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Analyzes the development of the external evaluation models of schools in Portugal. Gives special emphasis to the current situation and role of inspection with a constant retrospective view of the administration of the educational system. Reveals that the Portuguese education system has been changing, with more autonomy being placed on schools which places importance on the evaluation process. Concludes that the evaluation process should be developed as a way of controlling the educational system.

Quality-Oriented Education (su zhi jiao yu) is a national education reform initiative that presents ongoing opportunities and challenges to schools, local bureaus of education, and the overall educational system in China today. This chapter seeks to gain insight into if and how Quality-Oriented Education, 10 years into its enactment, has taken root in practice. We posit that a reform agenda is best manifested through well-aligned and operable standards for school effectiveness. We introduce the policy-driven definition for school effectiveness and an evaluation framework depicting the intended focus of Quality-Oriented Education. Using an iterative and inductive process for content analysis, we compare the policy-driven framework with the coding results of a 2009 national inventory of actual school evaluation schemes in 91 Chinese school districts. Our review points out that the new mission of Quality-Oriented Education advocates educational equity, curriculum reform, and systemic support for school-based management. However, at the operational level, there are great variations in terms of content domain, focus, and function among school evaluation schemes with notable regional differences. Furthermore, schools are still caught between the existing system that measures school performance by achievement and the intended accountability scheme that calls for enhanced student ability. This chapter adds to the empirical foundation for the development of a new framework that not only captures the spirit of the national educational reform but also is informed of the developmental needs of schools in drastically different geo-economical and social conditions.

This policy brief, the second AERI-NEPC eBrief in the series “Understanding validity issues around the world”, focuses on validity as it applies to test-based models of evaluation employed for schools, instructional programs, and teachers around the world. It discusses validity issues that could arise when data from student achievement test administrations and other sources are used for conducting personnel appraisals, program evaluations, or for external accountability purposes, suggesting solutions and recommendations for improving validity in such applications of test-based information.

This policy brief is based on a synthesis of conference proceedings and review of selected pieces of extant literature. It begins by summarizing perspectives of an invited expert panel on the topic. To that synthesis, the authors add their own analysis of key issues. They conclude by offering recommendations for test developers and test users.

The authors conclude that systematic improvement and transformation of schools depends on thoughtfully conceptualizing, implementing, and using data from testing and broad-based evaluation systems that incorporate multiple kinds of evidence. Evaluation systems that are valid and fair to students, teachers and education leaders need all three of the following: assessment resources and training for all participants and evaluation users; knowledgeable staff to continuously monitor processes and use assessment results appropriately to improve teaching and learning activities; and a strengths-based approach to make improvements to the education system based on relevant data and reports (as opposed to a deficits-based one in which blame or punishment is leveled at individuals or groups of workers when gaps in performance are observed).

To improve validity in interpretations of results from test-based teacher and school evaluation models, the authors provide recommendations for measurement and evaluation specialists as well as for educators, policy makers, and public users of data. Standardized test use in formative and more “high stakes” educational accountability contexts is rapidly spreading to various regions of the world. This eBrief shows that understandings of validity are still uneven among key stakeholders. By translating complex information pertinent to current validity issues, this policy brief attempts to address this need, and also bridge knowledge and communications gaps among different constituencies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the perceptions of school principals of the evaluator’s role and to learn about their requirements of school evaluators.

The current study is based on the qualitative paradigm of data collection and analysis. This paradigm provides a profound a description of the phenomenon in the context in which it takes place, based on the respondents’ perceptions and how they interpret their experiences. In the course of the study, the authors used semi-structured in-depth interviews.

Findings indicated that principals had regarded the role of the school evaluator mainly as that of an expert, a managerial partner and an implementer of school evaluation culture.

The interviewers were the teachers who had been trained for the school evaluator’s position.

The “school evaluator” and the principals bear the complex task of evaluation on their shoulders, and their success in fulfilling it depends on their insights about how to delineate and implement the evaluator’s role. The paper outlines some crucial benchmarks for resolving the issue of role definitions between them.

As a relatively new profession, derived from other professions and research areas, evaluation has no solid, historical occupational legacy in schools. This paper broadens the merit of school evaluator as the facilitator of quality assurance.

The increased responsibility placed on schools, the demand of accountability as well as transparency, have obliged the schools to broaden and deepen the internal evaluation activities. This paper reveals the essence of school evaluator’s role and suggests some key points for his/her valuable work.

The literature is very rich in its discussion on how to measure school performance, but there are still a number of gaps to investigate in relation to the determinants of that performance, especially at the level of school performance management practices. The purpose of the paper is to understand better performance management practices in schools and how they may relate to school achievement.

Frequently, the performance of schools is evaluated using solely output measures: especially exam classifications, but also progression rates, completion rates and wastage rates. Previously, a value‐added approach was used to quantitatively evaluate Portuguese secondary schools beyond output results. From the results of this exercise, a sample of schools with different levels of observed performance was chosen. In‐depth case studies of the sample of schools were undertaken to gather an understanding of their performance management practices, taking Bouckaert and Halligan's framework of analysis.

Self‐evaluation and performance management are not well developed in schools. Most schools monitor exam results, progression and completion rates. However, they do not seem to do it in a formal and systematic way, and find it difficult to understand the reasons for the results obtained. Incorporation of performance measures into performance management is incipient, and most acknowledge the difficulty of going from measurement of results to improvement actions. Few can demonstrate that improvement actions have resulted from self‐evaluation and very few evaluate improvement actions' results. There seems to be an agreement that the external evaluation of schools has prompted the development of self‐evaluation.

This is a study at the meso level of analysis of public sector performance, that of state education. The study contributes to a better understanding of performance management in Portuguese secondary schools. More generally, it investigates the usefulness of the Bouckaert and Halligan framework to assess progress in performance management and whether that will lead to progress in performance itself.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss recent developments in school developmental supervisory evaluation in the Pudong New Area of Shanghai in the Chinese Mainland.

The main research approach is qualitative, using documentary analysis and interviews of an inspector, principals and teachers from two primary schools.

There were perceived positive and negative impacts of school supervision and evaluation.

The paper highlights the implications for fostering a shared school‐government community of school supervision and evaluation, promoting a dynamic approach for addressing contextual differences as well as achieving better coherence among educational reform, supervision and evaluation policies.

With the implementation of Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education since April 2010, the responsibility and role of the teachers in Indian school has been changed. Once again, the teacher quality in Indian schools has taken a center stage in nation-wide debate. The discussion on teacher quality has reappeared in submitted report as Draft National Education Policy (DNEP) on May 31, 2019, that gets endorsement in cabinet approved NEP 2020. The evaluation, as a process and system, starts with the very moment when a teacher assumes its duties in K-12 schools. This chapter addresses the main research questions as: what is the status of teacher evaluation in Indian schools as mentioned in various Commission reports, policies, and draft regulations? How does teacher evaluation could be reframed for local setting based on global standards laid in international and multinational context? This chapter employs qualitative research through review of policies, draft regulations, research, articles, and government documents as data analysis and frames hypotheses through comparative analysis. The objectives of this chapter are to frame hypotheses regarding policies and recommendations for: teacher quality; teacher appraisal process; teacher appraisal in local, regional, and national settings; and teacher appraisal in multinational context.