French and U.S. Modes of Educational Regulation Facing Modernity

Similar principles guide the educational reforms currently taking place in most countries: ensuring that all eligible people can attend school, ensuring that the skills and knowledge imparted are relevant to the real world, ensuring educational institutions are accountable for results through more frequent use of evaluations and feedback, and ensuring that parents and students assume more responsibility for education.

It is tempting to think that these reforms are spreading because they are encouraged by such international organizations as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the European Commission, or the World Bank or, alternatively, by influential countries such as the United States. Some authors consider these reforms as representing a new form of colonialism that endangers national cultures.¹ Some even call it an "epidemic." The movements behind these reforms are all the harder to explain because rich countries are not economically dependent on international organizations' subsidies. Institutional theory may provide the answer: countries' educational systems increasingly look alike because countries copy each other. This copying is facilitated by membership in international organizations.²

This paper postulates that this common model of education is spreading because it fits the current needs of educational governance in highly industrialized societies. Because the requirements educational systems must satisfy are similar, the solutions are similar. Even a cursory examination of the assumptions that shape educational policy across the globe reveals that, in fact, countries share many of them. For example, education is increasingly necessary to lead a good life, in particular to avoid unemployment.³ High wages and good working conditions often require many years of schooling. As a result, citizens demand an effective education for their children.

This is in sharp contrast to earlier times when the state had to impose education on reluctant parents. Now, citizens hold public officials accountable for the effectiveness of educational systems, including the extent to which education is equitably available. Most governments acknowledge that education represents a major responsibility. Even in the United States, where individual states are mostly responsible for the regulation of education, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB)⁴ represents a significant increase in the involvement of the federal government in education.

This belief that education is central to the good life explains why parents want to have a say in their children's education and why the discourse on the accountability of schools is popular. The demand for accountability is reinforced by two other factors.

First, education has become a continuous good. It has become desirable to acquire even a few additional skills, or even a slightly more advanced diploma (a master's degree in addition to a bachelor's degree, for example). Because of this, small differences in effectiveness matter. If small differences in achievement have important social consequences, then differences in achievement that are caused by uneven distributions of educational opportunities will be considered inequitable.

Second, government officials believe that education will bring about economic growth, as well as greater social cohesion (the school creates a common socialization outcome), and will produce better citizens.⁵ So, they ask for accountability not only in behalf of the consumers, but also in behalf of the public interest.

In short, the reason why the social demand for education fits the spreading educational model may be presented as follows: citizens are increasingly eager to benefit from an effective and equitable educational system that provides access to the highest levels of achievement, and they hold schools accountable for achieving these goals. Because state officials are convinced that education provides economic and social benefits, and because citizens hold these officials accountable, the state makes its agents and organizations more accountable.

Since most countries have these characteristics, it is not surprising that they should all experience a significant move toward greater accountability. However, educational systems are deeply rooted in their own history.⁶ Thus, it is worth asking whether each country's tradition facilitates the implementation of the common model described above. In order to answer this question, I compare France with the United States.

I suggested earlier that the assumptions that shape education are common...