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Session 3. Policy Levers and Coherence
Objective. Name the main policy levers and say who holds each one, run a coherence audit that shows where signals conflict, and propose a small fix that sits within your own reach.
A written plan says what the system hopes for. The signals say what the system rewards. Teachers read both, and when they disagree, they usually follow the signal with consequences. Leaders who audit the signals can often fix a conflict without a new regulation, by changing one test item, one line on a form or one use of meeting time. This lesson shows how to read signals as a newcomer would and how to fix a conflict at the right level.
Key ideas
Five levers and who holds them
- Curriculum: what pupils are meant to learn. Assessment: what is checked and what counts. Teacher policy: who teaches, how they are prepared, paid, supported and promoted. Funding: who receives which money and for what. Accountability: who answers to whom, for what, and how it is checked.
- Each lever sends a signal about what matters. Teachers and heads read the signals together, and usually follow the strongest one, which is often whatever is checked and tied to consequences.
- Know which levers are in your hands. A school usually holds its timetable, internal assessments, mentoring and use of meeting time; a district holds some budget and inspection choices; national rules, set by ministry regulations and the national curriculum framework, are context you work within. Be general and check the current text before you cite a rule.
Coherence: do the signals agree
- A system is coherent when its parts pull toward the same goal. Lant Pritchett, in a 2015 paper for the RISE research programme, argued that learning improves when accountability relationships are coherent in two ways: the elements inside each relationship must agree, and the relationships must agree with each other.
- His plain example: a system should not pay for one outcome while expecting another. A related RISE example is a ministry that delegates the improvement of learning but monitors only enrolment and attendance. In school terms: the curriculum asks for reasoning, but the term test rewards recall.
- A coherent system can still aim at the wrong target, such as access or selecting a few top performers. So audit twice: do the signals agree with each other, and do they agree with the goal you actually hold?
Four relationships, five design elements
- The RISE education systems framework, as applied by Kaffenberger and Spivack (2022), looks at four relationships: politics (citizens and the highest authorities), compact (top authorities and the education ministry), management (education authorities and school leaders and teachers) and voice and choice (parents and communities and the school).
- Each relationship has five design elements: delegation (who is asked to do what), finance, information, support and motivation. For each ask: do they point to learning? A head sits in management with teachers and in voice and choice with parents, so the head can audit those two relationships directly.
- The framework is a diagnostic aid, not a score. There is no number that says 'coherent enough'. Its value is the questions it forces you to ask.
From paper to practice
- Viennet and Pont, in an OECD working paper on implementation (2017), group the factors that help or hinder policy into four dimensions: policy design, stakeholder engagement, a supportive context and a coherent implementation strategy. A policy can be well designed and still stall if teachers were never involved or the timetable has no room for it.
- Evidence on which levers pay off can help, with care about context. A 2020 panel convened by the World Bank and the UK government, looking at low- and middle-income countries, called giving families information about the returns to education and school quality a great buy, and structured pedagogy with teacher training and materials a good buy. It called computer hardware without complementary changes a bad buy as typically done.
- Read such lists as prompts to check against your own context, using the evidence habits from course 14.7 Education Research & Policy, and test locally before you spend widely.
How signals reach pupils
Read the signals like a new teacher
Take the timetable, last term's test papers, the lesson-visit form, the training plan and the budget lines, and read them as a newcomer who has not heard the school's goals. What would that person decide matters most? Teachers have limited time and attention, so a careful person chooses what is checked, marked and tied to consequences before what is only written in a plan.
Do not forget unwritten signals. The questions a head asks at the staff meeting, or what gets praised in the corridor, are signals too. Ask three teachers what they think is checked most; their answers often differ from the documents.
Fix the conflict at the right level
For each conflict, decide whose lever it is. A school holds its internal tests, its lesson-visit form, its meeting time and its mentoring pairs, and can change them next term. A district holds some budget and the content of its visits, and it can be asked with evidence. National regulations and the curriculum framework are context to work within and to inform through proper channels.
Change one thing at a time so that you can see the effect, and check the four dimensions of the OECD implementation framework before launching: is the fix well designed, are the people affected involved, does the context support it, and is there a plan for how it will happen?
Examples from the classroom
Two reasoning items
Scene. Dilnoza, a deputy head in Samarkand, finds that Grade 7 internal maths tests give marks only for the final answer. She adds two items that ask pupils to explain a step, with marks for method, and tells teachers the change a month ahead. She plans to compare pupils' written explanations on the first and last test of the term and to ask teachers what they changed in lessons.
Insight. Change the signal that is in your own hands, and plan how to see the effect.
The workshop for one
Scene. In Fergana, Aziz sends one teacher per school to a two-day workshop on a problem-solving method. Afterwards nothing happens. He asks each attendee to lead a 20-minute slot in the existing methodological hour, with a one-page summary for colleagues. He notes in his plan to count at the end of term how many schools have held the slot.
Insight. Training that reaches one person is a weak signal; make the learning travel.
Counting pages
Scene. Malika, a methodist in Tashkent, reads the district's lesson-visit form and sees that it records the number of exercises set but nothing about the questions asked. Using her audit as evidence, she asks the district to try one added line in her cluster: a question in the lesson that asked a pupil to explain. She offers to share what the cluster finds after a term.
Insight. Ask for one small change with evidence, and offer to report back.
Common pitfalls
- Blaming teachers for following the loudest signal when the system taught them to.
- Auditing only written documents and forgetting what is praised and asked in practice.
- Trying to fix all five levers at once so that no one can tell what worked.
- Copying a list of 'smart buys' from other contexts without asking whether it fits your pupils.
Run a Coherence Audit
- Whole group (10 min): open the kit. The facilitator shows the audit matrix: five levers down the side, and for each the signal it sends, what teachers are likely to do in response, and whether it agrees with the goal.
- Trios (20 min): read the District Z signal cards (invented). The goal is that Grade 5 to 8 pupils can explain and reason in maths. Fill the matrix, mark each lever as agreeing, partly or conflicting with the goal, and circle the loudest signal.
- Trios (15 min): choose the most damaging conflict and propose a fix. Say whose lever it is (school, district or national), what it costs in money and teacher minutes, and a one-term test that would show whether the fix changes what teachers do.
- Part B, pairs (15 min): choose a real goal in your own school. Fill a matrix with the five signals as they really are, using real documents: timetable, internal test format, training plan, budget lines, appraisal form.
- Whole group (15 min): each pair names one conflict it found. The facilitator reads the District Z key. Which conflicts were in documents you had never read side by side before?
- Alone (10 min): write your leadership task from the kit and choose which goal you will audit.
Your facilitator will guide you through this activity in the session.
Questions to discuss
- Which signal in your matrix was loudest, and was it the one you would have chosen?
- Which conflict is in your own hands to fix, and which belongs to someone else?
- How would a teacher in your school describe what the school 'really' wants, judging by the five signals?
Reflect
- What does your school's most-checked document say that the school is for?
- Where do you ask teachers for one thing and measure another?
- Which lever could you change next term without asking anyone's permission?
Try it tomorrow
- Read your own appraisal or lesson-visit form as a newcomer and write what it says matters most.
- Ask three teachers what they think is checked most in your school, and compare with the documents.
- Change one test item or one form line this term and note how you will see its effect.
Further reading and links
Levers send signals, and people follow the strongest one. Audit curriculum, assessment, teacher policy, funding and accountability side by side, find the conflict, and fix first what is in your own hands.