ABSTRACT

This chapter examines the 'education revolution' from the teachers' perspective on the next step of the policy staircase, and here again the focus is on the 'digital revolution', National Assessment Program: Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) and My School. The chapter has some parts: in, the overview of literature contrasts the world of teacher enactment with that of policy-makers' intentions and suggests reasons why policy-makers' intentions are not always realised in classrooms. Teachers' enactment of policy may differ significantly from that of policy-makers' intentions, because, as Cuban points out, teachers and policy-makers inhabit different worlds, defined by the kinds of questions they ask. When teachers ask questions different from those posed by policy-makers, policy may become 'distorted and less coherent' than intended because teachers interpret policy messages within the context of their own culture, ideology, history and resources. The way that teachers respond to policy, Ketelaar suggests, is largely dependent on whether they perceive policy as reinforcing their identity as teachers.