School Autonomy with Accountability (SAWA) policies have spread rapidly around the world. Over the last decade they have been adopted in many different contexts, despite the lack of conclusive evidence of their benefits. These policies tend to be understood and implemented inseparably from each other, expecting results such as the stimulation of innovation, the strengthening of instruction and teaching methods and the improvement of student performance (De Grauwe, 2005).

Although the premise that SAWA policies will enable schools to drive innovation is increasingly embraced, empirical evidence on how innovation may be promoted by means of these policies is still scarce and often focused on improvements in performance in large scale assessments. In this regard, autonomy is supposed to give teachers and principals freedom of action to adapt to their immediate context and communities, thus aligning their actions to the necessities and specificities of students and families (Neeleman, 2019). In addition, accountability systems, usually test-based, are supposed to disclose information about the effectiveness of these innovations. Both assumptions point out to several key questions such as whether a higher degree of autonomy may lead to more innovation in schools, in which ways accountability serves to the innovation of certain aspects of teaching and, foremost, what kind of innovation is enacted.

In the European context, SAWA policies have essentially followed two models (Eurydice, 2020): On the one hand, educational systems with a high degree of school autonomy in all areas, high-stakes accountability systems and diversified curricula. In this category we identify Sweden, the Netherlands, numerous Eastern European countries and, until recently, the United Kingdom; on the other hand, educational systems with rather restricted managerial autonomy, low-stakes accountability systems and fairly centralized and not very diversified curricula. In this category we find Southern European educational systems, such as the Spanish and, in particular, the Catalan.

The SAWA policies in the Catalan context witnessed a turning point with the last education law adopted in 2009 and a series of decrees that were passed since then. School autonomy is presented as the fundamental pillar of the educational system and as a means to achieve cohesive staff teams within schools, adapt educational projects to local contexts, and drive innovation. Furthermore, a public body under the Ministry of Education (Evaluation Council, or CSA for its acronym in Catalan) has been in charge of overseeing the external evaluation in the last ten years. The CSA annually conducts a standardized test in last year of both primary and secondary education. The aim of the test is formative and informative in the sense that it should provide schools with tools and insights to innovate and perform better. For educational authorities, innovation is something desirable to be achieved: The accountability system is thought to provide schools with valuable information to see how they can do better at innovating by making use of their margins of autonomy.

All in all, the current SAWA system in Catalonia is characterised by the intention to strengthen managerial school autonomy for the leadership teams and, in exchange, reinforce standardized student performance assessment, with the explicit aim of fostering innovation. However, since there is no evidence on how the SAWA system can upturn innovation in schools, Catalonia makes a relevant case for the study of this expected outcome.

To address the questions presented above we aim, first, to explore the ways in which teachers and principals interpret SAWA policies and translate them into educational practices and, secondly, to examine the features and conditions of the SAWA regime that influence innovative processes in schools. To do so, we follow a sequential mixed methods approach (Teddlie & Takkahori, 2006). First, we employ a survey to explore the perceptions and experiences that teachers and principals in compulsory education have of the autonomy and accountability policies (e.g., the actual autonomy they experience; the pressure that test-based accountability exerts) and the innovative actions they undertake. The survey has been implemented in 57 schools, including 110 participants from the leadership teams and 559 teachers. This evidence is matched with administrative information on performance in standardized tests and school composition. Then, schools are sampled based on results on the survey regarding the perception of autonomy, the accountability pressure and the innovation occurring at the school-level to conduct in-depth interviews with school principals and teachers to deepen the ways in which SAWA policies advance or inhibit innovation. We are currently conducting interviews in 15 schools and we aim to reach 28 schools. Interviews are being conducted with the leadership teams and teachers, differentiating those who teach subjects that are externally assessed and those that are not.

The autonomy experienced by teachers and principals is diverging: While schools report wide margins of action in areas of pedagogical autonomy, managerial autonomy seems to be restricted. Hence, we could argue that despite the current emphasis made by the school autonomy policy in the management areas directed to building cohesive teams that can develop innovative educational projects adapted to their immediate context, this does not seem to translate into concrete practices of innovation on the part of school actors. In relation to the accountability system, it seems that despite the policy focus on bringing information into schools so that they can innovate, teachers and principals rarely use external results to introduce innovative practices. Rather, it appears that schools use external test results to publicize the schools and to address families’ - and, in particular, middle class families’ - expectations with schooling. This practice occurs most often in publicly subsidized private schools but is also present in public schools. Regarding the expected outcomes of the current SAWA system, it seems that schools already had the necessary autonomy to innovate in the pedagogical domain. In the field of school management, new practices appear limited. This could be explained by the fact that the management of schools is still quite centralized, particularly in public schools, compared to publicly subsidized private schools, which enjoy higher freedom in this regard. Furthermore, external testing puts pressure on schools, as reported by teachers and principals, which could be associated with a decline in innovative practices both in teaching and organizational practices, presumably because of the risk inherent in them. However, although residual, there are schools that justified the implementation of innovation programs to perform better on the test.

De Grauwe, A. (2005). Improving the quality of education through school-based management: Learning from international experiences. International Review of Education, 51(4), 269–287. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-005-7733-1 Eurydice. (2020). Equity in school education in Europe: Structures, policies and student performance. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Neeleman, A. (2019). The scope of school autonomy in practice: An empirically based classification of school interventions. Journal of Educational Change, 20(1), 31–55. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-018-9332-5 Teddlie, C., & Tashakkori, A. (2006). A general typology of research designs featuring mixed methods. Research in the Schools, 13(1), 12–28.