美国教育学作业指导范文

1. Problems of Policy Implementation of primary-school teachers’ training

 

As stated in C3, the policy implementation of primary-school teachers’ training in SJD is basically successful. However, from the study investigation, there are also many problems occurring in the process of implementation. If these problems can be solved as much as possible, the policy implementation will be more smoothly. Therefore, based on the empirical research of SJD of Shanghai, combining with the analytical framework I suggested in Chapter 2, I conclude problems occurring in the implementation process of primary-school teachers’ training policy. Problems are listed as follows.

 

1.1 Mechanical Policy Implementation

 

When implementing education policy, some local educational authorities and educators fail to combine the specific policy with the local conditions while carrying out the policy, but merely implement the policy mechanically. This kind of policy implementation occurs in SJD and which can be further divided into two categories. Firstly, policy implementers in SJD fail to integrate the general policy into the specific local conditions when implementing the policy. The primary-school teachers’ training policy made by the National MOE and SEB is often from upper hierarchy and oriented to the macro level, which serves the situation of the whole nation, only indicating the general directions and regulating the basic principles for solving a problem. Therefore, it is necessary for the local educational authorities and educators to make operable resolutions according to the local conditions. If the educational authorities and educators merely copy the national policy, it is likely that the policy will lack the operability in the local settings and cannot be carried out, which is actually a dereliction of duty. Secondly, education policy implementers in SJD would probably copy the experience of other regions. China is a vast country and the actual situations vary from place to place. If only copying the advanced implementation experience of primary-school teachers’ training policy from other places, it would also fail to suit the local conditions and hardly succeed.

 

1.2 Nominal Policy Implementation

 

As educational administrative authority, EBOSJD formulates and conveys teachers training policy to primary-schools. However, some educators merely call for the implementation of the teachers’ training policy without actually carrying it out, which is referred as nominal policy implementation. The nominal policy implementation usually can be divided into two types as well. The first is to implement some actual measures of certain aspects of the teachers’ training policy, but they do not effectively carry them all out. The second is that the lower level educational authorities merely make a simple appeal for the policy and thus the policy cannot be actually put into practice.

 

1.3 Selective Policy Implementation

 

The other problem is that some lower implementing organizations, based on their own interests, implement the relevant primary-school teachers’ training policies selectively, that is, carrying out the policy in a selective manner. Such kind of selective implementation not only affects the implementation by undermining the integrity of the teachers’ training policy, but also shakes the authority of the policy made by EBOSJD. The selective policy implementation can be divided into two types also: the first is to selectively implement a certain number of items in the primary-school teachers’ training policy to meet their own interests; the second is to implement one certain item to cater for their own interests.

 

1.4 Inconsistent Policy Implementation

 

When implementing primary-school teachers training policy made by EBOSJD, the lower local implementing organizations may add some contents that are not part of the original policy into the implementation of the teachers’ training policy, and even adding items that are incompatible or inconsistent with the original policy occasionally. These additional items of policy implementation tend to increase the cost of the implementation of teachers’ training policy for the SJD and reduce the effects of the policy implementation, thus affecting the realization of the policy goals.

 

2. Reasons of poor implementation of primary-school teachers’ training policy

 

According to the analytical model which modified from other scholars’ researches and suggested in Chapter 2, there are many factors influencing the policy implementation of primary-school teachers’ training programme. These factors include policy itself (e.g. policy goals and objectives), policy implementing organizations (the authoritative organizations and implementers), policy environment (e.g. political setting and economic development) and policy stakeholders. Teachers training policy is also a public policy and thus inevitably influenced by the above mentioned factors. In order to further analyze the primary-school teachers’ training policy in SJD, the following section will analyze the causes for the problems occurring in the process of teachers’ training policy implementation in SJD, which are based on the results of the questionnaire and interviews and in accordance with these hypotheses of this study. Also, the society in China is relatively stable nowadays, and Shanghai is a city with excellent economic development, these environmental conditions prompt the successful implementation of primary-school teachers’ training policy. Thus, I focus the influencing factors on the other variables.

 

2.1 Policy deficiency

 

Primary-school teachers’ training policy is the direct reason of the policy implementation activities; also its own characteristics are vital variables affecting the implementation effectiveness. Many experts and scholars on policy implementation believe that the significant causes for policy implementation failure lie in inappropriate policy design, incomprehensive thinking, and incomprehensive planning. Teacher training policy, as the attempt of the education policies designers, will inevitably has its own limitations and deficiencies, and it requires us to discover and correct them for improvement in the course of policy implementation. The deviations in the course of policy implementation have much to do with the deficiencies in the policy per se.

 

2.1.1 Unclear policy objectives

 

Policy objectives should be concrete and clear, and in a sequence according to the importance. It’s not only the foundation of policy evaluation, but also the basis for implementers to understand the policy and earn social support. Otherwise, the implementers would have differentiated understandings based on their different knowledge experiences, value, and recognition level, which may lead to various implementation results. Bardach (1986) pointed out that the reason why policies objectives will be altered to some extend in the course of implementation is that it needs redefinition in the context of unclear meaning or it needs adjustment because of the shaky foundation of the policy. The unclear and abstract policy objective will lead to incomprehensive or even wrong understanding of the policy. The objectives of teacher training policy are mostly described in vague language, only listing qualitative objectives in general but seldom quantitative indexes. However, the property of the policy objective will directly affect difficulty of policy implementation. It is comparatively difficult for local governments, education authorities and educators to implement the policies as teachers’ training policy with only qualitative but no quantitative index. It is inconvenient to orientate, mobilize resources for and evaluate implementation because lack of quantitative description. What’s more, it is difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of policy implementation since teachers’ training policy has no strictly confined population, scientific implementing procedure and accurate evaluation criteria.

 

2.1.2 Policy resources shortage

 

The successful and effective implementation of any policy must be guaranteed by certain policy resources, which usually include financial resources, human resources and economic resources. So it is with teachers’ training policy. First of all, financial resource is of vital importance since it is the financial basis of other resources. Many educational policy implementations in America are accompanied with financial allocation, or say, it is the incentive and support for policy implementation. Comparatively, one of the important causes for the unsuccessful implementation of teacher training policy which cannot fulfill the expected objectives to the large extend, is the insufficient or unstable financial input. Financial sectors below provincial level should jointly be responsible for the implement expense of teachers’ training policy. However, the responsibility lays mainly in county and town finance in the course of implementation, and moreover town finance should also be responsible for schools at this level. It is easy and stable to raise educational fund in economic developed areas, but comparatively it is difficult to do so in economic developing areas. No wonder problems crop up in the policy implementation. Secondly, the effective implementation of teachers’ training policy should be guaranteed by human resources. Qualified implementers are vital to the successful implementation. However, there are unqualified leaders, administrative staff, and teachers, loss of young excellent teachers, unqualified freshman in normal university, and etc., which truly reflect the deficiency in human resource input in teachers’ training policy in China. Finally, economic resources can also affect the implementation. Without economic resources, it would be impossible to fully implement the policy. In reality, the economic conditions of many schools are under the standard, and the gap between schools in town and city is unbelievable wide. Though policies have been carried out, it is with minimal success.#p#分页标题#e#

 

2.1.3 Information channel block

 

Information divergence and the collection are in the course of policy implementation in information theory, which means the instruction information and feedback of policy implementation. The current information block of teachers’ training policy implementation brings up several questions. Firstly, the promotion of policy implementation is not so successful. The awareness and attitude of implementers and target population are of vital importance to the effectiveness of implementation. The current implementation deviances are always cause by unsuccessful policy promotion, or even distortion of policy meaning, and information channel block. The implementers and target population cannot understand and grasp the spirit and essence of teachers’ training policy so that they cannot identify with or even resist to the policy, which propose difficulty to the policy implementation. Secondly, the feedbacks of teachers’ training policy implementation are in distortion. The objective implementation information favors the effective implementation, and on the contrary, it leads to failure. Currently the channels for instruction information and feedbacks are the same one. The policy designers always expect information of effective implementation thus it will affect the feedbacks. What’s more, the policy implementers, who are in the charge of the policy designers, will also expect successful implementation. Both of these will affect the feedbacks of policy implementation, which consequently lead to information distortion.

 

2.2 The Problems of the Policy Organizations

 

The policy organizations of the teachers’ training policy refer to the implementing organizations and staffs, mainly including the local governments, educational authorities, and teaching staffs and so on. The implementers of the teachers’ training policy implementation are the behavior subjects of the policy activities, functioning as the leading part in the policy implementation. The policy implementers’ per se and the characteristics or deficiencies of their behaviors are the chief causes for the inefficiency of policy implementation, mainly demonstrated as follows:

 

2.2.1 The low quality of the implementers

 

The executing staffs are the dynamic factor of the policy implementation. The qualities of their psychological capacity and knowledge radius determine the size of their initiatives and thus have great influence on the effects of the policy implementation. Currently, the quality of many executing staffs of the teachers’ training policy is still problematic. Firstly, they lack essential knowledge and abilities and cannot fully understand the teachers’ training policy and are unable to grasp the essence of it, which eventually lead to the distortion of the policy in advocacy and implementation, or even the passive resistance to the policy. Secondly, the existence of utilitarianism, departmental selfishness, and bureaucracy will lead them to intentionally distort the teachers’ training policy in order to meet the interests of a certain region, group, or individual. For instance, the leaders of some educational authorities overemphasize the training on teaching quality for their own political achievements and neglect other aspects of teachers’ competence and moral traits. Finally, some policy implementers are incompetent in policy making and management.

 

2.2.2 The implementers are driven by different Interests

 

Eugene Bardach (1986), the American public policy scholar, analyzed the policy implementation process with the game theory, believing that the policy implementation is actually a process of interest competition. The implementers of education policy often have multiple identities. On one hand, they represent the State to carry out the national policy from the perspective of the overall social interests. On the other hand, they will also consider the interests of the local region and department, sometimes even his own interests, inevitably distorting the policy implementation. The objective existence of the differences in overall interests, regional interests, group interests, and individual interests determined the likelihood of loss of control in implementing policy and the innate impulse for the policy implementers and target groups to perfunctorily receive, distort, and resist the policy. In the process of implementing the teachers’ training policy, on one hand, the local government or the educational authorities have to put great efforts in improving the teaching quality for their own achievements’ sake. They would normally issue relevant local policies or regulations to strengthen the evaluation for the lower-levels in teaching skills training, forcing the lower-levels to focus on the examination-oriented education training and to abandon the quality-oriented education training. On the other hand, due to layers of pressure, the teachers at the lowest, in order to meet the regulations on rewards and punishments about teaching performance from higher authorities, have to take merely the trainings related to examination-oriented education and ignore the improvement for other abilities.

 

2.2.3 The lack of communication and coordination between implementing organizations

 

In a systematic perspective, the policy implementation is an organic entity constituted by various implementing organizations, staffs, and targeting groups. Those elements are interdependent and interacted. And it is the communication and coordination that makes the different elements to adopt and cooperate with each other so as to exert the integral function of the system and improve the implementing efficiency. In the process of teachers training policy implementation, due to the ineffective communication and coordination between local government, educational authorities and educational workers, there are often evasiveness and disputes occurring in the implementation process. Communication is the process of the information exchange in the policy implementation, and also the procedure to gain unified methods on policy goals, methods, and means and so on. However, in the implementing process of teachers training policy, they fail to realize the importance of communication. From the vertical perspective, because that the policy per se from the upper authorities is lifeless and fail to reach the executants through effective communication, thus leading the executants’ inadequate understanding about the policy and reluctant support. At the same time, due to lack of communication and coordination, the upper authorities also are unable to know the specific situation of the policy implementation. From the lateral perspective, since the implementation of teachers training policy is often involved with the division of labor and cooperation of numerous departments and staffs, conflicts are thus inevitable. And in the actual policy implementation process, the local government, the educational authorities and the educational workers often lack essential communication and coordination, and have disputes, misunderstandings, and conflicts all the time, unable to effectively carry out the teachers training policy. Taking the example of a educational authority, due to different division of work, the supervision department, in order to effectively implement the quality-oriented education policy made by the Party and State, often develops corresponding regulations on teachers training based on the requirements of quality-oriented education and supervises the schools in its administrative range accordingly. However, the teaching and research department, in order to improve the teaching quality, puts more stress on the rate of students entering higher grades. And the two departments lack communication and coordination and carries out the policy in their own ways, which poses enormous difficulties in implementing and advocating the teachers training policy.

 

2.2.4 The lack of variety in implementation method and means

 

The methods and means of policy implementation refer to the various methods and means used by the implementing organizations and staffs to accomplish certain tasks or reach certain policy goals. Each step of policy implementation is dependent with the implementing methods and means, the appropriateness of which is directly associated with the successful realization of policy goals. In the process of teachers training policy implementation, due to the inappropriate techniques, manners, and methods applied by the local government, educational authorities, and the educational workers, the policy is deviated from its original goals and directions. The effective implementation of teachers training policy has to rely on certain economic, administrative, factors and ideological persuasion and so on. Policy implementation is not a process of simple carrying- out of the procedures, but also a process of selecting and applying various sources. Many local governments, educational authorities, and educational workers cannot apply different methods accordingly, and fail to select and use proper policy tools based on the existing human, material, and financial resources, which produce enormous obstruction to the smooth implementation of teachers training policy, resulting policy implementation deviation. In the actual process of teachers training policy implementation, many educational authorities simply apply the one-fold administrative means and neglect other means. The lack of laws makes it difficult to apply legal method. Although economic means has significant effects on teachers training policy implementation, it is rarely used in real situation. And although the ideological persuasion plays an important part in initiating the policy advocacy, it is not a preference in actual circumstances, resulting in the lack of identification among the target group to the policy and difficulties in carrying out the policy.#p#分页标题#e#

 

2.3 The Causes from the Policy Target Group

 

The object of the policy (target group), public policy, and the policy subject constitute three basic elements in the system of public policy implementation. The target group occupies an important position in the implementation system of teachers training policy. It is closely associated with whether the teachers training policy can fully exert its function and achieve the expected goals.

 

2.3.1 The overly large size of the target group and the excessive adjustment of the policy goals

 

Generally, if the number of the target group of a national policy and the amount of adjustment are relatively small, the local government will implement the national policy more clearly and the cost will also be less. And it will be easier for the target group to adopt to the implementation effects and for the local government to gain better effects in carrying out the central policy. Therefore, the number of the target group and the amount of adjustment also influence the way for the local governments, educational authorities, and educational workers to implement the national policy. The results of policy implementation ought to be the change of the original state of the target group. Since the mindsets and behaviors of the target group have formed fixed patterns and models in a social environment, the change brought by the policy implementation will meet certain amount of obstruction from the target group.

 

2.3.2 The lack of identification of the target group with the policy

 

In the implementation process, the target group has two choices regarding to the policy: one is to identify with the policy; the other is to disagree with the policy. Identifying with the policy means the acceptance of it and to carry it out according to the regulated goals and principles, while disagreeing with it indicates the refusal to the policy and to be unwilling to implement expected actions or to stop behaving as expected. The lack of identification with the policy will lead the inevitable failure of it. On one hand, although from the rational perspective, teachers do agree that the training policy have great help in improving their teaching techniques, while on the other hand, from the emotional perspective, they prefer the teaching methods that have been accustomed to them over time, which lead them to oppose the teaching reform and fail to identify with the teachers training policy.

 

2.3.3 The influence of target group’s outmoded conceptions and interests

 

Whether to accept the policy depends on the target group’s evaluation of the policy interests. If a certain policy enables the target group to gain some benefits, it is easy for them to accept it. Otherwise, if the policy fails to produce or deprives the interests for the target group, it would be difficult for them to accept it. In the implementation process of teachers training policy, because that some teachers have outmode conception, they believe that only through good academic records of the students can they gain promotion in payment and position and the enrolment rate is their sole objective. Thus trainings on other aspects mean nothing for their interests, or even will deprive their interests.

 

2.4 Problems in policy implementation system

 

Policy implementation system will also affect the effectiveness of policy implementation that rational system will promote effective implementation, and on the contrary lead to deviance. The unsuccessful implementation of China teacher training policy has much to do with the irrational policy implementation system.

 

2.4.1 Complex hierarchy in policy organization

 

Teacher training policy implementation is a typical organization activity. The organization will directly affect the effectiveness of implementation. And the hierarchy will lead to the decomposition of policy objectives and the concreteness of policy. It has positive but also negative effect to the implementation. Especially in complex hierarchy, the negative effect will be more obvious because it could lower policy requirement at each step of the decomposition and concreteness and distort policy orientation. The more complex hierarchy it is, the higher possibility and greater degree of the distortion will be. The teacher training policy is in the charge of executing agencies at different level and different departments in the administrative society. Problems in the policy implementation are always cause by managerial confusion because of the inappropriate hierarchy in the implementation organizations. There are different departments in charge of teacher training policy implementation: Ministry of Education, Provincial Education Department, Municipal Board of Education, County Education Bureau, Township Education Office, ect. special education department, governments at all levels and the educational supervision office in governments. The school leaders and faculty will be at a loss when the departments in complex hierarchy lack of communication and cooperation, then the problems will crop up in the implementation.

 

2.4.2 Inadequate policy supervision

 

Policy monitor is the indispensable part in policy implement. The effective policy monitor would prevent policy distortion, and adjust perfect the policy according to changing circumstances. The famous American administration scholar Elinor Ostrom once pointed out, “There are always members, ignoring moral regulation, to conduct opportunist acts in every group; or it could be that the potential profit is so high that even the people with credit will violate moral code.” Thus, supervision mechanism has to be set up in the policy implementation. The supervision of current teacher training policy implementation is not so perfect. Firstly, supervision body is incomplete. The supervision should include higher authorities’ supervision to lower authorities, supervision among authorities with equal positions and lower authorities’ supervision to higher authorities. In reality, the latter two kinds of supervision don’t exist. Beside this internal supervision from higher authorities, it lacks of the external supervision that the media and public supervision do not play their role. Secondly, because the supervision emphasize on the implementation results, the implementation will count on the experiences thus unexpected problems will emerge in the process of implementation. Therefore, supervision should run through the complete course of pre-implementation, in- implementation, and post-implementation so as to get feedbacks and adjust to the changing circumstances. It is difficult to fulfill the complete supervision in reality.

 

2.4.3 Insufficiency of accountability system

 

There should be laws and rules of policy implementation and the balance among responsibility, authority and benefit ensure the effective implementation of pubic policy. However laws and rules of teacher training policy implementation are not perfect. Firstly, it lacks of definite criteria of policy implementation effectiveness. The current evaluation system is not scientific that it lacks of correct evaluation criteria and method, the evaluation tends to judge by value not fact, qualitative evaluation are used instead of quantitative evaluation, thus, the result is hardly possible for implementation effectiveness evaluation use, and charge of implementers’ responsibility. Secondly, there is not accountability system. The implementers’ responsibility are not clearly defined which poses difficulty to account responsibility to specific person in policy implementation lapse. In addition, without the balance among responsibility, authority and benefit, implementers abuse their authority and take no account of responsibility and benefit of implementation. Finally, it lacks of laws and rules of teacher training policy implementation. With no laws and rules to abide by, implementers implement policy at their own will, and irregularities are not dealt with properly, thus cannot prevent and curb the irregularities.

 

2.5 Effectiveness of former policy implementation

 

The successful policy implementation will always be influenced by former implementation effectiveness. If the former implementation is successful, implementers’ authority could be achieved, the target policy objects will cooperate with the policy implementation, and then the new policy will be implemented successfully and effectively. So it is with teacher training policy implementation that former education policy matters. The current unsuccessful policy implementation has much to do with former policy implementation effectiveness. For instance, according to the regulations of the Law of Teacher, local government must be ensured that teachers are paid in full and on time without any excuses, or the responsibilities are to account. However, it is common in some areas to not fully and delay pay to teachers, and no related officers are responsible for it. Lack of accountability system leads policy implementer and target objects to have the idea that the effectiveness of implementation does not matter, thus they are not concerned about the policy implementation, and eventually lead to the failure of policy implementation.

 

Reference

 

Pressman, J. and Wildavsky, A. (1973). Implementation. Berkeley University of California Press, pp: 143-149.

 

Rein, M. and Rabinovitz F.F. (1978) Implementation: A Theoretical Perspective. In Walter D. Burnham and Martha W. Weinberg (eds.) American Politics and Public Policy. Cambridge: MIT Press, p.309.#p#分页标题#e#

 

SC (1983) Notice on Strengthening and Reforming Related Problems of Rural Education. PRC Government.

 

SC (2001) Decision on the Reform and Development of Basic Education. PRC Government.

 

Scott. W.R. (1981) Organizations: Rational, Natural, and Open Systems. Prentice Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.Jersey.

 

Shanghai Board of Education (2006) Whole School Development Planning: A Manual for Primary Schools in Shanghai China. Jiao Tong University Press.

 

Shirley Terryberry. (1968) The Evolution of Organization Environments. Administrative Quarterly, March, pp:590-613.

 

Stoll, L. and Fink, D. (1996). Changing our Schools: Linking school effectiveness and school improvement. Buckingham: Open University