The many shapes and sizes of meta-governance. An empirical study of strategies applied by a well-advanced meta-governor: the case of Dutch central government in education

Figures & data

Table 1. Heuristic analytical framework.

Network design strategies	Influence the composition of the policy network Establish new actors Re-arrange and shift positions of actors Influence actors’ roles
Resourcing strategies	Influence the activities undertaken by actors Provide/withhold actors with funds for specific purposes Enable/disable activities by actors through provisions such as regulations and fiscal law Grant/retract actors with knowledge and authority
Framing strategies	Influence the perception and sensemaking of actors regarding The (content of the) policy issue The urgency of the policy issue The purpose of the policy The scope and/or specifics of policy goals by setting indicators, standards and targets

Table 2. Actors involved in the policy networks.

	Policy network ‘raising standards’	Policy network ‘learning organization’
Central government	Ministry of Education, Directorate of Secondary Education	Ministry of Education, Directorate of Teacher Policy
Independent administrative bodies	- Inspectorate of Education (IE) - National Centre for Tests and Examinations (CvTE)	- Inspectorate of Education (IE)
Independent advisory body	- Education Council of the Netherlands (EC)	- Education Council of the Netherlands (EC)
Temporary government-commissioned advisory committees	- Committee on Numeracy Reference Levels (CN) - Committee on Raising Numeracy Standards (CR)
Independent foundations, associations and private companies	- National Institute for Curriculum Development (SLO) - Council for Secondary Education, association of all 334 Dutch school boards in secondary education (VO-raad) - National Institute for Educational Measurement (CITO)	- Association Teacher! (AT!) - Council for Secondary Education, association of all 334 Dutch school boards in secondary education (VO-raad) - Expert and research organizations such as universities, (non-) commercial research institutes and consultancy firms
Actors without legal forms	- Support Office on Raising Standards (SORS) - Program ‘Schools have the Initiative’ (PSI)	- Program ‘Schools have the Initiative’ (PSI) - Political Initiative ‘Learning Together’ (PILT)
Composite actors	- Teacher24, comprising four actors, digital platform of, for and by teachers, aimed at supporting teachers in the practice of their profession - Framework for the Professionalization of Numeracy Teachers, comprising two actors (FPNT)	- Teacher24, comprising four actors, digital platform of, for and by teachers, aimed at supporting teachers in the practice of their profession - Education Cooperative, comprising eleven actors, cooperative society of large teacher unions and smaller professional groups, aiming at empowerment of teachers and organization and improvement of the teaching profession (Coop) - Education Foundation, comprising fourteen actors, platform of employer organizations, employee organizations, student organizations and the Coop, aimed at structural consultation with government about supporting and improving education (EF)

Table 3. Documents and coding.

		Case 1 Raising Standards	Case 2 Learning organizations
Documents
Total number		47	59
Coding
Issue-content	Description policy issue, including urgency, purpose	92	115
Issue-other	Other legitimations, e.g. connection with other policies	1	31
Activities	Pursued by the actor re the policy, e.g. conduct or commission research, provide info, support schools	230	165
Info	Information produced or used by the actor re the policy, e.g. monitoring, indicators, targets	137	170
		460	481

Table 4. Findings.

	Raising standards	Learning organization
Network design strategies
Establish new actors	– Initiate two new actors SORS and PSI – Stimulate the forming a new composite actor FPNT – Instal two specific temporary committees CN and CR	– Create a new large composite actor Coop
Re-arrange and shift positions of actors	– Position the VO-raad as key player by assigning responsibility to the VO-raad for the obtained results of school districts with respect to ‘raising standards’ policy – Position CvTE, IE and SORS as central actors – Foster the coalition of CN, CR, FPNT, CITO, CvtE, SLO, and SORS within the policy network as a very dense subnetwork which specifically focuses on raising numeracy standards – Bolster the composite actors Teacher24 and FPNT	– Position the VO-raad as key player by assigning responsibility for the obtained results of school districts with respect to ‘learning organization’ policy – Bolster the composite actors Coop and EF and position them as central actors – Integrate Coop into EF – Bolster the composite actor Teacher24
Influence actor’s roles and tasks	– Mandate IE to monitor how schools address literacy and numeracy disadvantage, and whether and how they implement raising standards policy – Formulate questions CN and CR must answer (operationalization and implementation of the policy) and what is beyond the scope of their advice (e.g. aims of the policy as such)	– Mandate IE to include indicators related to school developing as learning organizations in its supervisory framework and to launch an investigation focusing on schools as learning organizations – Mandate IE to support, advise and help schools to become learning organizations
Resourcing strategies
Provide/withhold actors with funds for generic or specific purposes	– Provide project funding to CITO to carry out a pilot project on diagnostic testing and student assessment systems with 300 schools – Provide project funding to CvTE and SLO to develop assignments, tests, exams and teaching methods and material – Financially support VO-raad, PSI, SORS, CITO, SLO and Teacher24 to support, advise and help schools to implement ‘literacy and numeracy education improvement’ – Provide project funding for FPNT to train and professionalize specialized numeracy teachers	– Provide project funding to the VO-raad, Coop, PSI and Teacher24 to support, advise and help schools to become learning organizations – Provide research grants to expert and research organizations to carry out research and consultancy projects on schools as learning organizations – Make yearly progress at the sector level a condition for school districts to obtain additional funds (Functiemix)
Enable/disable actors through provisions such as regulations and fiscal law	– Close an administrative agreement with the VO-raad addressing the ‘raising standards’ policy	– Close three administrative agreements with the VO-raad, Coop and EF addressing the ‘learning organization’ policy
Granting knowledge and authority to actors		– Grant authority to the Coop by referring repeatedly to it in policy documents, presenting it as a bottom-up initiative from teachers – Grant authority to AT! by presenting it repeatedly in policy documents as ‘best practice’
Framing strategies Influence the perception and sensemaking of actors regarding …
… the content of the policy issue	– Communicate the mantra ‘together’ in relation to the ‘raising standards’ policy, using terms as: ‘commitment of all parties involved’, ‘it must be done in the classroom by school leaders, staff, teachers’, ‘make joint efforts’, etc. – Communicate the particular roles for (numeracy) teachers and school leaders with respect to the ‘raising standards’ policy	– Commission research and consultant projects on how to give shape to schools as learning organizations in practice – Activate actors in the ‘learning organization’ policy network to conceptualize, advise and provide examples of good practices of the policy issue
… the urgency of the policy issue	– Communicate in urgent terms about ‘raising standards’ policy (e.g. ‘the alarm clock is ringing’, ‘students are at high risk of getting stuck’, ‘students should not be the victims of poor literacy and numeracy education’, etc.) – Allow schools additional time to implement the policy, but communicate the warning that this cannot be a reason for schools ‘to tone down their ambitions’ – Intensify the ‘raising standards’ policy in the field of numeracy education by communicating and by commissioning SORS to develop activities and instrumentation including setting up counselling interviews with schools.
… the purpose of the policy	– Communicate that all schools are expected to make strong efforts to get as many students as possible to the required attainment levels and pass the test	– Communicate that all schools are expected to become organizations where teachers, teams, leaders and school districts build a learning culture together in which they continuously work to improve the quality of education – Embed the notion of schools as learning organizations in a wider ambition for the education system as a whole, to make the step from ‘good’ to ‘great’
… the scope and/or specifics of policy goals by setting indicators, standards and targets	– Emphasize particularly on raising numeracy standards – Include specific targets for literacy and numeracy in the administrative agreement with the VO-raad: ‘Students succeed with a 0.2 point higher score on the final exam for the subject Dutch, English and mathematics’	– Turn the general policy goals with respect to ‘school as learning organizations’ into firm agreements about concrete targets for which the parties involved can be held accountable, e.g. the proportion of teachers involved in performance and peer review. – Formulate concrete targets at the sector level to be reached within five years, monitor the progress yearly.