Evaluation systems in a crowded policy space: Implications for local school governance

Abstract

Evaluation systems of various types are an integral part of a country's education policy space, within which they are supposed to have the basic functions of enhancing accountability and supporting school development. Here we argue that in a crowded policy space evaluation systems may interfere with each other in a way that can have unintended consequences and create new 'policies by the way' that are not the result of intentional policy decisions. To shed light on this argument, we examine five of approximately 30 evaluation systems operating in the Swedish education system. Our analysis examines a situation in which many evaluation systems are doing almost the same thing, i.e. collecting a similar and limited set of quantitative data, and addressing the same local governance actors with the primary goal of supporting school development in the same direction. By doing so, these evaluation systems could thus give rise to several unintended consequences, including a scaling down of the school law and curriculum, multiple accountability problems, increased administration and new intermediary job functions at the level of local education governance.

Reflections on vocabularies in research on evaluation

“…I agree with Lindgren et al (2016) that constitutive effects are too often ignored in policymaking and in the public arena at large. So we have a contribution to make in bringing attention to these effects and in keeping the deliberative and democratic discussion about these effects alive.…”

The impact of the social environment on the student teacher’s agency

“…Due to the amount of data the project created, this paper focuses on the latter two types of reflective practice and the impact the social environment has on the agency of the student teacher. The social environment of the school is an arena of accountability (Lindgren, Hanberger & Lundström, 2016). When the student teacher is placed in an educational establishment they become agents of numerous arenas.…”

The role of evaluation in local school governance in Sweden: Editorial introduction

“…''Evaluation systems in a crowded policy space: implications for local school governance'' (Lindgren, Hanberger and Lundström 2016) examines the web of evaluation systems in the Swedish school sector. The authors describe the main characteristics of five significant evaluation systems and the knowledge they provide.…”