Re-evaluate the school. Accountability and learning
Maurizio Parodi
The contribution deals with the evaluation of the education system, seen from a socio-pedagogical point of view and studies the specific organizational characteristics of the Italian School System recently involved in new reporting procedures aimed to a significant requalification of the educational proposal, which is rather complicated when in lack of a serious self-evaluation process of the single schools. If an external evaluation is necessary to an independent not self-referential governance, internal evaluation is equally needed to merge top-down actions and bottom-up feedback, necessary to originate the process of empowerment. In this way it is possible to define the learning purpose, which supports the «internal» consideration, representing the qualitative approach focused on the good practices to follow and the failures to avoid and that of accountability which is represented by the «external» consideration (the quantitative approach based on large cross section statistic) in order to allow schools to evolve from a basic culture into a culture of planning. The former based on common beliefs and internally grown habits (not always positive), the latter, a goal oriented planning approach based on a common and shared purpose and vision.
Keywords
Accountability, empowerment, governance, learning organization.