Table Of ContentScience, Technology and Innovation Studies
Alexander M. Sidorkin
Mark K. Warford Editors
Reforms and
Innovation
in Education
Implications for the Quality of Human
Capital
Science, Technology and Innovation
Studies
Serieseditors
LeonidGokhberg
Moscow,Russia
DirkMeissner
Moscow,Russia
Science, technology and innovation (STI) studies are interrelated, as are STI
policies and policy studies. This series of books aims to contribute to improved
understanding of these interrelations. Their importance has become more widely
recognized,astheroleofinnovationindrivingeconomicdevelopmentandfoster-
ingsocietal welfare has become almost conventional wisdom. Interdisciplinary in
coverage, the series focuses on the links between STI, business, and the broader
economy andsociety.Theseries includesconceptual and empirical contributions,
which aim to extend our theoretical grasp while offering practical relevance.
RelevanttopicsincludetheeconomicandsocialimpactsofSTI,STIpolicydesign
and implementation, technology and innovation management, entrepreneurship
(and related policies), foresight studies, and analysis of emerging technologies.
Theseriesisaddressedtoprofessionalsinresearchandteaching,consultanciesand
industry,governmentandinternationalorganizations.
Moreinformationaboutthisseriesathttp://www.springer.com/series/13398
Alexander M. Sidorkin (cid:129) Mark K. Warford
Editors
Reforms and Innovation in
Education
Implications for the Quality of Human
Capital
Editors
AlexanderM.Sidorkin MarkK.Warford
CaliforniaStateUniversitySacramento BuffaloStateCollege
NationalResearchUniversity Buffalo,NewYork
HigherSchoolofEconomics USA
Sacramento,CA
USA
Science,TechnologyandInnovationStudies
ISBN978-3-319-60245-5 ISBN978-3-319-60246-2 (eBook)
DOI10.1007/978-3-319-60246-2
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2017947701
#SpringerInternationalPublishingAG2017
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Contents
1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
AlexanderM.SidorkinandMarkK.Warford
2 EducationalInnovationDiffusion:ConfrontingComplexities. . . . . . . 11
MarkK.Warford
3 TheNatureofEducationalInnovation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
ArthurK.Ellis
4 PeopleMatters:InnovationsinInstitutionallyWeakContexts. . . . . . 53
PeterA.Safronov
5 InnovatorsfromWithinandfromWithouttheEducation
System. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
DianaKorolevaandTatianaKhavenson
6 IdentifyingFactorsAssociatedwiththeSurvivalandSuccess
ofGrassrootsEducationalInnovations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
IvanSmirnov
7 UnderstandingTechnologyIntegrationFailuresinEducation:
TheNeedforZero-OrderBarriers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
IliasKarasavvidisandVassilisKollias
8 HumanCapitalandInnovationsinEducation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
AlexanderM.Sidorkin
Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
v
1
Introduction
Alexander M. Sidorkin and Mark K. Warford
Mostnationalgovernmentshavesomesortofaneducationreformgoingonalmost
constantly. The interest arises from two major sources. First, labor economists
(David et al. 2001) predict changes in the nature of labor markets across the
developed world. The demand for nonroutine interactive and nonroutine analytic
tasks is on the rise. The routine cognitive and manual tasks are in decline. These
concernspromptedindustryleaderstoconceptualizethenewdemandsoneducation
andtodescribethenewkindsofskillsneededbythefutureworkplace.
The most prominent is the twenty-first-century skills framework1 that has
captured the imagination of policymakers around the world. It accepts the basic
assumption that the share of manual and routine cognitive labor declines and the
shareofnonroutinecognitivelaborincreases.Therefore,wemustreformeducation
to provide students with skills more appropriate in the new economy: global
awareness; financial, economic, business, and entrepreneurial literacy; civic liter-
acy; health literacy;creativity and innovation; critical thinking and problem solv-
ing; communication and collaboration; information literacy; media literacy; ICT
literacy;flexibility andadaptability; initiativeand self-direction; social and cross-
cultural skills; productivity and accountability; leadership and responsibility; and
environmental literacy.2 Stated mainly as a set of goals, the framework does not
offer a clear way to achieve them. The problem of preparation for nonroutine
1PartnershipfortheTwenty-FirstCenturyskills,http://www.p21.org,AssessmentandTeachingof
Twenty-FirstCenturySkills(ATC21S),http://atc21s.org
2PartnershipfortheTwenty-FirstCenturyskills,http://www.p21.org
A.M.Sidorkin(*)
CaliforniaStateUniversitySacramento,NationalResearchUniversityHigherSchoolof
Economics,Sacramento,CA,USA
e-mail:[email protected]
M.K.Warford
BuffaloStateCollege,StateUniversityofNewYork,Buffalo,NY,USA
e-mail:[email protected]
#SpringerInternationalPublishingAG2017 1
A.M.Sidorkin,M.K.Warford(eds.),ReformsandInnovationinEducation,
Science,TechnologyandInnovationStudies,DOI10.1007/978-3-319-60246-2_1
2 A.M.SidorkinandM.K.Warford
cognitiveworkisdifficulttoaddress,forwehavenotyetlearnedhowtomeasure
skills that include critical and creative thinking and emotional and social intelli-
gence,letalonehowtodeveloptheminmostyouth.Someofthemostinnovative
work in educational assessment is being done to address the issue. For example,
Patrick Griffin and his colleagues in Australia have combined data mining
techniques with item response theory to produce a working prototype of an
instrument for measuring ability to collaborate, readiness to take other’s perspec-
tive, cooperative problem-solving ability, etc.3 The Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) has two separate international projects:
oneonsocialandemotionalskillsandanotheroncreativeandcriticalthinking.
It is important to note that the twenty-first-century skills are not really new. A
certain proportion of the population have them now and had them before.
Michelangelo was definitely a creative thinker, and Nietzsche had good critical
thinking skills. What is new is the need to scale up those skills beyond the small
intellectual and creative elite. For such a task, we simply do not have any
instrumentsotherthanmasspubliceducationalsystems.Thereisnothingcompara-
ble by the scale, by the potential ability to reach every child and most of young
people, and by public and private investments in the infrastructure and personnel
alreadymade.Butpubliceducationsystemswerecreatedforadifferentsocietyand
adifferentsetofskillsappropriatefortheindustrialage.Thetaskathandistofigure
out how education at all levels—from primary to tertiary—can be retooled to
developthetwenty-first-centuryskillsinthemajorityofthepopulation.
Yet there are significant concerns about the ability of education systems to
change.Therearemanyworries,andwewillonlyfocusonthree:
1. Unlikemanyotherindustries,educationhashardlybenefitedfromtheinforma-
tiontechnologyboomofthelastthreedecades.Consideringthatitislargelyan
information-based industry, the little impact of information technologies on
educational outcomes is, at the very least, peculiar. We seem to be always on
thevergeofoneoranothertechnologicalororganizationalrevolutionineduca-
tionforalongtimenow,andyettheynevermanagetomaterialize.Thereislittle
evidence to show that information technology does any good to schools and
universities, partly because quality impact studies are actually quite rare
(Blumenstyk2016).TheOrganizationforEconomicCooperationandDevelop-
ment has one of the most comprehensive data sets on learning outcomes for
secondary students. The organization has been actively promoting
informatization of education, and yet it found little evidence that information
technologies have made significant impact on student learning outcomes
(Schleicher2015).Wedonothavecomparabledataonhighereducation;there
issimplynowaytomeasurestudentlearningoutcomesreliably.Butnoonecan
point at significant gains in higher education student learning because of the
3Griffin,Patrick,McGaw,Barry,Care,andEsther(Eds.),AssessmentandTeachingofTwenty-
FirstCenturySkills,Springer,2012.
1 Introduction 3
technologyinfusion.Evenanecdotally,onewouldbehardpressedtoarguethat
today’suniversitystudentsaresignificantly betterthantheirparentsatcreative
and critical thinking, collaboration, and communication. It is implausible that
the technologyitselfistoblame orthat implementation has been flawed. Most
likely, we deal with poorly understood institutional limitations within educa-
tional systems that affect their ability to take advantage of the technological
innovations.
2. Another observable fact is the inordinate volume of educational reforming in
multiple countries in most regions of the world. The standards-based reforms
have been going oninNorthAmerica andEurope for many years; avarietyof
reforming efforts are currently in place in Asia and in post-Soviet countries
(Malone2013).Manyareformcomeandgo,andyeteducationalsystemstendto
reproduce themselves with a remarkable persistence. The “life in classrooms,”
as it was once described by Philip Jackson (1968), is still readily recognizable
today,whiletheworldaroundithaschanged.One isalreadymentioned—they
seemtobechangingveryslowly.LarryCuban(2013)makesacasethatactual
classroompracticeshardlychangeatall,despitewavesofreformsthathappenin
the upper layers of the educational atmosphere. He writes about fundamental
(second-order) and incremental (first-order) changes (pp. 277–295). Cuban
sums up the effect of reforms: “Yet, overall, these first-order or incremental
changes have largely left intact teaching routines that students’ grandparents
visiting these schools would find familiar” (pp. 168–169). And further, “basic
instructionalpracticessuchaslectures,whole-groupactivities,question/answer
recitations, textbooks, homework, blackboards, work sheets, paper-and-pencil
testspersist.Inshort,continuityinclassroompracticehastrumpedfundamental
reformsinteaching”(pp.175–177).Theunusualstabilityofclassroompractices
has been noted by many scholars, for a long time. See, for instance, Goodlad
(1984), Cohen and Hill (2001), and Sarason (1982). In education research
community, there is little doubt that is it real, yet we still do not understand
whythisisthecase.
3. Many national educational systemscontinue tobecome moreand moreexpen-
sive.Inconstantdollars,in1920,Americansspent$355perpupilannually.By
1990, the figure became close to $5000 (Snyder 1993, p. 59). By 2008/2009,
thesepeakedto$11,621andsincethendeclinedveryslightly(NCESFastFacts).
Forhighereducation,thetrendsaresimilar,with$15,772perstudentinaverage
forOECDcountryand$28and$25thousandfortheUSAandUK,respectively
(OECD, Education at a glance, 2016). Besides struggling to control costs,
educationsystemsarestillunabletoclosedowntheachievement gap,both for
socioeconomic status and for race (Howard 2015). In other words, education
does not seem to be able to solve its own two most profound problems. Given
thatthevastpubliceducationsystemswerecreatedinparttomitigateinequality,
the inability to cope with its own fundamental problems is worrying.
Massification, achieving equity, and cost control are three sides of the same
problem. The conversion to the twenty-first-century skills model requires
4 A.M.SidorkinandM.K.Warford
addressing all three, and whatever the solutions may be, they will require an
opennesstoinnovation.
Paradoxically, educationalsystemsgenerateplenty ofinnovations.Areport by
theOrganizationforEconomicCooperationandDevelopment(OECD,Measuring
Innovation, 2014) placed education as the second most innovative industry after
manufacturing. The findings are based mostly on self-reporting, but there is other
evidence that innovations in education are being generated. Something must be
going on with the way innovations spread and are sustained in education. Appar-
ently,manyinnovationsdonotdiffuse,andthosethatdoonlyrarely“stick.”This
bookisanattempttostartdecipheringthegenuinemysteryofinnovationdiffusion
ineducation.
We take the most basic definition of innovation found in the aforementioned
OECD report, which is based on the definition by the Oslo Manual and which, in
turn,ascendstotheclassicdefinitionbySchumpeter(1912):
Educational organisations, e.g. schools, universities, training centres, introduce (1) new
products and services, e.g. new syllabi, (2) new processes for delivering their services,
e.g.useofICTine-learningservices,(3)newwaysoforganisingtheiractivities,e.g.ICTto
communicatewithstudentsandparents,and(4)newmarketingtechniques,e.g.differential
pricingofpostgraduatecourses.Thesenewpracticesareintendedtoimprovetheeducation
serviceinonewayoranother,andtherefore,innovationsineducationshouldberegardedas
“improvements.”(OECD,MeasuringInnovation,23).
The definition is very broad, and it does not fit education perfectly, because as
theauthorsofthereportpointout,educationalorganizationsdonothaveonesetof
measurable outcomes. In other words, “improvement” is sometimes in the eye of
the beholder.Yet itworksreasonablywell tocapture the multitudeofattemptsto
improveeducationthroughchangingit.
Our overall initial hypothesis is that education stands aside from other social
sphereswithrespecttoinnovationandchange.Ineducation,reformsmayintendto
speed up innovation, but in many cases have the opposite effect. Reforms may
hinderratherthandriveinnovation.Ifweunderstandthecausesofsuchphenome-
non, we may be able to suggest how a new generation of reforming can be
conceived.Andunderstandinghowitcouldbedonedependsonacriticalanalysis
ofhowandwhyitdidnothappensofar.
Thisinitialbroadhypothesisledustoseveralquestions:Whatkindofprocesses
actuallyoccurstoconflictwiththepragmaticsofmakinginnovationdiffusibleand
sustainable?Howdoinnovationsdependoncertaininstitutionalandhumanactors?
This book is an attempt to consider possible reasons for the emergence of
innovation-repulsiveenvironmentsineducation.
Educationisavastanddiversefield.Itencompasseseverythingfrompreschool
toelementary,secondary,andtertiaryeducation.Tertiaryeducation,inturn,issplit
intovocational,mass,andelitesectors,aswellasmultiplebranchesbyprofession
and types of institutions. In this book, we mostly deal with elementary and
secondary levels of education, in their public forms. Where other sectors are
