EROWARS
Warfare and an ERO.
Phony war
Like many modern wars, it starts with paper. It begins with a leaflet and
documentation drop from above. This tactic is used as the first strike option. It is
cunningly devised to psychologically paralyse any sane mind, quelling the will to live.
Once the victims have been stirred into a high state of anxiety – the initial plan of
attack, based on impact analysis of recent and historical intelligence gathering, is
drawn up at a preliminary meeting of the attackers-to-be behind closed doors at HQ.
The plan involves a two phase approach. The first attack will be designed to exploit
any old weaknesses; the second phase will open up future possibilities based on
upcoming field reports.
The school is notified of their review. Initial documentation arrives disguised as a
phone book, being of similar dimensions, weight, and page number. The school is
required to furnish various documents and swear on oath that school operations are
consistent with the endless lists of compliance.
The first meeting of potential adversaries is held and the previous treaty dragged out
to identify points of contention. Frames of reference are established and conditions of
engagement are drawn up, for example, the on-site attackers are granted inspection
team status and allowed to camp on the perimeter of the complex and spy for
weaknesses or weapons of mass deception.
To a principal, an ERO team (like a BOT) is as Forest Gump’s mother would say,
‘like a box of chocolates - coz you never know what you’re gonna get!’ The BOT
chair, principal, and senior staff are wheeled off to ERO HQ to be talked at by the
Brass Hats.
The Brass Hats on the other hand send their top spy to the battlefield to establish a
place to meet and work… preferably a comfortable airtight office with posh furniture
and heavy, sound-proofed doors that can be locked.
(Usually around about now, principals say to themselves, ‘Oh …my …God! These
people, these blinkered people, are about to make far-reaching decisions and
judgements about my school’s future and my professional ability, and place these in
the public domain!’)
Some schools provide broom-cupboard sized working spaces, storerooms at the far
end of the school, or cramped messy spaces between science labs. Progressive
thinking schools looking for a ‘4 or 5 year ERO Report’ are always easy to spot as
they provide marked-off parking spaces and spacious air-conditioned accommodation
close to the office, toilets, staffroom, and coffee machines.
All principals at this stage begin to gather a dossier of the ERO team based on rich
collegial and cluster network sources. This is done on the premise that a wolf always
wears sheep’s clothing and they all have their own set of prejudices.
War and its fluctuations
Shortly after these precursories, war is officially declared. The first salvo is fired.
Personnel and equipment are moved about to counter the attack.
Due to hastily processed front-line intelligence, ERO go OTT with simultaneous, ill
conceived lines of investigation into the school’s operational systems.
It will take them 1 ½ days to realise these investigations are fruitless and back up the
operation for a re-strategising. In the meantime the school, realising that the attack has
stalled, employ guerrilla hit and run tactics to try to continue to baffle the on-site
attackers.
Another leaflet drop is carried out, this time on the whole staff, inviting them to safely
and anonymously divulge any concerns (really grievances) just in case there is some
institutional bullying or other nasty stuff going on. The downside of this is it provides
a silver platter opportunity for single issue nutters.
A tense, uncertain environment develops.
The school gains an adjournment by having a fire drill and powhiri, followed by a
special morning tea. This allows the school to fall-back and regroup. The on-site
attackers are inundated with lavish accounts of self review and copious reporting
procedures used by the senior staff and board to inform their highly developed skills
in decision making.
The on-site attackers, unless the school is a favoured son or daughter, want none of
this.
The hostilities resume with renewed vigour.
Thankfully, these reduce at sundown. Under the hours of darkness, the top brass (both
sides) formulate the next day’s tactical response.
The school bunkers down acknowledging the heavy artillery advantage the ERO onsite attackers always have.
During one of the temporary short cease-fires, all members of the BOT are herded
into the staffroom for a ‘chat’… but everyone feels the word ‘chat’ really means high
pressure interrogation. This fear is soon realised as the board members are asked trick
questions about school finances, employment law, and privacy legislation. These
well-meaning volunteers are made to look totally inadequate and usually leave the
meeting wondering why they bothered to become a trustee. If the principal intervenes
he or she does at his or her peril because this is interpreted as a ‘Captured Board’ or a
desperate attempt to defend woeful weakness. So most principals have to sit quietly
and endure watching their board member’s taking bullets point, point blank.
School senior management decide to further enhance their countermeasures and
mount an additional information barrage about student-lead reporting, use of multiple
technologies, and PD. The principal bravely goes on the front-foot and campaigns on
moral grounds around ethics and process. The ERO attackers hate this because it puts
them off their pre-prepared line of attack, inciting them to probe even more
aggressively. It is obvious to the on-site attackers that triangulation of statements
against concrete evidence is not sufficient here. A deeper and more unrelenting
forensic process is called for. The scope is narrowed to laborious, detailed, backward
mapping and trawling through previously processed documentation. More ‘good copbad cop’ interviews are set up for body-language cross reference. Copious notes are
taken, particularly on points of mismatch, and evidential statements are re-read
carefully for fine grained validation and or contradiction.
Morale by the school defenders is somewhat boosted by an intensive communication
offensive on secure lines with neighbouring units through the late hours. Successful
strategies and scenarios from previous campaigns are shared and integrated into the
revised battle plan.
By the third day, the rains arrive, and the battle changes in nature. The attackers resort
to tunnelling and chemical weapons with the intention of stunning the enemy and
infiltrating their lines for information. To carry this out selected belligerents mingle
with the ground troops at the front line.
They also slide in alongside troops during tea breaks hoping their guard will be down
and they will glean titbits of information to nonchalantly drop into discussions later
with senior management to rattle confidence.
Uncertainty is spread by a comment here or a wink or a nod there. Confidence and
loyalty is undermined.
The senior management are grilled in their use of their time and skills. Questions are
aimed at the principal to justify the school’s organisation. To the on-site attackers,
with their structured prejudices, there appears to be some practical lack of
understanding around the functional relationship between resourcing levels and
staffing arrangements and day-to-day demands of senior management in a
contemporary school. The on-site attackers develop an unhealthy preoccupation with
the idea that something is going on, and by golly, they’re going to get to the bottom of
it!
The point is this: ERO only has two kinds of reports – one for the principal who has
spent the intervening years capitulating, or the principal has been in ERO, or is very
high status for all sorts of reasons; and one for the principal of the school destined to
be bullied for not running the school the ERO way. No matter the reality, ERO in
their writing of reports, beyond this binary, don’t have time or inclination to look at
schools in different ways even if they wanted to – so in the second kind of report the
school will be pushed to ‘agreeing’ to being the kind of school the second kind of
report describes. That is what the EROWARS are about.
The apprehension schools demonstrate only reinforces the on-site attackers’ view that
the board must be of limited ability and therefore needs urgent professional
development. The board must develop more rigorous governance practices, even
though they already have self-review systems in all directions. These measures should
be imposed forthwith and will of course become one element in the school’s ‘agreed’
policy of self improvement in the final report, which ERO will revisit from here to
eternity.
For overall management, the on-site attackers suggest an idea, brilliant in their minds,
that involves the chair shadowing the principal closely for at least three days a week
(despite the chair having to run her own business), and the principal meeting with the
board’s numerous sub-committees at least once a week and having a full board
meeting every Friday 8 am to 12 noon.
The war continues
With the on-site attackers unwilling to acknowledge any socio-economic effects on
learning, they step up their slurs. The inference being that certain ethnic minorities are
being unfairly rationed, badly trained, and ill equipped.
Several minor issues begin to assume gigantic proportions, for example, weeds
growing (in ‘grass-grow’ matting!) under play areas; the board not being provided
with rich data on attendance; finger traps in play equipment; uneven joints in concrete
paths; a lack of longitudinal data… despite the fact that the only remaining children
from enrolment to year six are the three Tongan children who come from the same
family and live next door to the school; the school not looking sufficiently like a
marae. And so it goes on… a whole raft of irrelevant rats and mice issues for Africa
and beyond.
More serious, though, the old chestnut – the quality and use of student achievement
data is viewed with intense suspicion, especially in relation to stanines. This ongoing
obsession by ERO perpetuates the myth that schools are incorrectly using stanines to
show most of their pupils are at or above expected levels and progressing.
And, how dare these schools use their dodgy data to falsely demonstrate minority
groups achieving the most added value!
But, at the risk of being judged by the community as total twats who are failing their
kids, the school falls in with all their requests for the stanine levels the on-site
attackers demand. Who are we to argue, we are only the teachers.
In future, how ERO will evaluate any school’s ability to accurately measure pupil
performance in regard to National Standards will be the real BBQ stopper! This will
require a long and deep investigation of a very technical nature. As this cannot be
readily accommodated in the new review process, we predict they won’t try. NS will
be treated as a separate ‘bolt on’ and skimmed over superficially. They will probably
resort to measuring school effectiveness in this parameter by looking into simplistic
PATMs ( Pupil Achievement Trajectory Models) These PATMs will be based on
OBJ, and the balance will be ERO’s opinion of what balance means.
There will develop a fixation around how the NS are being reported in the annual
planning cycle because these involve statements of intent and are much easier to
criticise. Oh what satisfaction these will bring when a report of the second kind is
manoeuvred towards!
This blitzkrieg into schools will be spearheaded by the newly formed 50 agents of
destructive change who will be given the I-must-obey training and discipline. These
agents will be deployed with laser like precision in the early days, targeting schools
that are flagged back at HQ. Soon, however, HQ will be overwhelmed and will be
forced to run national standards’ ‘boot-camps’ for wayward schools in order to cope
with the multitudes of recidivist offender schools.
The finale
The body count is mounting. The on-site attackers want to mount a more rapid
advance. Something of a truce is called. A new meeting is arranged and ‘negotiators’
assemble. This leads to a faux détente, with the inevitable tensions flaring because
one side has the support of a powerful ally with nuclear capability and is merely
dallying to create an atmosphere of benign benevolence to maintain some public
credence, but, the attackers make it clear, they will have no reservations about going
nuclear if they have to.
Both sides engage in a one-sided ‘robust conversation’ around what is agreed as the
truth. This agreed view of the school will be published to the world as the truth, the
whole truth and nothing but the truth, and to hell with the consequences! In reality this
report is compiled from loose sentiment, reflective of the on-site attackers’ own level
of appreciation, understandings, prejudices, fads, experience, personalities, tastes,
likes and dislikes, than how well the school actually gets on with its job.
The exhausted defenders: food and ammunitions low, and now realising that
resistance is futile, eagerly grasp at straws, represented in this case by a new treaty –
anything that will in fact allow them to end the agony and return to some semblance
of normality. Even if it the treaty is unfair and oppressive, it will be a huge relief to
have the countryside cleared of the occupying forces so the populace can once again
tend their fields and families and return to normal, at least for the next somewhere
between 1 to 5 years depending on levels of belligerence.
The school begrudgingly accepts the draft report with some minor alterations. (One
begins to wonder if some mistakes are intentional, a hang-over from the old tactic of
sending in a tax return with a few glaring mistakes to neutralise deeper critique!) It is
finally published in the confirmed report and placed on the ERO website.
Much emphasis is placed on the very collaborative, PC sounding ‘agreed’ view of
things, implying contrition: meaning the school has made an admission of guilt for
screwing up somewhere, everywhere.
Epilogue
The idea of the two kinds of report described above holds firm. You can get the
routine good report because of your utter capitulation to the ERO one way of doing
things, or because, for a variety of reasons, they can’t bully you (you may, for
instance, be a legend in the area); and then there is the other kind of report, the
niggling one, in which they play mind games to outmanoeuvre you into a bitter
acceptance of the unfair and unbalanced.
Pity the poor teachers in the utter-capitulation schools, suffocating from self review
and information overload. Much like a modern stealth submarine, sensors are
gathering and processing millions of bits of data every second. The school has a
myriad of systems tracking and micro managing almost every conceivable operational
aspect of the school, processing data in magnitudes approaching the velocity of light
squared.
These utter-capitulation schools often have computers dominating pedagogy. The
children, they say, design their own programmes, co-author their own reports, write
their own success criteria, and lead parent interviews. (At times, the teacher’s role is
also difficult to encapsulate – executive cheerleader perhaps?) The board spends an
enormous amount of time indulging in self review and other service output data
ranging from sublime to ridiculous. This is especially the case if lawyers and
accountants are on the board or the principal is young and ambitious.
The prime objectives of the principals in these utter-capitulation schools are to
continually implement new quality assurance systems, carry out walk-throughs, check
for WALTS, and demonstrate Kiwi style instructional leadership and marketing of the
school at all levels, especially in the social media. The parents are enthusiastic door
knocking salespeople who are used to lift profile in the market-place by promoting the
institution as a ‘boutique school’.
In this heavily commercialised industrial model, it is rather difficult to grasp that we
are actually looking at children’s learning in a school. Some researchers have drawn
strong parallels between schools with the above management styles and large
insurance, advertising, or marketing agencies. The similarities are striking and the
outcomes almost identical. The link is being firmly lodged in parents’ minds that
progressive schools are successful marketing organisations that have aggressive
expansive policies to promote a specific brand of merchandise. Theirs!
Interestingly, these so called successful schools with longer reporting cycles, seem to
flourish in low or high socioeconomic areas or are integrated. Perhaps, and in order,
to ‘prove’ disadvantage is no excuse for poor standards; because it would have
political fallout in the wealthy community; and to champion the cause for parental
choice and competition.
But the remaining bulk of schools are the bread and butter, meat and three veg variety
that simply get on with the job. By and large they are the schools our famous and
outstanding achievers come from. These schools at first glance look like normal
schools because they are. They have their strengths and weaknesses, they have their
challenges, but they turn out happy well-balanced children with the skills to take them
wherever they chose to go in the world. Their best pupils will foot it with the best
from anywhere.
Occasionally they will be lucky enough to be taught by an exceptional educationalist
who will deeply influence them, and in the ‘real world’ this is as good as it gets. To
argue differently is puerile. To suggest that the majority of these pupils get anything
but the best from their principals, teachers, schools, and boards is simply uninformed,
and demonstrates the level of ignorance of the particular individual holding that view.
They represent what our typical New Zealand citizen of the future will be. These
winners of the future will probably not come from schools with only one or two
ethnic backgrounds, huge IT suites, wonderful new buildings, flash sports facilities, or
cutting edge management structures. They will come from ‘run of the mill’ state
neighbourhood schools taught by good solid, ordinary teachers who do a very good
job to instil in their pupils irrespective of race, creed, or background, a desire and selfbelief that they can succeed at anything if they so desire. These teachers will
understand how their students’ backgrounds influence learning outcomes and will do
their best to prove it otherwise.
These schools deserve better recognition for the solid contribution they make to
building New Zealand’s future. They are not the showy schools but the honest and
steady schools – and they deserve to be supported and appreciated. They don’t
deserve the spooky stuff being dumped on them from a weird external agency.
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