Revisiting the relationship between accountability and educational improvement. A case study in a Chilean educational policy.
Luis Felipe de la Vega Rodríguez.
Within the context of the reforms being implemented in several educational systems around the world, accountability has gained relevance as a mechanism expected to facilitate the achievement of relevant educational goals. The use of performative accountability has been characterized by heated debate. Through its design and its characteristics, this mechanism, which entails the participation of schools, several levels of government, and parents, is aimed at fostering the achievement of better academic performance in the educational system Darling – Hammond & Ascher, 1991; BrunsLuque, 2014).
Given this controversy, this study sought to gain more in-depth information about the possible relationship between performative accountability and the development of educational improvement trajectories in Chilean schools. To do this, we analyzed the implementation of the Preferential Subvention Law [Ley de SubvenciónPreferencial] in Chile, specifically that of one of its components, the Educational Improvement Plan [Plan de MejoramientoEducativo, PME], whose design includes mechanisms that reflect some of the features of performative accountability.
A study was conducted that considered eight cases, each of which was representative of schools with different social and educational contexts. In them, we sought to analyze the relation between the implementation of the performative accountability mechanism devised for the PME and these schools' improvement trajectories through a methodological design which included three studies.
The first of these studies assessed the degree to which the design of the PME's accountability mechanism was implemented in the cases studied, considering both the fulfillment of individual responsibilities and the characteristics of the bonds established between the participants.
The second study sought to assess the presence of improvement processes in the eight schools examined, which was achieved with an evaluative model developed especially for this study.
Lastly, the third study involved a retrospective analysis of the implementation of the PME's accountability mechanism in the cases studied; in addition, it sought to identify the contribution of this mechanism to the improvement trajectory in these schools over a five-year period.
This process revealed that, in terms of educational improvement, the schools analyzed displayed more stability than change. Simultaneously, we assessed the presence of a partial implementation of the PME's accountability mechanism.
Despite the performative spirit of the design of the PME's accountability mechanism, this study revealed that its implementation had a bureaucratic tinge: a larger number of responsibilities connected with the fulfillment of certain norms and procedures were executed, to the detriment of management-related duties or pressure to achieve better educational outcomes.
In addition, in cases with a stronger presence of educational improvement processes, it was observed that the PME's performative accountability mechanism was not an essential variable for explaining the force of these processes.
Similarly, our analysis revealed that the progress observed in some schools' improvement trajectories followed an additive effects logic, that is, the sum of a set of factors present in the process (or absent from it) explained these institutions' course over the period analyzed. The PME's accountability mechanism was only one of these factors.