Charles Ungerleider, Professor Emeritus, The University of British Columbia
[permission to reproduce granted if authorship is acknowledged]
Scarcity drives the need for policy, and policy requires careful thought and evaluation. Like everything that people value, public schools and the school boards responsible for them do not have enough resources. Leaving aside what 'enough' might mean, school districts do not have evidence that they are using their limited resources advantageously. And, for the most part, they are resistant to gathering the information that would provide that evidence.
Even though it would be beneficial to systematically assess instructional programs and practices, school districts are unwilling to confront the obstacles to evaluation. Evaluations require time, collection of information, money, and expertise—resources that are scarce. Districts are often reluctant to allocate resources to evaluation from other areas even when doing so might enable them to operate more effectively, efficiently, and economically in the long run.
Designing and conducting proper evaluations that produce evidence upon which school districts can act requires specialized knowledge of research design, data analysis, and statistical methods. Many – I am tempted to say most – school districts do not employ personnel with the necessary background.
It is inevitable that evaluations will expose program weaknesses or failures that will attract attention. School boards and senior officials are reluctant to evaluate because of the potential for criticism and negative publicity.
Evaluation means looking at and comparing the value of all uses of resources. Many school boards assume a “fixed cost” state of mind that we are offering this program already, we should keep it and not evaluate it against other possible uses of resources.
School districts face pressure from multiple stakeholders (parents, teachers, unions, government bodies) whose priorities often conflict. Pressure from these disparate groups prompts school boards to focus on short-term goals rather than long-term evaluation. The desire to implement programs that are politically favorable, regardless of their effectiveness, typically outweighs the need for evaluation.
Teachers and the organizations that represent them resist systematic evaluation because they fear evaluations will be used punitively, are disinclined to employ practices that are not aligned with their personal beliefs, are resistant to practices that they believe are being imposed because of district or provincial mandates, and place greater priority on personal experience than they do on empirical evidence.
Educational outcomes can take a long time to mature or be manifest and it is difficult to isolate the effects of a single program or practice from broader social, economic, or demographic factors. But these challenges, common to most complex public endeavors, are not adequate reasons to avoid evaluations that may allow resources to be used more effectively, efficiently, and economically to the betterment of students.
There
will always be shortages of things that people value and surpluses of things
people do not want. Arguments for additional resources are more likely to be
persuasive if there is evidence that the resources at hand are being employed
effectively, efficiently, and economically.