A Comparative Policy Study on Education Reform and Quality Enhancement of Education and Teachers

本研究旨在审查最近教育改革的主要特点及其有效性和有效性，并从比较的角度调查提高学校教育和教学质量的成功政策的类型和条件。主要发现如下：(1)1980年代以来的第三次教育改革浪潮的特点是其价值取向，强调提高教育和教学质量的重要性，强调教育行政、学校管理和教学实践的问责制；而对学龄儿童及其生活世界的真实需求和变化，以及教师为改善教学和关爱儿童所付出的奉献和努力，关注不够。因此，学校和教师被迫应对各种激进的改革措施和政策，而不是应对儿童和不断变化的社会的真正需求。在日本尤其如此。更重要的是，至少在日本，教师、家长、当地人以及当地教育委员会的工作人员之间的合作已经成为一种增长的趋势，并为使学校充满活力和提高学校质量做出了贡献。在这个过程中，我们观察到学校教育的成功往往取决于学校文化作为一个学习社区的发展，教师专业学习社区的良好运作，教师，家长和关心学校和学生的当地人民之间的合作文化，以及教师的奉献精神和持续努力，以改善他们的教学实践。此外，这些因素往往是通过各种计划或系统来发展和成功维持的，这些计划或系统发起并保持家长、当地人民和教师之间的参与和合作。(3)我们观察到，在学校管理、教学和照顾儿童或学校环境中，领导和协作是至关重要的。在这方面，日本的学校一般都是组织良好的，并作为所谓的“分布式领导”和“协作领导”相结合的制度和文化发挥作用，或者“分布式和协作领导”。它也被描述为促进组织学习的“专业学习社区”。日本学校的这些特点在“课程研究”的实践、“研究与发展学校”的政策方案、集中教职员室的安排和将学校管理的各种角色分配给全体教师的方案中得到了特别的发展和保持，后者有助于发展分布式和协作式的领导。(4)亚洲国家与英美等西方发达国家之间存在着一些特殊的差异或相反的取向，其中之一是亚洲国家越来越强调新的、以儿童为中心的、探索性的教学和课程设计方法，而西方发达国家则扩大了进行许多共同的测试并通过测试结果来衡量教与学的成功。少

This Study aimed to examine main featues of recent education reforms and their validity and effectiveness and to investigate the types and conditions of successful policies for enhancing the quality of schooling and teaching from a comparative perspective. Some of the major findings are as follows:(1) The third wave of education reform since 1980s has been featured by its value orientation that emphasizes the importance of quality enhancement of schooling and teaching and of the accountability of educational administration, school management and teaching practices, while does not pay much attention to the real needs and changes of school children and their life-world as well as to teacjers' dedication and efforts for improving teaching and caring of children. As a result, schools and teachers have been forced to cope with various radical reform measures and policies, instead of coping with the real needs of children and the changing society. This is especially the case in Japan.(2) How … More ever, at least in Japan there have been a growing tendency that the collaboration among teachers, parents and local people, and the staffs of local education board expands and contributes to make shools lively and to improve its quality. In this process, it is obsearved that the success of schooling tends to depend on the development of school culture as a learning community, the well functioning of professional learning community of teachers, the collaborative culture among teachers, parents and local peiople who care the school and iths studnents, and the eachers' dedication and susstatinable efforts for improving their teaching practices. In addition, these factors tend to be developed and successfully sustained by various schemes or systems that initiate and maintain the participation of and collaboration among parents, local people and teachers.(3) It is obsearved that leadership and collaboration are critically important in school management and teaching and caring children, or school settings. In this respect, schools in Japan are generally well organized and functioning as the system and culture of the combination of so-called "distributed leadership" and "collaborative leadership," or "distributed and collaborative leadership." It is also characterized as "professional learning community" that promotes organizational learning. These features of schools in Japan are partically developed and maintained by the practices of "lesson study," the policy scheme of "Resaerch and Development Schools," and the arrangement of centered staff-room and the scheme of allocating various roles of school management to all teachers, the last one of which contrivutes to develop the distributed and collaborative leadership.(4) There are some peculiar differences or opposite orientations between Asian countries and Western developed countries such as UK and USA, one of which is the growing emphasis of new, child-centered and exploratory approaches to teaching and curriculum-design in Asian countries, whereas the expansion of giving many common tests and measuring the success of teaching and learning by those test results in western developed countries. Less