The field of education has been pressured to contribute to the establishment of a more democratic society. As reaction to this pressure, nations all over the world are constantly performing interventions in an attempt to surpass difficulties and problems. One of the major paths to do so is in the form of policies and political action (Eurydice, 2003). In fact, there is wide range of political measures implemented all over the globe, such as the USA “No child left behind”, the international PISA Programme, and a generalized granting of autonomy to schools, among others. Following this pattern, in the last 20 years, a major political movement took place concerning the educational systems all over the world, related to school evaluation (SE) (OECD, 2012; 2013).

Similarly with what occurs in the evaluation of many social services, schools evaluation aims for verifying and assessing the quality of the service provided, as well as students’ academic success and, moreover, in assisting educational institutional to improve, therefore improving the quality of education. For this reason, in recent years, school evaluation has gained a stronger position in political discourses. By analysing a set a political documents, policies and recommendations it is possible to identify this trace of speech concerning evaluation. It became more than an instrument for judging (CEDEFOP, 2011; Commission of the European Communities,2001; 2007; OECD (s/d)). Evaluation became an instrument for change, for improvement and for development. That is to say that evaluation, as a policy, as well as a process or a concept is, nowadays, guided by a wider orientation, set on assessing the state of a service or product and the success of an action or process, on producing useful knowledge and on solving problems and promoting improvement (Devos & Verhoeven, 2003; Sheerens, 2003; Hofman, Dijkstra & Hofman, 2009; Ryan & Telfer, 2011; Schildkamp et al, 2012). School evaluation, as a political initiative, follows these same guiding principles, taking as its main goal to promote the improvement of educational institutions and, ultimately, the improvement of educational systems, as can be seen in the discourse of political documents of different nature – recommendations, policies, official studies and research (OCDE, 2011; Commission of the European Communities, 2007; Faubert, 2009). So, as any other policy, the one of school evaluation aims to impact on a specific reality and to promote changes considered as necessary and/or desirable.

But the history of education reveals that there is a long distance between the formulation of the policy aims and its enactment and, therefore, its achievements. That is, the policies are surrounded by a wide range of factors that influence both its production, but moreover, its fulfilment and the results achieved through the implementation of the policy (Ball, 1994). School evaluation, as a political action, is not immune to this situation (Dale, 1989). So, even though school evaluation aims for an improvement of the quality of school’s educational service, and the overall improvement of educational systems, the translation of the political discourse into evaluation actions may, or may not, deflect from those goals. Thus, it seems rather important to study how such a relevant policy is being interpreted, conducted and understood by the multiple structures involved, and to what extent its goals are being fulfilled, particularly by studying countries with well-established SE policies and processes.

It is precisely this matter that is addressed in this presentation, which draws upon the preliminary conclusions on school evaluation in Portugal, a country with school external evaluation (SEE) since 2006, focusing on the perspectives of schools in regard to how SE is being conducted and what has been achieved so far.

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