School Self-Evaluation and Inspection for Improving U.S. Schools?

The U.S. test-based accountability model holds schools and teachers accountable for student outcomes with little attention to school improvement processes. The authors look at an approach used in several European counties, which entails more school-centered accountability efforts, such as school self-evaluation followed by inspection (SSE/I) to examine school quality. SSE/I is a complex policy instrument with mixed consequences and many research questions still to be answered. Moreover, accountability models from other countries cannot be naively imported to the U.S. given the vital distinctions in sociopolitical contexts. That being said, a look at some of the purposes or principles behind SSE/I—especially its emphasis on quality improvement—can nevertheless inform efforts to redesign and improve the U.S. accountability model. The purpose of this brief is to take just such a look at this model. Despite those necessary cautions, the researchers suggest that SSE/I’s underlying purposes and principles, in particular its focus on quality improvement, can help inform the redesign and improvement of the U.S. approach

Values engagement in evaluation: Ideas, illustrations, and implications. American Journal of Evaluation. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1177/1098214011422592

Abstract Values-engagement in evaluation involves both describing stakeholder values and prescribing certain values. Describing stakeholder values is common practice in responsive evaluation traditions. Prescribing or advocating particular values is only explicitly part of democratic, culturally responsive, critical, and other openly ideological traditions in evaluation, but we argue that it is implicit in all evaluation approaches and practices. In this article, we discuss various conceptualizations of values-engagement in evaluation. We further present a specific form of values-engaged evaluation that is committed to descriptive and prescriptive valuing, with an emphasis on its prescriptive advancement of the values of inclusion and equity. Examples from field experience illustrate these two countenances and underscore the multiple challenges invoked by intentional engagement with the values dimensions of evaluation. The examples come from evaluations of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) educational programs