The façades of rationality and precision in SABER

• In Event: The World Bank’s SABER: critical analyses of assumptions, operations, and consequences

Proposal

This presentation organizes its critique of SABER in relation to concepts of the “façade of precision” and the “façade of rationality.” The concept of façade of precision points to how evidence-based recommendations for best practices are built on a reification of “the … authority attached to numbers” (Steiner-Khamsi, 2013, 21). This presentation documents how SABER relies heavily on “quantitative” evidence derived from randomize control trials (RCTs) and correlational/regression analysis studies to identify the extent to which policies, system characteristics, and practices are evaluated as important and “advanced.” This presentation also summarizes the literature raising serious questions about the validity of using such research methodologies to produce evidence for best practices or “what works.” For example, Pogrow, (2017) notes the general methodological problems and artificialities in how one uses RCTs to identify effective practices: over-reliance on relative versus actual performance, hypothetical extrapolations, and difficult-to-detect effect sizes. Questions are also raised about the legitimacy of using correlational/regression analysis studies to determine “best practices.” The presentation also discusses a third source of evidence that SABER uses to ascertain “best practices” – identifying lessons learned from high-performing systems as defined by high scores on international tests (Auld and Morris 2016). It problematizes not only the validity of test scores on a narrow range of subject matter as measure of educational quality but also points to the problem of identifying which features of a particular educational system or societal context contributes to student test performance.
Furthermore, the presentation draws on Steiner-Khamsi’s (2013) concept of the “façade of rationality,” that is, that what is presented as work based on scientific rationality, in fact, functions within relations of power and is shaped by ideology. This concept leads to raising fundamental questions about the trustworthiness of SABER, or, more precisely, about the trustworthiness of the World Bank as an objective arbiter of “best practice” in education. For example, Broad (2006) analyzes the mechanisms by which the main research effort of the Bank, which is in its Development Economics Vice-Presidency (DEC), maintains and, indeed, reinforces a neoliberal ideological paradigm.

Author

• Steven J. Klees, University of Maryland