Description: There is an increase in demands for instruments for quality measurements and transparent service system in education. Important motivations to enhance transparency are student rights legislation and implementing open enrolments, general ambitions to facilitate knowledge transfer and secure good quality in education or the financial situation and scarce resources strengthen the states demand to control and manage education. Devolution of tasks and responsibilities to the local government and the school level implies expectations and demands for increased accountability on the local and professional actors. Accordingly, one important actor influenced by processes of transparency and accountability is the teacher profession. Professional dominance is seen as a problem by believers in New Public Management which tends to argue for marginalization of professional influence in politics and fields of practise. On the other hand, despite the rise of neo-liberalism and attack on professional monopolies professional bodies have been able to defend their work jurisdictions and their autonomy and discretion. The research question is how transparency and accountability, seen as instruments of a wider New Public Management agenda threaten or strengthens professional autonomy and knowledge. Methodology: In this paper our interest is on the similarities and differences in how teachers, in order to maintain their professional status and autonomy, cope with new regulatory challenges and policies that enable transparency and greater degrees of accountability. We will present an analysis based on case studies carried out 2005 at five schools in Sweden and Norway. The interviewed are teachers and heads in primary and lower secondary schools. In addition, our analysis relies on policy documents and relevant research literature. Conclusions: A preliminary hypothesis is that the teachers cope differently with the reforms in Norway than in Sweden. There seems to be mistrust to the central government due to their downplaying of the role of the teacher profession. In Sweden, the teacher profession copes very well with transparency instruments and their strengthened accountability. The teacher profession even seems to be willing to demonstrate responsible actions in accordance with the national policies in order to strengthen their own profession. We aim to discuss the significance of how different motivations behind "equal" transparency processes might affect teachers coping strategies. In Sweden financial recession and school competition while in Norway a dissatisfaction of central governments ability to manage the local level in education as well dissatisfaction with educational quality. The analysis will illuminate how the relationships between students, teachers, managers and the state are affected and reconstructed by transparency and accountability processes and, in turn, how professional knowledge are conceptualised.