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urn:uuid:efd4453c-0eba-4f38-b9e1-9cc0e7cbb29f 03 15 9781800649330 00 EB E101 10 01 01 Dire Straits-Education Reforms Ideology, Vested Interests and Evidence 1 A01 Montserrat Gomendio Montserrat Gomendio, a biologist by training, holds a BSc from Universidad Complutense (Madrid), a Ph.D. from Cambridge University (UK), and is currently a tenured Research Professor at the Spanish Research Council (CSIC). For many years, she combined her research work with leadership positions such as Director of the Spanish National Science Museum and Vice-President of the Spanish Research Council. In 2011 she was appointed Secretary of State for Education, Vocational Training and Universities in the Spanish Government. In 2015 she joined the OECD as Deputy Director of Education and in 2017 she became Head of the OECD Skills Centre. Since 2020 she has co-founded and co-chaired Skills WeGo, a consultancy on education, training and employment. Montserrat is a member of the Board of the International Baccalaureate. She has authored books and over 100 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals. 2 A01 José Ignacio Wert José Ignacio Wert holds a law degree from Universidad Complutense (Madrid) and a master's degree in Political Sociology by Instituto de Estudios Políticos (Spain). He has been Deputy Director of the Centre for Sociological Research (a public research institution) and founder and CEO of Demoscopia, a leading polling firm in Spain, as well as serving in different managing capacities in other private ventures. From 2011 to 2015 he was Minister of Education, Culture and Sport in the Spanish Government and from 2015 to 2018 he was Spain's Ambassador to the OECD. Since 2020 he has co-founded and co-chaired Skills WeGo, a consultancy on education, training and employment. He is the author of four books and co-author of over two dozen others, plus several hundred articles in journals and magazines. 01 eng 00 362 03 10 EDU034000 23 Education 23 educational emergency 12 JN 04 LB2806.23 10 EDU014000 23 education reforms 12 JNF 10 EDU040000 23 education policies 12 JNK 23 comparison 12 VSK 23 policies around the world 01 06 03 00 Responding to an ‘educational emergency’ generated largely by the difficulties of implementing education reforms, this book compares education policies around the world in order to understand what works where. To address the key question of why education reforms are so difficult, the authors take into account a broad range of relevant factors, such as governance, ideology, and stakeholder conflicts of interest, and their interactions with one another. Drawing on their experiences as policymakers in the Spanish government and as governmental advisors worldwide, Montserrat Gomendio and Jose Ignacio Wert produce a publication like no other, shifting the usual Eurocentric narrative and shedding light on frequently overlooked educational policies from elsewhere. In this context, they dive deeper into details of educational failures and successes, the processes of implementation and investment priorities in different countries. They provide revealing accounts of stakeholder conflicts of interest and the challenges of implementing educational reform during a financial crisis.The authors also investigate why the evidence from international large-scale assessments (ILSAs) has, contrary to expectation, not generated improvements in most education systems. Gomendio and Wert investigate the evolution of different education systems, closely examining their advances or declines. Gomendio and Wert’s expert voices illuminate the current state of global education systems and the necessary changes to ensure long-awaited improvements. This is a revelatory and informative resource for policymakers, teachers and academics alike. 04 00 About the Authors ix Preface xi 1. The Functions and Role of Modern Education Systems: A Brief Summary 1 1.1 The Origins of Modern Education 1 1.2 The Social Function of Modern Education 5 1.3 To What Extent Do People Care about Education? 9 1.4 The Goals of Education in the Knowledge Society 11 1.5 Digitalisation: A Game Changer 13 1.6 COVID-19: An Unexpected Disruption and an Accelerator of Change 16 1.7 Why Are Reforms So Difficult? 18 2. Education and Ideology (Or Is It the Other Way Around?) 19 2.1. Ideology and Education: What Do We Mean? 19 2.2 The Role of the State as an Education Provider 21 2.3 Equity and the Function of Education: Equaliser or Enabler? 31 2.4 The Shape of Education: Architecture, Teachers, Curricula and Assessments 40 2.5 Funding of Education and Ideology 63 2.6 Conclusions 68 3. The Governance of Education Systems: How They Constrain or Facilitate the Implementation of Reforms 73 3.1 Why Governance Matters 73 3.2 The Power of Governments 74 3.3 The Dilemmas of Multi-Level States: When Power Is Shared between Different Levels of Government 80 3.4 The Process of Decentralisation: A Bumpy Road 86 3.5 Funding. Who Raises the Money and Who Spends it? 89 3.6 The Role of Stakeholders 96 3.7 A Special Case: Governance of VET Systems 106 3.8. Conclusions 114 4. ILSAs: Do They Count? 119 4.1 What Do International Metrics Measure? 119 4.2. ILSAs: What Do They Tell Us? 122 Differences between and within Countries 122 4.3. ILSAs: Trends Over Time 128 4.4. Evidence from ILSAs on Effective Policies 134 4.5. Conclusions 176 5. Does the Evidence Count? 187 5.1. What Can We Learn from Top-Performing Countries? 187 5.2. What Can We Learn from Low Performers? The Latin American Story 206 5.3. What Have Countries Learned from the PISA Shock? 214 5.4. What Can We Learn from Countries that Improve in Europe? 222 5.5. What Can We Learn from Countries where PISA Has a Huge Media Impact but No Policy Reactions? 233 5.6 Conclusions 237 6. Spain: An Inside Story 245 6.1. A Rough Start 245 6.2. Laws, Laws, Laws …. Are They Any Good? 248 6.3. An Education Reform in the Middle of a Storm 253 6.4. Aims, Policies and Impact of the Education Reform 257 6.5. Back to the Future 264 6.6. What Has Been the Role of PISA? 266 7. Education Reforms: The Interaction between Ideology, Governance, Conflicts of Interest and Evidence 269 7.1. Who Cares about Education and Why? 269 7.2. Ideological Battles: What Are They About? 270 7.3. Reform: Who Decides What, Who Funds, Who Has a Say, Who Has the Power to Block 274 7.4. International Evidence versus Conflicts of Interest: Who is David and Who is Goliath? 279 7.5. The Geography of Education Success 292 7.6. Is the World a Better Place with Data? 296 References 299 Index 331 Open Book Publishers 01 Open Book Publishers 04 01 20230214 02 WORLD 06 15 9781800649309 06 15 9781800649316 06 15 9781800649323 06 15 9781800649361 06 15 9781800649354 06 15 9781800649330 06 15 9781800649347 WORLD 09 Open Book Publishers 20 02 5.99 GBP WORLD