Although I can speak only for the U.S. government, I can imagine that most governmental interventions create nothing but disasters for the teachers in classrooms.  When the NCLB foolishness began with all the high-stakes testing, the departure of teachers was huge, as Douglas points out.  But the impact of NCLB continues into college core curriculum with freshmen and sophomores.  Far too often, principals "pass" weak students just to keep the federal figures looking good; too often these students wind up failing even in small junior colleges.  Some students, who manage to score the "magic 20" on the ACT, get into four-year universities, where they are totally unprepared.  The ACT organization tells us that a 20 represents a 50/50 possibility that a student may survive the freshman year.  Most do not survive and our university alone loses $2 million per year on dropouts. Now even our universities are beginning to dictate what percentage of students can be failed (or withdraw) per semester. This is a different form of intervention--the university directly rather than the government itself. 

Outcome-Based Education has been in place in different states across the U.S. for several decades.  It is not any more effective than any other direct, intervention by the government, whether federal, state, or local. The presence of intrinsic motivation may help teachers remain in place--but even the best motivated teacher grows weary of being told she/he must teach EXACTLY this or that guidelines, sub-paragraph 2(a), ad infinitum. Right now many of our K-12 educators are trying to figure out how to teach with this Common Core Curriculum, supposedly designed to prepare our students for a globalized world.  Well, I can pretty much guarantee from what we are seeing so far that the kids I see may be prepared--so long as they don't have to calculate anything.  They may be able to reason out a fun game to play about ratio and proportion, but don't ask them to set up a proportion and figure out how to calculate it.  "Word problems" confound them and most high-stakes testing from high school through graduate school involves word problems, reasoning, and calculating based on the underlying math principles, which our kids don't recognize because nobody bothered "to connect the dots."  I personally know teachers close to retirement who are leaving as early as possible because they hate this curriculum and are already seeing poor testing consequences from students who have been taught this new core for several years already. Kids are failing chemistry frequently because they can't perform the math needed to balance chemical equations.

Their reading and reasoning skills are generally terrible and that includes reading social/behavioral sciences, arts and humanities--just about anything except social media and celebrity gossip.  Even the best pre-med students score significantly lower on the Verbal Reasoning portion of the MCAT admission exam.  And the new test for this spring is significantly more difficult, longer, and involves more complex reasoning in the verbal reasoning section plus an entirely new section of social/behavioral sciences, chiefly principles and theories. This new test comes at just the time that arts & humanities are being cut, reduced, or funded at low levels both in K-12 and in colleges.  Usually the first cuts made to K-12 involve art, music, not football or basketball (and I love football!). But we know that children involved in the arts tend to have higher grades in class work, testing, and GPA scores as well.

Good educators are intrinsically motivated, or many would not put up with even decent (not necessarily good)  school systems, but helping students to gain that intrinsic motivation is another matter entirely.  All too often, even at college level, we still are forced to resort to extrinsic motivation for many of our freshmen and sophomores, who are unaccustomed to the rigors of academia without the "extra credit" or "bonus points" or "excuses" for late papers, missed tests, etc.

I'm not sure what is running this "high-stakes" testing idea.  I know a lot of people and organizations are making millions from this push.  But it can't improve student performance because these tests are not designed for such results.  Most of these tests (ACT, GRE, GMAT, etc) are predictor exams, not knowledge exams that test specific items like teacher-made tests usually do. A 20 on the ACT for one student doesn't mean he/she won't pass the first year; a 27 doesn't mean a student will pass the first year either.  These tests can't measure motivation, drive, study habits, family and university support (mentoring, tutoring).  Using these tests so extensively when they tell us so little seems rather a waste of time and money.

Thank you Mr. Moraru for the great insight.

Hello Syamsul and Roland

Foucault (1980) writes, "with the Panoptic system we are no longer dealing with a mere metaphor. What is at issue here is the description of institutions in terms of architecture, of spatial configurations... however you notice the installation of State control over schools... and education previously in the hands...(p. 71)

As Roland describes when government get involved in education to deeply it is desastrious results on teacher moral. After NCLB was sugned into law by Bush the U.S. K-12 educaters are leaving at an all time rate thus leaving the children in care of newly graduated teachers who are leaving the field on average after 3-5 years. This will have a devesting effect on the quality of education recieved and quality and expertise of ranks of teachers.

What is even more of a blow to K-12 is the swiftly growing belief that e-learning, distance learning ect can replace the human interaction between teacher and student. Adding even further damage to education as a whole is this insistence on on outcomes measured by grades on high stakes testing. Has society lost its mind?

Education is not just about subject matter and grades, its also about supporting and the social and emotional growth from a 5year old to an 18 year old young adult. It almost feels like all have forgoten what it was like as we went to school. All the emotional, biological transformations we went through.

Next stop compurters as teachers. The art of teaching will soon be written in bionary code.

God help us,

Douglas 

Hello,

at this moment I do not know of anything better than self-determination theory for institutions (education, public service) and control (government, etc.) including problems. Here is an article for high-stakes testing :

Ryan, R. M., & Weinstein, N. (2009). Undermining quality teaching and learning: A self-determination theory perspective on high-stakes testing. Theory and Research in Education, 7, 224-233.

But I would not generalize. Government regulations can help if they are indirect, which almost never happens and OBE proves that. A good reform targeting education would deal only with the openness of the environment, e.g. extending/breaching the boundaries that start to appear especially due to competition between institutions. Specifically, providing teachers with opportunities to teach and learn outside of their usual school/academic environment. Another important part of a reform is maintaining a control group, which serves both as a buffer against some negative consequences and provides an origin point, but which reform tries that?

Here is an article for school reform theory :

Deci, E. L. (2009). Large-scale school reform as viewed from the self-determination theory perspective. Theory and Research in Education, 7, 244-252.

Another term you may want to use when analyzing the impact is "integrity". If an institutional integrity remains intact, the reform is fine. But a major shift in the paradigm contradicts this requirement.

Boris

http://www.selfdeterminationtheory.org/SDT/documents/2009_RyanWeinstein_TRE.pdf

http://www.selfdeterminationtheory.org/SDT/documents/2009_Deci_TRE.pdf

Thanks very much Mr. Daugherty and Mr. Karlkoff. 

Freire (1993:74) claimed that “Authentic education is not carried on by A for B or by A about B but rather by A with B, mediated by the world- a world which impresses and challenges both parties, giving rise to views or opinions about it”. The latter form of authentic education that Freire identifies here is decreasingly evident in my work with secondary schools. Many teachers want their students to pass their exams, as this is seen as a mark of success in a neo-liberal, target driven culture. Results are what matter and this is becoming ever more important in today’s educational climate. The result of this delivery process can, as Pring (2004:20) identifies, leave “little room for that transaction in which the teacher, rooted in a particular cultural tradition, responds to the needs of the learner.” It is the need to question why things were the way they were that should be addressed and this, married with the teacher’s ‘particular cultural tradition’ could be liberating.

Government in asia commonly want to standardize,generalize and uplift their country education rank. It never see the process in educating student that need emotional and interactive involvement between teacher and student. As each class and student have uniqe learning style.

Character also need to be build as part of emotional intelligence where in the real world neede more than merely academic performance.

Overall i disagree of government intercepting educational process with their regulation on how teacher have to deliver the subject to their student

I would tend to agree with Chris, with one cautionary note. That note would be in what type of "culture" we are refering to. I would not want a this current culture or climate to be considered as one of "liberating". We must also, and I think we do, that Freire has a spacific Idea in mind of what authentic or transformational educationwould be. That being a marxist framework. 

While agreeing with many of Freire's/Marxist views we also have to admit however the fundamential point of their arguement has not happened so far (the uprising of the people), Also we have seen when uprising have occured what has happend. The history of the overthrowing of colonial powers in Africa and Latin America has added power to what Freire has argied as reflection froma critical consciousness point of view.

Hence the importance of creating a critical approach to education and the need to both be the teacher and the student at the same time, and impower the student to become the teacher.

Douglas 

Thanks everyone for the wonderful views. 

My concern arose when in the course of going through the literature, I came across two researches done on the same institution one conducted in 2004 while the other in 2013 both yielded with almost the same results= unsatisfactory implementation of student centered learning. Interestingly in 2007, the government regulated the implementation of OBE in the country.

The articles provided by Mr. Karlkof was very enlightening at has managed to help me see the issue in a clearer manner.

Government regulation of education, particularly referring to the specification of what is to be learned as measured by standardized testing (inherent in the U.S. NCLB, and also in the Common Core), which has been gaining ground since the Nation at Risk report some years ago misses key elements of learning.  In higher ed, for example, we have noted a significant decline not only in the basics:i.e: reading, writing and math, with some exceptions of course ( the normal distribution still applies, although it is more skewed than we might imagine), but crucially, we note a decline in critical thinking and critical awareness.  This is the most troubling outcome, in my opinion.  It speaks to a loss of relevance for students in relation to what is being taught.  

A note on liberation, as was discussed previously; liberation in education is needed.  I suggest that to be the case for two constituents. First teachers need to be liberated to teach in the most successful ways possible depending on the class they are with, and students need to be liberated to learn what is important for their life. Now the question of liberated from what and from whom is inferred.  They must be liberated from the effect of regulation prescribing content and assessment, especially and particularly when both are imposed by non-educators.  Lastly, the social project must be divorced from government.  I do not know why an elected official with no previous educational experience thinks he or she is the most qualified to make educational policy, and doing so co-opts the social project of education.  Let government address problems in access to education, in homelessness, in food security and health care and so forth, and leave education to educators.

I think virtually every contribution has identified the danger of over-intervention. Got me, however, only teachers who are intrinsically motivated will stand up to intervention and generally remain in the profession. Intervention has meant reduction in resources, coercion, prescription on pedagogy etc. Nonetheless, teachers who are intrinsically motivated have held on to their ideals and aspirations. Intervention demotivated teachers and those who rely mostly on extrinsic motivation end up not having anything to motivate them.

Although I can speak only for the U.S. government, I can imagine that most governmental interventions create nothing but disasters for the teachers in classrooms.  When the NCLB foolishness began with all the high-stakes testing, the departure of teachers was huge, as Douglas points out.  But the impact of NCLB continues into college core curriculum with freshmen and sophomores.  Far too often, principals "pass" weak students just to keep the federal figures looking good; too often these students wind up failing even in small junior colleges.  Some students, who manage to score the "magic 20" on the ACT, get into four-year universities, where they are totally unprepared.  The ACT organization tells us that a 20 represents a 50/50 possibility that a student may survive the freshman year.  Most do not survive and our university alone loses $2 million per year on dropouts. Now even our universities are beginning to dictate what percentage of students can be failed (or withdraw) per semester. This is a different form of intervention--the university directly rather than the government itself. 

Outcome-Based Education has been in place in different states across the U.S. for several decades.  It is not any more effective than any other direct, intervention by the government, whether federal, state, or local. The presence of intrinsic motivation may help teachers remain in place--but even the best motivated teacher grows weary of being told she/he must teach EXACTLY this or that guidelines, sub-paragraph 2(a), ad infinitum. Right now many of our K-12 educators are trying to figure out how to teach with this Common Core Curriculum, supposedly designed to prepare our students for a globalized world.  Well, I can pretty much guarantee from what we are seeing so far that the kids I see may be prepared--so long as they don't have to calculate anything.  They may be able to reason out a fun game to play about ratio and proportion, but don't ask them to set up a proportion and figure out how to calculate it.  "Word problems" confound them and most high-stakes testing from high school through graduate school involves word problems, reasoning, and calculating based on the underlying math principles, which our kids don't recognize because nobody bothered "to connect the dots."  I personally know teachers close to retirement who are leaving as early as possible because they hate this curriculum and are already seeing poor testing consequences from students who have been taught this new core for several years already. Kids are failing chemistry frequently because they can't perform the math needed to balance chemical equations.

Their reading and reasoning skills are generally terrible and that includes reading social/behavioral sciences, arts and humanities--just about anything except social media and celebrity gossip.  Even the best pre-med students score significantly lower on the Verbal Reasoning portion of the MCAT admission exam.  And the new test for this spring is significantly more difficult, longer, and involves more complex reasoning in the verbal reasoning section plus an entirely new section of social/behavioral sciences, chiefly principles and theories. This new test comes at just the time that arts & humanities are being cut, reduced, or funded at low levels both in K-12 and in colleges.  Usually the first cuts made to K-12 involve art, music, not football or basketball (and I love football!). But we know that children involved in the arts tend to have higher grades in class work, testing, and GPA scores as well.

Good educators are intrinsically motivated, or many would not put up with even decent (not necessarily good)  school systems, but helping students to gain that intrinsic motivation is another matter entirely.  All too often, even at college level, we still are forced to resort to extrinsic motivation for many of our freshmen and sophomores, who are unaccustomed to the rigors of academia without the "extra credit" or "bonus points" or "excuses" for late papers, missed tests, etc.

I'm not sure what is running this "high-stakes" testing idea.  I know a lot of people and organizations are making millions from this push.  But it can't improve student performance because these tests are not designed for such results.  Most of these tests (ACT, GRE, GMAT, etc) are predictor exams, not knowledge exams that test specific items like teacher-made tests usually do. A 20 on the ACT for one student doesn't mean he/she won't pass the first year; a 27 doesn't mean a student will pass the first year either.  These tests can't measure motivation, drive, study habits, family and university support (mentoring, tutoring).  Using these tests so extensively when they tell us so little seems rather a waste of time and money.

It enhances teacher's job satisfaction, develops good relationships with the students  through intellectual challenge of teaching, having the privilege to try fresh ideas, participating in decision making, developing social relations with colleagues and consult on decisions concerning their work. 

http://onlineresearchjournals.org/OJAA/pdf/2013/jun/Owusuwaa%20et%20al..pdf

Thanks everyone, really appreciate it.

Something interesting that I observed after going through the literature, highly noticeable that when implementation is done/intended to be done in large scale, e.g for the whole country/state there would be multiple challenges that affect successful implementation, however, if done by individual institutions, success rate is better.