A Crucial Element of Democracy

This is a blog by Robert Gutierrez ...
While often taken for granted, civics education plays a crucial role in a democracy like ours. This Blog is dedicated to enticing its readers into taking an active role in the formulation of the civics curriculum found in their local schools. In order to do this, the Blog is offering a newer way to look at civics education, a newer construct - liberated federalism or federation theory. Daniel Elazar defines federalism as "the mode of political organization that unites separate polities within an overarching political system by distributing power among general and constituent governments in a manner designed to protect the existence and authority of both." It depends on its citizens acting in certain ways which Elazar calls federalism's processes. Federation theory, as applied to civics curriculum, has a set of aims. They are:
*Teach a view of government as a supra federated institution of society in which collective interests of the commonwealth are protected and advanced.
*Teach the philosophical basis of government's role as guardian of the grand partnership of citizens at both levels of individuals and associations of political and social intercourse.
*Convey the need of government to engender levels of support promoting a general sense of obligation and duty toward agreed upon goals and processes aimed at advancing the common betterment.
*Establish and justify a political morality which includes a process to assess whether that morality meets the needs of changing times while holding true to federalist values.
*Emphasize the integrity of the individual both in terms of liberty and equity in which each citizen is a member of a compacted arrangement and whose role is legally, politically, and socially congruent with the spirit of the Bill of Rights.
*Find a balance between a respect for national expertise and an encouragement of local, unsophisticated participation in policy decision-making and implementation.
Your input, as to the content of this Blog, is encouraged through this Blog directly or the Blog's email address: gravitascivics@gmail.com .
NOTE: This blog has led to the publication of a book. The title of that book is TOWARD A FEDERATED NATION: IMPLEMENTING NATIONAL CIVICS STANDARDS and it is available through Amazon in both ebook and paperback versions.

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

EVALUATION I: DIAGNOSIS AND REVISION

This blog is currently summarizing the factors that affect the processes of organizational change.  It is offering a model of change that is made up of phases, as opposed to steps.  To date, the phases problem identification, staffing, “unfreezing,” rule making, information gathering, negotiating, conflict ameliorating, and testing have been described and explained.  This posting looks at evaluating.  This will be the first of a set of postings dedicated to evaluation.
Evaluation:  To understand the role evaluation plays in a viable change strategy, one needs to take a broader view of it than what it is usually given.  The aim here is more than giving a grade or something comparable to what is going on.  It is more than determining whether things are going according to plan.  Yes, these concerns are present, but there is more.
Borrowing from the ideas expressed by Elliot W. Eisner concerning evaluation, the following functions of evaluation are drawn:  diagnosis, revision, comparison, anticipation of needs, and determination of achievement.[1]  His application of these functions are mostly aimed at the evaluation of student performance. 
Here, Eisner’s ideas are modified to evaluate a change effort, both in terms of determining values associated with the change before, during, and after the effort is conducted, and also other related concerns which are delineated below and in the following postings.
A word of context:  as it is stated above, the term phase is used to indicate that the various types of activities comprising change efforts are not cookbook steps.  Each phase is broad, and not meant to designate discreet “steps.”  They are actions that have a less designated character.  That includes what will be described as evaluation.
For example, the first Eisner function of evaluation – diagnosis – can well be considered an aspect of problem identification, the first phase, and information gathering, the fifth phase identified in this model.  The diagnoses under evaluation, though, is aimed at acquiring that information that assist subjects at arriving at its desired – previously identified – results.
Eisner indicates that he borrows the term diagnosis from the medical field but points out that one should not expect that this form of analysis has the tests or technological gadgetry that the medical profession has at its disposal.  In education – and one can add in most organizational settings – the act of diagnosing is more an art than a science or an engineering practice.  In addition, at this phase, the review of the school’s effectiveness has been completed and has led to the change effort in question.  What is now being diagnosed is the progression of a change process.
Specifically, one is trying to determine where and what are the problems that are popping up as the testing protocol is being conducted.  These can be of two sources which have already been cited in this blog:  the social realm and the technological realm.  Of course, problems can have both sources at once.
This type of analysis needs to be constant throughout the process.  Solutions or treatments must be devised.  This in turn might cause one to do more research through reviewing the appropriate literature, interviewing appropriate experts, and/or talking to the subjects.  At times, questioning subjects need not happen in that they are more than willing to let an agent know what the problem(s) is/are.
The agent is looking for “bridges;” that is, those bits of information or changes in the plan that can get the subjects from where they are to where, for the sake of the change, need to be.  As much as possible, the solutions or treatments need to be tailored to the personalities, dispositions, other value orientations of the subjects or to the capacities of the technology being used. 
While posing its own challenges in trying to maintain the integrity of the change, individualization – catering to the biases of those involved – should be sought to the extent possible.  Here the concerns can range from personal problems subjects bring to the work place to more professional commitments the subjects harbor.
Accordingly, the information contained in Topic II of this book – the philosophies, the approaches, the psychological and sociological beliefs of the subjects – come in handy.  That information can serve as a starting point by which to understand where the subjects are mentally as the change effort begins and as it progresses.[2]
If one thinks that this sort of diagnosis should be part of the information gathering phase or even the problem identification phase; this writer does not necessarily disagree.  The writer’s reluctance of using the term, diagnosis, in the earlier phases is its connotation of trying to find problems.  Information gathering and problem identification phases should be more objective in its approach.  Yes, that goes for problem identification.  Those phases should be able to find there are no significant problems to “fix” or even to address.
Here, evaluation presupposes a “measuring” outlook.  That is, how well are things going as the change effort unfolds?  After all, one does not go to a doctor for a diagnosis unless one suspects something is wrong.  A prudent approach assumes problems exist with the change effort – the track record of such efforts would justify such an assumption.
The next function identified by Eisner is revision.  This function is usually referred to in the education literature as formative evaluation.  Its aim is to improve an educational effort and, as oppose to diagnosis, the emphasis is on changing the change process, not garnering the information, per se
Its process is to insert review points and questions during development and implementation of an educational effort to determine whether there is progress toward the stated objectives the effort has pursued.  Therefore, it is not a day-to-day revision, but one inserted at key points.  Everything associated with the effort is fair game; that includes reviewing the aims and goals of the effort itself.
One concern of such a review is to detect any Hawthorn effect.  That is, an agent should place heighten interest to see if those who are engaged in the change, due to their probable increased buy-in, might be prone to overlook problems.  People who exert energy in trying to accomplish what they see as important, tend to perceive its implementation through “rosy” glasses.  Hence, they become poor evaluators.  Being on the lookout for such a bias can help in meeting this obstacle to conducting an objective evaluation.
Obviously, formative evaluation is highly dependent on conversations between and among agents and subjects.  Subjects in a curricular change is not just the involved teachers but affected students, other teachers, administrators, parents, in some cases, the custodial staff, etc.  All affected parties – directly and indirectly – need to be heard.  They will each have a reaction and, given their strategic role, can play a determining part in the effort’s success.
One-point Eisner makes is that, contrary to the way earlier curricular change efforts viewed teachers, they are not interchangeable elements – they are not mere “tubes.”  “Teachers cannot and should not be bypassed.  Materials guarantee nothing.  What they do is to expand the range of resources with which teachers and students can work.  They are not a substitute for teachers.”[3]
In this regard, a realistic view of student and parent performance need to be kept in mind.  If they are not behaving, as Eisner phrases it, within “conventional assumptions,” then customary curricular effort will not be successful.  In turn, such a situation indicates what needs to be addressed and changed; i.e., this very dysfunctional behaviors on the part of students and/or parents.  Some might consider this a non-curricular issue.
This is a good definitional concern.  It is possible that certain curricular changes could address extreme student and parental attitudes and behaviors that can be determined to be counterproductive.  But if not, this calls for qualitatively, differing approach.  Frankly, such an extreme case needs its own theoretical treatment beyond the purposes of this book.
To return to the current concern, revision is what it is.  This level or aspect of evaluation is essential and, as with many of the other aspects of change, deserves focused attention.  The agent should spend meaningful levels of time and interest in the questions that are asked and the information that those questions generate to make those revisions in the change strategy. 
It is this writer’s experience that informs him that an agent is not given too many opportunities to implement change, so he/she needs to strive for success when the opportunity is there.  He/she should not experience failure due to the lack of a timely revision.



[1] Elliot W. Eisner, The Educational Imagination:  On the Design and Evaluation of School Programs (New York, NY:  MacMillan Publishing Company, 1985).

 [2] This writer estimates that in a given school, about 80% are essentialists/behaviorist, just under 20% are progressives/humanists, 1 or 2 Perennialist/academics, and, if any, a reconstructionist/reconceptualist.

[3] Elliot W. Eisner, The Educational Imagination:  On the Design and Evaluation of School Programs, 195.

No comments:

Post a Comment