Learning to Perform: The impact of Performance Assessment on teachers in England[1]
Pat Mahony, Ian Menter and Ian Hextall
Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, University of Lisbon, 11-14 September 2002
Contact details
Professor Pat Mahony
Froebel College
University of Surrey Roehampton
Roehampton Lane,
London SW15 5PJ
Tel:020 8392 3172
Professor Ian Menter
University of Paisley
Faculty of Education and Media
University Campus Ayr
Beech Grove
Ayr KA8 0SR
Scotland
Tel: 01292 886201
Ian Hextall
Froebel College
University of Surrey Roehampton
Roehampton Lane,
London SW15 5PJ
Tel:020 8392 3172
Introduction
Drawing on our current ESRC[2] funded research (The Impact of Performance Threshold Assessment on Teachers’ Work), this paper focuses on a policy initiative recently introduced in England, namely, the establishment of a performance management regime in schools and, in particular the Threshold Assessment. We shall focus on certain aspects of these developments and draw attention to contexts in which we have explored other facets of the policy. In the first section we analyse the manner in which the policy was initially established and the current situation regarding its development and implementation. This will take a little time but is vitally important in an international context such as ECER. Having laid out this policy background, we shall move on to discuss some general issues which are arising concerning the governance of the policy. Finally, we shall place this particular initiative within a slightly broader international setting by drawing upon interviews we have conducted in Australia and Scotland and connecting these discussions to more general debates which are circulating around accountability and ‘globalisation’.
Performance Threshold Assessment: Development And Implementation
Background
Performance Threshold Assessment constitutes a key element of the Government’s policy to modernise the teaching profession. It is located within the context of the performance management model (DfEE[3] 1998, 1999 a-d) which is aimed at re-organising the management of schools and the remuneration of teachers in England. The model sets the context for restructured levels of the teaching force and redesigned patterns of progression. ‘Effective’ teaching and career progression are defined through professional standards for: entry into teaching; completion of induction; movement through the Performance Threshold; award of Advanced Skills Teacher grade and award of National Professional Qualification for Headship.
The Green Paper proposes a ‘much closer link between pay and appraisal’ (DfEE 1998, para. 75, p. 34) and claims to resolve the following problems:
• teachers’ pay is based on time served regardless of performance (para. 67, p. 32);
• teachers reach the top of the pay spine relatively early in their careers and can only progress by moving into management (para. 68, p. 32);
• teacher appraisal is insufficiently focused on clear objectives and outcomes linked to the school’s improvement targets (para. 78, p. 34).
The twin objectives of introducing a new pay policy and a tighter system of annually assessing individual teacher’s performance in order to set targets for improvement, are brought together in an apparently coherent system of rewarding good performance. The Threshold is highly significant as the point at which teachers submit themselves to an assessment process on the basis of which, if they are successful, they receive an additional £2,000 per annum and progress to an upper pay spine (UPS) where four further increments are possible for good performance. As we shall see later, these twin elements of pay and performance review were not introduced in a manner that made their coherence automatically obvious. This made for some difficulties in the initial realisation of the policy.
Our research is exploring the policy trajectory of the Performance Threshold Assessment for teachers. Concentrating on Threshold not only provides the opportunity to undertake an analysis from origin to impact, of a fairly large policy initiative but also provides an illustration in practice of the technology and operating procedures of the performance management policy within which Threshold is formalistically embedded. These technologies include: the use of professional standards or other criteria to assess performance; provision of evidence to substantiate claims that targets have been met; mechanisms of internal performance review and assessment; procedures of verification and appeals and grievance processes. We are adopting a three strand methodological approach consisting of: documentary analysis; semi-structured, tape-recorded interviews with a range of key actors; and indicative case-studies.
The Threshold
From the outset the Threshold proposals met with a storm of controversy. Fierce debates ranged over: the values underpinning the policy; the nature and adequacy of the performance standards against which individuals would be assessed;[4] the potential for bias in the assessments; the logistics and technologies of application and assessment, and the negative impacts on individuals (Mahony and Hextall 2000). One of the major concerns identified about the Threshold procedures was their potential to discriminate unfairly between various cohorts of teachers, eg. women and minority ethnic teachers (Carrington et al. 1999; Mahony 1999; Menter 1999). Linked to this have been anxieties as to whether increasing differentiation between schools and between teachers within schools will weaken the ethos of professional collegiality (Bottery 1998). Nevertheless the Threshold policy proceeded apace midst colourful media coverage consisting of such headlines as: ‘Heads outraged at “patronising poorly-planned sessions” on assessing pay threshold applicants’ (TES 7/4/2000 p.7); ‘Threshold “will destroy careers”’ (TES 19/5/2000 p.3); ‘[Application] Form tests staff pain threshold’ (TES 7/7/2000 p.19); and ‘Survey finds most teachers still hate the threshold’ (TES 4/5/01p. 2).
Despite all this, 200,196 teachers[5] (80% of the eligible cohort) applied to cross the Threshold and 97% of the applicants (194,249 teachers) were successful (CEA 2001). It would also appear that early fears about the divisive impact of Threshold policy were not realised in this Round 1 to the extent predicted. However this seems a problem which has merely been postponed. From September 2002 those teachers who succeeded in achieving the Threshold are eligible for further pay increments on the UPS. In the early stages Unions estimated that ‘schools will only have the cash to allow fewer than one in two teachers who have passed the threshold to progress further up the pay scale’ (TES 14/12/01 p. 1) and that potentially divisive consequences of this ‘quota’ would follow. In opposition to this the two headteacher unions initially prepared to ballot their members on taking industrial action to boycott all work connected to performance-related pay. This was the first time that the Secondary Heads Association had taken such a step in the union's history and the first vote in twenty years for the National Association of Headteachers whose General Secretary threatened to ‘bring a key part of the government's pay structure and its belief in performance-related pay to a juddering halt until it changes its policy.’
The crisis was averted after the Government (indirectly) made more money available and the headteacher unions cancelled their ballot for industrial action. However, two of the teacher unions were reported to be ‘furious’, and threatened legal action if their members are discriminated against (TES 12/4/2002 p. 4). By May 2002 it was being said that 80% of UPS teachers would get a further ‘£1000 merit-related pay rise in the autumn’ (TES 31/5/02 p. 1)
A number of questions remain to be addressed about the implementation and consequences of the UPS arrangements. We shall be actively following through these questions in the next phase of our research in particular to see how the proposals are being implemented in practice and evaluating their impact on individual teachers, particular groups of teachers and within the social relationships of schools. At this stage we can do no more than register the concerns being raised and note that even as we write, the Secretary of State is making new proposals to impose a performance related pay system on the whole of the profession (TES 9/8/02 p. 3).
Policy origins and early developments
The origins of the current discourses of performance management lie in the private sector and stretch far beyond England. However, interviews we have conducted with teacher unions, threshold assessors (TAs) and professional associations have tended to attribute policy origin, on a much more localised basis, to key individuals appointed as political advisors (not as elected politicians or career civil servants), operating within the parameters of the Treasury’s ‘something for something’ model of public policy-making. At this stage of policy development, unions and professional associations were not involved. Clearly the Labour Government’s commitment to a more consensual style of policy making, characterised by the discourses of ‘partnership’, ‘inclusion’ and ‘stakeholding’ (Newman 2001), was reserved for later in the process, after the framework had been put in place.
Considerable confusion accompanied the fact that the Threshold initiative was introduced before the overall performance management system was established, leading some of our interviewees to question whether the two were seen as related at all. The emphasis given to pay, evident in both the delivery of a pay rise via Threshold and in the financial incentives underpinning the performance management policy, also meant that, for some, opportunities were lost that could have maximised the potential for improving teachers’ performance.
At the time I saw it as an opportunity to reward dedicated professionals. I saw it as an opportunity to control and prioritise the agenda to limit the workload and to focus down on what really mattered in the classroom. I regret that is not how it has been portrayed. I feel terribly disappointed when I reflect about how Threshold has been presented. .. as being synonymous with teacher pay and conditions of service, coupled increasingly with recruitment and retention issues. I think that this narrow interpretation loses a huge opportunity to use Threshold as a school improvement tool and as a developmental mechanism. The overriding perception from the first cycle was of Threshold as ‘filling in a form to get £2,000’ and yet in reality the form is marginal. (Mike Chapman, Professional Leader CEA)
Issues emerging from Case Studies[6]
The introduction of Threshold before Performance Management, the short time-scales involved, changes in procedures after the NUT had taken the Secretary of State to court and the involvement of the private sector, all made for a somewhat tortuous and confused implementation phase. At this stage of our study we have undertaken a range of interviews with individual headteachers and external assessors, as well as a number of case studies of secondary and primary schools and LEAs from which a number of issues are emerging.
It is clear from our data that Threshold Assessment has been a very different experience in different schools and that there have existed significant dimensions of variability in the ways in which the procedures were implemented and in the interpretations being made about the Threshold initiative.
The major training programmes which were put in place for TAs and headteachers, who then ‘cascaded’ the training into their own schools, have been criticised for their quality and for the changing messages which came through as implementation approached. However, the proper aim of these programmes was to assure consistent and professional delivery of the assessment process. It is neither surprising nor automatically objectionable that in implementing an innovation on this scale there should be considerable variation. This is inevitable given professional and contextual circumstances. However, given the claims of fair and purposeful assessment which were made by the Government (not least in their defence to the Unions), some deviations from universal and standardised approaches that raise questions of probity and fairness ought to be matters for concern and should be rigorously debated.
In analysing our case studies, drawing largely on the accounts given by managers (particularly heads), TAs and teachers themselves, we have begun to identify numerous ways in which the process and interpretations appear to have varied. At this stage the accounts of variability of experience which emerge from our case studies make it possible to identify two main elements which give rise to that variability in any particular situation. The first is the characteristics of the individuals (or groups of staff) involved. Interrelationships within the process are very much influenced by the professional and personal dispositions of the people involved. Whilst some headteachers, for example, demonstrated a fundamentally benign approach to the whole process, others saw it as more of a hard-edged tool which could be used for management purposes. Similarly, some teachers took a pragmatic or cynical approach, others were self-deprecating and nervous. The second element giving rise to variability was the particular context within which the process operated. This was of course partly determined by the particular personnel involved, but there were also other factors influencing the context, for example the culture and ethos of the school, the social-demography of the community which the school served and the influence of other external processes such as Ofsted inspection, union activity or LEA involvement or the particular life and career history/ies of the teacher/s concerned.
In our analysis thus far we have also found that the Threshold policy and experience has carried significant emotional impact and weight for teachers. Threshold Assessment presumes that teachers are motivated by money, that what is ‘measurable’ via a technology of ‘standards’ (their ‘performance’), can be demonstrated by completion of a form and the provision of documentary evidence that ‘proves’ the claims made. As such it is but one expression of the culture of performativity that has increasingly come to dominate and shape both the nature of policy-making and definitions of ‘professionalism’. Even if the Threshold policy were to be judged as an elegant exemplar of technical, calculative, rational policy making, (a judgement we would challenge), there is a further question about its impact on the emotional lives of teachers, on their personal/professional identities and on their cultures. As Troman and Woods (2001) have written:
There is little appreciation [by government or Ofsted] of the emotional labour … engaged in by teachers, the work they put in to make learning meaningful to their students, but which also makes them vulnerable ‘when the conditions of and demands on their work make it hard for them to do their “emotion work” properly’ (Hargreaves, 1998c: 840). Rather, teachers become involved in emotional politics … as they wrestle with countervailing and superior forces. p.42