Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of contributors -- Preface: Walking backwards into the future -- References -- Enhancing the quality of education through school self-evaluation -- Introduction -- The beginnings -- Interlude evaluation and quality -- Developments in school self-evaluation -- Voluntary or mandatory -- Other countries -- The third and fourth decades -- The way forward: external/internal -- Complementary evaluation: a case example -- Learning from several decades -- To return to my story -- References -- Section 1: The New Zealand case -- Introduction to the New Zealand case -- The New Zealand educational context: evaluation and self-review in a self-managing system -- Student assessment and evaluation systems -- Teacher evaluation and appraisal -- School self-review -- Education review office -- Systemic initiatives to influence education -- Schooling improvement -- Discussion -- References -- AsTTle - a national testing system for formative assessment: How the national testing policy ended up helping schools and teachers -- The asTTle Test System -- Development History 2000-2005 -- Description -- Success Factors -- Challenges to asTTle -- Defining the Curriculum -- Technology and Curriculum -- Psychometric Debates: Alternative Criterial Bases -- Levels and Norms: Criterial and Experiential Approaches to Defining Progression -- Conclusion -- References -- A thousand flowers blooming: The implications of school self-review for policy developers -- Raising Pasifika achievement: The national response -- Schooling Improvement initiatives -- Evaluating the national response: The Pasifika research project -- Method -- Participants -- Research method and analysis -- Findings -- Discussion -- Acknowledgements -- References -- Evaluation in effective research-practice partnerships.

The New Zealand Context and Its Influence on Research-School Partnerships -- The Learning Schools Model (LSM) -- An Ethical Imperative -- Building a Community of Practice -- Teachers as Adaptive Experts -- Situated and Robust Research -- Shared Criteria for 'Successful Solutions' -- Conclusion -- References -- Introduction to the education review office chapters -- Reference -- Developing a conceptual framework for school review -- Introduction -- Theories of policy development -- An early history of ERO -- The place of self-review in education policy -- Building capacity in evaluation -- Complementary evaluation: the conceptual framework -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Acknowledgement -- References -- Changing the professional culture of school review: The inside story of ERO -- Organisation and context -- The Internal and External Factors that Drove and Helped Shape ERO's Review Methodology Developments -- The methodological challenges -- Challenges and Power Shifts in Self-Review -- Capability building and the development of high-quality complementary evaluators -- What Comes First: The Learning or the Methodology? -- Changing Theories and Practice -- 'Intelligent Belief' in Evaluation and Compassionate Accountability -- The Need for Critical Reflection and Learning -- The Pressures of Working and Learning in Review Teams -- A Way Forward -- Reference -- Evaluation as a double-edged sword: Building schools' evaluative capability while evaluating their efforts in raising achievement -- Introduction -- Schooling Improvement in New Zealand -- Set-up of the evaluation -- The evaluation phases -- Theoretical Framing Through the Phases -- Phase 1: Inventory -- Phase 2: In-depth Case Studies -- Phase 3: Co-constructing Evaluative Practice -- Conclusion -- References.

Leaders' use of classroom evidence to understand, evaluate and reform schooling for indigenous students -- Beginning with the educational experiences of māori students -- The professional learning and development model -- Review of practice and development -- Moving towards school-wide reform -- Rongohia te Hau: Returning to the Educational Experiences of Māori Students -- Student Surveys -- Teacher Surveys -- Walk-Through Observations -- Leadership Co-construction Meeting -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- School improvement through theory engagement -- Theory engagement: Some preliminary concepts -- Theory engagement: Revealing the theory in the practice -- Theory engagement: Evaluating the theory in the practice -- Theory engagement: Improving the theory in the practice -- Bypassing and engaging competing theories: Contrasting examples -- Comparing theory engagement with similar approaches -- Conclusions -- References -- Looking forward: Evaluation in New Zealand education -- Context matters -- Evaluative thinking in New Zealand education policy and practice -- Curriculum and Standards -- School Planning -- Best Evidence Synthesis Programme -- Cyclic School Self-Reviews and ERO Reviews -- Student Assessment -- Support to Schools -- Looking Forward -- Final words -- References -- New Zealand style school review: A view from outside -- International accountability efforts -- The New Zealand approach -- Matching Up New Zealand-Style and UK-Style School Review -- Complexities in Adapting New Zealand SSE/ER to Other Countries -- References -- Section 2: International contrasts -- An Introduction to International Contrasts -- School self-evaluation in the longer time scale. Experiences from a small Scandinavian state -- The research on self-evaluation in the longer time cycle -- Methodologies for school self-evaluation in the longer time scale.

The Norwegian case and its context -- The unfinished … -- Concluding comments -- Notes -- References -- Data-centered school self-evaluation in the Netherlands: Characteristics and prerequisites -- The Dutch accountability context -- The Focus project -- The Data team project -- Critical success factors for using data for self-evaluation -- Conclusion and discussion -- Acknowledgments -- References -- Exploring the possibilities and methodological challenges of evaluation practice: A democratic question -- Introduction -- Context -- Evaluation and a democratic approach -- Methodologies -- In practice -- Challenges -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Acknowledgements -- References -- Appendix A -- Professional Recognition and Coaching Tool: Direct Teaching -- Judging and explaining the quality of school self-evaluations: Indicators and findings on meta-evaluation from a Flemish perspective -- Introduction -- Context -- Conceptual framework -- Justification and design of the case studies -- Findings -- Which Indicators Can be Used to Operationalize the Quality of a Self-Evaluation? -- To What Extent Were the Self-Evaluations Conducted in the Schools Studied of Good Quality? -- How Can (the Differences in) the Results of Self-Evaluations be Explained? -- Concluding remarks -- References -- About the Editors -- About the Authors.