Post submitted by Andy Hargreaves and Pasi Sahlberg.
We are entering an age of post-standardization in education. It may not look, smell, or feel like it, but the augurs of the new age have already arrived and are advancing with increasing speed. [This] Fourth Way pushes beyond standardization, data-driven decision making, and target-obsessed distractions to forge an equal and interactive partnership among the people, the profession, and their government.
- Andy Hargreaves, The Fourth Way, 2012
Educational systems across the globe are under pressure to change. Many countries are focusing attention on additional accountability, school choice and competition, short-term outcomes, and data-driven decision-making (what have been called the Second and Third Ways). Many high performing countries and systems, however, are reexamining their structures and policies to move towards greater collective professional autonomy from bureaucratic control, stronger active involvement of local communities and diversified teaching to respond to today’s widely varying populations of learners. This Fourth Way of educational reform heralds the next stage for educational improvement – a movement which reverts educational authority back from