s important that people from [city] go to our school. I doubt they would’ve started this otherwise; if it didn’t gain us more students I doubt they would see the necessity of it. But now, we’re growing fairly well […] so I think that the managers are pleased with it. […] I think both things matter to them, but for me as a teacher it only matters that those children are well prepared for their future.”
This conversation shows that innovative programs can also be implemented with the purpose of attracting more students. In this particular instance, it is clear that the teacher and
