Summary
This critique paper analyses the research work that was carried out to study if the autonomy in classrooms and the freedom from bureaucracy stimulate teaching and learning. The research was carried out by the use of qualitative data sampling that involved four schools with eighteen respondents each. The findings of the researcher were that the assumptions about the autonomy claims and their effect in classrooms were facile at best.
Critique analysis
The issue of improving students’ performance in school as well as teaching has been argued that it can be achieved through making the learning institutions autonomous by removing the bureaucracies exhibited in these schools.
Ms. Jeannine Fox carried out a study to know if the assumption is right or wrong. Her article has demonstrated the ideas of those who believe that the charter school system is the best.
In carrying out her research work, Ms. Fox used a study sample of four schools, each school had respondents as follows; 18 teachers, four administrators, and one governing board member. This sample size is inadequate to give good results. For instance, it is not realistic to have only one board member interviewed. If such a respondent coiled the answer to suit his/her views or interest will not be easily identified as there is no comparison of answers given.
Furthermore, the schools were chosen because they were willing to participate in the research work. This indicates that the researcher had not designed the best method to choosing the respondents. The best means could have been by randomly selecting the responded schools among the charter schools. This could also have been easier if the study sample was large to allow room for non-respondents.
To know actually if the charter system was of any much different or contribution to the betterment of students and teachers performance, the researcher would have carried out similar research with the traditional system schools so that a comparison can be made to ascertain where the difference occurs and how it contributes to the perceived improvements. According to the research, most of the respondents did not have any experience of teaching in the traditional public schools and the one respondent who had a long experience period and had taught in a traditional public school had different opinions from the others. This respondent did not see much difference between the charter schools and traditional public schools hence the comparison of the study between the public and charter schools could have given better results and conclusions.
The research was actually to establish if the autonomy of the charter systems of education encouraged innovativeness of teachers in teaching and the end how it attracted the student’s performance. But the researcher seems to have concentrated on the way the teachers perceived the system and put little effort in determining actually if there was any innovativeness the system created. The researcher admits to this point and it cannot be possible to have a conclusive remark whether the governance system brought about innovativeness in classrooms or not.
Although the researcher concludes that the bureaucracy assumption is facile there is no exact point that she brought out the question that addressed how the conclusion could have been arrived at. Looking at the leadership, the school she studied had different leadership that affected the school’s performance in different ways. Furthermore, she explains that many of the teachers she interviewed agreed that the community charter school system was very supportive of them being innovative in classwork. This is because it allowed them to take risks to come up with different strategies of teaching.
Also to determine if this innovativeness and the whole system was of any help to improve the student performance, the study should have been extended to as well interviewing students of the charter schools and the traditional schools to see any difference in standards of the performance in those schools.
In the study, there are no clearly stated hypotheses that could enable a reader to know if the research objectives were achieved or not. Hypotheses help to know if whatever the researcher was looking for is true, and if not, then what could be the alternative.
The researcher has used some graphical representation in her work but it has not been labeled not given any explanation. This leaves the reader confused on how and where to apply the graphics. The graphics should have had some small explanations to enable the readers to know what it represents or means.
Conclusion
The research work is faced with many challenges and obstacles that can at a time affect the results. The researcher however did not explain or show any of the faced problems that might have tampered or brought about any inaccuracy of the results.
Even though the research sample was small, the researcher was able to explain how she carried out her research work. This makes anybody interested in doing the same job that was done follow the same procedures and see if the same results will be found or not.
The researcher started by giving out all the relevant background information in the introductory part of the work and the literature review, which helps the reader to understand and have a whole perspective of the work being done and how all related researches have been found out. In the end, this will help a reader to compare all the other findings with the new research work and finally come up with a comprehensive conclusion.
References
Fox. J. L. (2002): Organizational Structures And Perceived Cultures of Community Charter Schools in Ohio, Wittenberg University, Springfield, Ohio.