Beetween evaluation and assessment : the concept of external evaluation at Polish schools

External evaluation at Polish schools as a form of pedagogical supervision has been conducted since 7th October, 2009. Under current law it is defined as "practical evaluation examination carried out at schools or institutions." The evaluation is aimed at improving school performance and building a coherent policy development of the educational system, based on empirical experiences. Evaluation is a social study, comprises collecting and analysing information in the studied areas, and determining the level of school compliance with requirements defined in Polish law. After the evaluation, schools receive a report containing findings and conclusions of the evaluation and information about the level of compliance with state requirements. With respect to some the requirements, the determination of their compliance at the lowest level leads to the introduction of school rehabilitation programmes. All requirements, procedures, research tools, reports containing quantitative and processed qualitative data are publically available. External evaluation is carried out by a team of evaluation inspectors, and it is planned in consultation with the school headmaster. Subject to the evaluation are students, teachers, headmaster, non-teaching staff, parents, local government representatives and school partners. First, schools receive a preliminary report from the evaluation. During meetings with inspectors, school staff refer to the contents of the preliminary report, submit their comments on the report and work to improve the school performance. Inspectors do not formulate guidelines or recommendations, only conclusions. Upon completion of the evaluation process, the headmaster and teachers have the opportunity to comment on the examination progress in an anonymous survey (carried out on-line). This article aims at a re-definition of the adopted external evaluation approach. The study used data available at the beginning. What was analysed: a) external evaluation assumptions, under the existing legislation b) the interim evaluation report relating to the project whose main objective is to support the implementation of a new model of pedagogical supervision for the Polish education system ("Programme to strengthen the effectiveness of the pedagogical supervision and evaluation of school performance, stage III") and a report on the use of external evaluation by schools to improve the quality of work, c) materials associated with the project in progress (mainly conceptualisation of evaluation, examination procedures, training materials for inspectors) d) literature produced during the last three years, on external evaluation at Polish schools. Conclusions from the analysis were juxtaposed against contemporary approaches, including the development evaluation concept, by Michael Quinn Patton. The study shows that the current concept of evaluation attempts to reconcile at least two contradictory approaches to evaluation: the bureaucratic model, with the evaluator as a judge evaluating the degree of effectiveness of the measures, and introducing sanctions for schools if this assessment is set at the lowest level, and a dialogue-based evaluation model, which postulates, inter alia, interactivity, dialogue, socialisation of the decision-making process, transparency, democratic character of the evaluation process, with the evaluator as an animator of changes