Exploring Politicians and Education Policy: A Q&A with Sheridan Dudley
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Written by Sheridan Dudley, author of Politicians and Education Policy
A Brief Information about the Book
Based on an in-depth case study, this book reveals how politicians, as policy makers, conceptualize, develop and initiate large-scale education system reform and why it matters for whole system improvement. It shows how the political context impacts the development of education policy and reveals the critical and dynamic relationships between politics, policy and process. It distils lessons and identifies three practical strategic frameworks which provide new ways of understanding and engaging in whole system reform.
Offering unique “insider” insights from an Education Minister, his staff, public servants and key stakeholders, this book is written for all politicians, policy makers and educators involved in school improvement, as well as students of educational leadership and policy.
What inspired you to write Politicians and Education Policy, and what central message do you hope readers take away from it?
When I became Chief of Staff to the new Education Minister in NSW, the first question we asked each other was: ‘How do we actually turn the election promises we’ve made into system-changing policies?”
We quickly discovered that is no guidebook or generally-agreed set of principles which ministers can draw on to do this, and there is almost no research or guidance as to what they or their offices actually do, step-by-step, day-by-day, in developing policy – which meant making it up and learning as we went along!
So I wrote this book because I wanted to provide research-based evidence into how politicians actually do this, and to identify practical strategic frameworks and some guiding principles which might assist politicians, as well as policy makers, stakeholders and researchers more broadly, to develop whole system reforms that have an increased chance of successful outcomes for our students and our schools.
It is the book the Minister and I would have wanted to have!
The message I hope readers will take away from it is that it is only by understanding how all the policy actors, policy parameters and policy impacts are connected and related, that politicians, practitioners, policy makers, key stakeholders and researchers will have a better chance of talking with, rather than past one another, and collaboratively designing effective policies for whole system school improvement.
Can you elaborate on the in-depth case study featured in your book and its significance in understanding education policy development?
One area which appears to be completely missing from the research in education policy is any detailed “complete insider” case study of the process of developing a single large-scale education system reform in the political context of an Education Minister’s office.
My case study helps to fill that gap as it explores and analyses the day-to-day events through which the NSW Education Minister in his role as a policy maker, conceptualised and developed the large-scale education system reform Local Schools, Local Decisions (LSLD) in its system and political contexts.
LSLD was one of the first and most complex of the Minister’s nineteen reforms and was described as representing the greatest change to school governance, funding and decision-making in more than 160 years of public education in NSW due to its significant impacts on all 2,200 government schools, as well as on the Central Office of the Department, over the next ten years.
It was a major focus of our policy work during the Minister’s first year in government when we were still learning as we went along and didn’t always get things right. The case study therefore details not only what we did successfully, but it also describes where we made mistakes. In my book I therefore draw out themes and lessons about what works well in education policy development but I also explore what doesn’t work so well.
The significance of the case study is that it provides insider insights into the politics of policy making and the role of ministers, both at the overall level of politics and policy development, as well as at the detailed level of how politicians interact with public servants, principals, schools, key education stakeholders and researchers during the process.
In particular, it demonstrates that large-scale education system reform depends at least as much on the politics of the reform process as it does on the technical design of the reform, and that understanding the role of politicians in education policy making is therefore necessary for whole system improvement.
What are some common challenges politicians face when implementing whole system improvements in education?
In my book I focus only on the process of the development of the LSLD policy by the Minister for Education and his Office in the political context of government, rather than on its implementation.
However, when I interviewed insiders about challenges that had occurred with LSLD they all raised implementation issues which we might have avoided if they had been more fully considered during the policy development process and included in the policy itself. These included: not preparing schools well enough or giving them the skill sets needed to utilise the reforms; the lack of training for principals to take on new roles; an underestimation of the workload involved; and the amount of time it actually took to implement such a large-scale system reform.
When I asked the Minister what the challenges of whole system improvements in education are and how to meet them, he said:
“Politicians need to stay on top of reform development and implementation, and preferably in front of it. Ensure the execution of the policy and the monitoring of its implementation are built into the reform design.”
What future research directions do you suggest for scholars interested in the intersection of politics and education policy?
My research shows that ministerial leadership is essential for education system change, but to transform whole systems, you need politicians, policymakers, stakeholders, practitioners and researchers to work together.
So I think it would be helpful to have additional case studies on the role of politicians in large-scale education system reform in other jurisdictions and contexts to test the themes, frameworks and lessons which I have identified and further refine and develop them.
Other areas where empirical research of all kinds is needed into the politics of education and large-scale education system reform include: macro-level, cross-national assessments of how successful reform may be correlated with the political context, including ministerial tenure, union negotiations, and stakeholder power; and micro-level, case-based process investigations which examine successful reform strategies and give attention to the detail of their implementation.
Politicians and Education Policy: Why It Matters for Whole System Improvement
Based on an in-depth case study, this book reveals how politicians, as policy makers, conceptualise, develop and initiate large-scale education system reform and why it matters for whole system school improvement.