In search of good practice in school self-evaluation: an exploratory study in secondary schools

Recent developments in secondary education are increasing school autonomy. This is leading to greater responsibility being placed on the local administrative level. Starting from their own mission, schools have to arrive at an educational process whereby the perronnel, the financial, and the material policy are in harmony. In education, one can identify at least 3 evaluation levvels: the central authorities (output control), the evaluation with external support, and the internal evaluation. School autonomy implies primarily the last, that is, being able to evaluate oneself. If schools are to receive greater responsibility, they must also be able to look critically at their own activities. In this problem of internal evaluation, two approaches can be distinguished: the school as a pedagogical-didactic process (with the class as the microcosm) and the school as an organizational whole in which task-distribution and co-ordination processen take place. In this study, attention is given primarily to the evaluation of the school organization. We consider school organizations as self-developing organizations. This point of departure is important because evaluation cannot be seen apart from the organizational dynamics that launch it. According to experts, there are few secondary schools in Flanders in which there is already a tradition of systematic self-evaluation. Moreover, self-eval-uation is a concept that includes many things, and the concepts of self-evaluation diverge substantially. There is also little idea of the way in which secondary schools can deal with self-evaluation instruments. In order to obtain a more accurate picture of this problem area, an exploratory study was set up focussing on two research questions: a. How do educational experts perceive self-evaluation? b. How does the self-evaluation process proceed with the aid of external self-evaluation instruments in secondary schools in genera! and in technical schools in particular? Do the schools achieve 'good practice' as regards self-evaluation?status: publishe