The adoption of Bill 88 in October 2008 established Results-Based Management methods for Québec’s school boards and schools based on a contractual partnership approach between the Minister and the school board (partnership agreement), and between the school board and its educational institutions (management and educational success agreement).
These agreements defined each party’s commitment to contributing toward achieving the goals and measurable objectives set by the Minister.
A number of issues, tensions and questions have arisen from the new directions and practices adopted in Bill 88.
A number of issues, tensions and questions have arisen from the new directions and practices adopted in Bill 88, in particular the conflicting values of, on the one hand, an economic approach aimed at ensuring the production efficiency of schools and, on the other hand, a more ecological vision of the school as a living environment designed to foster the development of individuals and communities.
This project aimed to create an emerging research team on the theme of partnership agreements in education, with a view towards a pan-systemic evaluation of their implementation and impacts structured along the following two themes: 1. an analysis of the theoretical basis and the planning and management processes linked to the new directions and practices; 2. an assessment of the effects of the new directions and practices.
The team’s activities included the creation of a computerized information portal for Results-Based Management in education, bringing together more than 500 documents within an organized structure; an analysis of the compliance of the partnership agreements produced by the school boards; the evaluation of their implementation according to Love’s model (2004); and the establishment of a change laboratory pilot project for the integration of new innovations, based on Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (Engeström, 1987).
Main researcher
Denis Savard, Université Laval
Deposit of the research report: August 2014