Abstract
In the United States, many efforts to develop educational programs based on research results have been made by universities and private sector organizations. By adopting these programs, school districts and schools receive support from the universities and organizations. This article discusses one of these educational programs, "Success for All" (SFA), a schoolwide program for students in Grades pre-K to 6 which organizes resources to ensure that every student will reach the third grade on time with adequate basic skills and build on this basis throughout the elementary grades, with no student being allowed to fall between the cracks. Efforts of this kind include an issue raised from the point of view of administration: governance. In efforts of this kind, meta-governance is set properly for governance to function more effectively. Governance is always open to the possibility of failure. Meta-governance is widely defined as the "governing of governing", and is to govern the network properly in order to avoid the possibility of failure of governance, or to cope with the difficulty of governance. Then, what meta-governance would be required in order to ensure effective governance? This article analyzes the form of meta-governance that aim to effectively govern the governance in the SFA program. The points that should be noted in terms of capturing the meta-governance are (a) to take into account the self-organization of the network without relying on the linear model "those who control/ who are controlled", and (b) to capture the meta-governance functionally, rather than substantively. Given these two points, meta-governance refers to (the infrastructure for organizing and encouraging the dynamic mechanism) the self-organization of the network. The analytical challenges to be addressed in this article are (1) to capture the infrastructure needed for a self-organizing network in SFA, and (2) to explore the reason why the SFA Foundation could function as meta-governor. The issue to be addressed first as meta-governance in SFA, is to incorporate the research knowledge into practice, because research knowledge is heterologous for education governance. However, research knowledge cannot be incorporated directly into practice in its raw form: it must first be translated into a practicable form (e.g. lesson plan, teacher manual). And in order to enhance the practicability, training for teachers is also required. However, since the teachers could rebel against unilateral impositions of research knowledge, it is necessary to employ additional measures to alleviate the psychological resistance of the teachers. In order to solve this problem, (a) the SFA Foundation requires the schools to hold in-school votes before adopting the SFA program, and (b) the foundation permits the teachers to adapt it. The foundation will approve a adaptation as long as it is intended to respond to school goals and is intended to improve the learning outcomes of students. Further, in order to maintain a proper balance between adaptation and fidelity, the SFA Foundation devises methods by which the facilitators attempt to keep the teachers on pace and limit the number of adaptations. Then, why could the SFA Foundation function as meta-governor? In order for the foundation to function as meta-governor, the presence of the code <effective / not effective> is required, and by this code, all the meta-governance organized under this code is meaningful. But more important and fundamental is that the position of meta-governor is not given from the outside, but that the function is held barely in the dynamic process on self-reference.
