Policy Conflict over Evidence-Informed Public School Reform

Why did evidence-informed policy reform of public schools lead to policy conflict and failure? This chapter first presents a government politics perspective on evidence-informed policy. It is argued that ambitions of more evidence in public school policy promoted the priority of evidence in the policy area. Policy capacity was enhanced in the 2000s and early 2010s inspired by international trends and in response to government ambitions of addressing performance problems through the increased reliance on evidence and performance information. In a 2013 public school reform in Denmark, however, barriers to collecting evidence in combination with a reform of teachers’ working conditions triggered conflict and polarisation. The chapter illustrates the difficulties which can arise in political knowledge management of evidence-informed policies, the powerful dynamics of policy conflict and the risk of taking bold political action in a policy area with organised opposition from key stakeholders. The chapter ends by considering how the Ministry of Children and Education has attempted to limit the damage caused by policy conflict.