Developing an effective education reform model for indigenous and other minoritized students

Abstract

Educational disparities between indigenous Maori students and those of the majority continue to be a major issue in New Zealand. Te Kotahitanga, an iterative research and development programme, which commenced in 2001, supports teachers to implement a relationship-based pedagogy in their classrooms in order to improve Maori students' achievement in mainstream secondary schools. This article addresses the question of how gains in Maori students' achievement can be sustained and expanded. Schools, from an earlier phase of the project, in their 6th and 7th year of the programme were examined, using a theory-based model designed to evaluate and promote dimensions necessary for effective institutional support of the teaching innovation. This article demonstrates that schools that have been the most effective implementers of the intervention have seen the greatest gains made by Maori students in the 1st year of national assessments. This article then discusses effective leadership for addressing problems schools encountered while implementing the pedagogic reform.

Keywords:

• indigenous
• minoritized
• reform

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the funding provided for this research and development by the New Zealand Ministry of Education. Also, we are grateful to the Te Kotahitanga research and development team whose work is represented in this article. Above all, we wish to acknowledge and thank the schools and their leaders who made this work possible.

Notes

 1. A similar pattern is to be found in the United States, where Villegas and Lucas (2002) identify, “[h]istorically, members of economically poor and minority groups have not succeeded in schools at rates comparable to those of their white, middle-class, standard English-speaking peers.” (p. xi). In Europe, the migrations of people from previous colonies with their different age structures and birth rates has created a similar pattern of diversity and disparity among the school-age population, where now sizable groups of ethnic and religious minorities are evident in most towns and cities (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2007).

 2. The Te Kotahitanga Professional development cycle: In Phase 3, the professional development for teachers commenced with a series of formal and informal introductory meetings, where the project was outlined to each school's leader and staff. Once the school had agreed to take part, the professional development for teachers was promoted through a sequence of professional development activities.

	These activities include:
	(1)the induction workshop for teachers and principals (termed the hui whakarewa), which is followed by a term-by-term cycle of the following four specific but interdependent activities;
	(2)individual teacher in-class observations using the Te Kotahitanga Observation tool (see Bishop et al., 2003), which is designed to assist teachers to begin to implement the Effective Teaching Profile in their classroom by providing them with information and targeted feedback about their planning, strategies used, relationships established in the classrooms, the range of interactions observed, and information about student participation and performance;
	(3)individual teacher feedback and co-construction sessions. At previously negotiated times following the classroom observations, facilitators give teachers specific feedback about the lesson they have formally observed using the observation tool. Facilitators and teachers talk about their in-class experiences and begin to co-construct new directions in terms of setting individual goals to improve the participation and engagement of Māori students in their classrooms;
	(4)group co-construction meetings for teachers of a common class reflecting upon student participation and achievement evidence with focused group goal setting. The aim is to collaboratively examine evidence of Māori (and other) students' participation and progress with learning and to develop group plans and strategies that will promote discursive interactions, caring and learning relationships and improve those students' educational experiences, participation and achievement;
	(5)targeted shadow-coaching sessions in order to move towards targeted goals (from feedback and co-construction sessions). Shadow coaching involves the in-school facilitators supporting individual teachers to meet their personal and group goals by coaching them in their classroom or other environment where work towards the goal is naturally likely to occur.
	In addition, staff were also involved in “new knowledge”, “new strategy”, or “new assessment” professional development sessions which tended to be run by the school leaders on a “needs be” basis. (These activities are detailed in Bishop & Berryman, 2010). The in-school facilitators were in turn supported and provided with feedback on their actions by the university-based research and development team through workshops and in-school visits on a regular basis. (Details of the first 2 years of this phase are contained in Bishop et al., 2007; the next 2 in Bishop et al., 2008, and Bishop, O'Sullivan, & Berryman, 2010, as well as in Timperley, Wilson, Barrar, & Fung, 2007; the outcomes of research and development from 2007 to 2009 are in Bishop et al., 2011. The outcomes of a 3-year evaluation of Te Kotahitanga is to be found in Meyer et al., 2010).

 3. Assessment Tool for Teaching and Learning (asTTLe) are norm-referenced assessment tools that are used for both formative and summative purposes in both elementary and junior secondary New Zealand schools. The test items, which primarily were developed by teachers, mainly focus on literacy and numeracy skills and knowledge.

 4. The project commenced in 2001 working with a small number of teachers from 5 schools. It was expanded in 2002 to 2 secondary and 1 intermediate school working with the whole staff. These two were termed Phases 1 and 2, respectively. In 2003, the project was expanded to a further group of 12 secondary schools, which became the third phase of the project. These schools are the subject of the research in this article. In 2007 and 2009, the fourth and fifth phases of the project were implemented with 21 and 17 schools, respectively.

 5. ERO carries out an inspection of New Zealand schools every 3 years, and the subsequent ERO reports are made available for public scrutiny. We used the latest ERO reports on the schools to inform each case study.

 6. Each year, Te Kotahitanga schools are asked to summarise their response to the core tasks associated with the project. This includes the number of teachers in the project, the time allocated to the project for each member of the facilitation team, how each component of the professional development cycle is operating, and something the school is proud of and something it is being challenged by in relation to Te Kotahitanga.

 7. National Certificate in Educational Achievement (NCEA) Level 1, is the 1st year of external national examinations that students experience in New Zealand schools. They normally occur at the end of Year 11, the 3rd year of secondary schooling for most students.

 8. The following areas were covered in these interviews:

	What do you know about Te Kotahitanga?
	What's it like to be a Māori student at this school?
	In your experience, what do effective teachers do?
	Explain how effective this has been for you?
	How do your whānau find out what's happening with you at school?
	Tell us about the leaders in your school?
	What are your goals for the future?
	How will what you have been learning impact on your goals?

 9. In doing this, we assumed that the residual effect of previous high implementation would impact positively on student achievement.

10. Decile rating refers to the Ministry of Education's means of identifying schools in terms of the mean socioeconomic level of the parents of the school's student population.

11. The average (mean) difference between 2004–9 was around 6%.