Societal changes and the ascension of the knowledge society in Europe have influenced educational systems and their organization. The need to provide individuals with the conditions for developing the skills necessary to face society demands has been generating changes in education, both concerning how it is perceived by the society, as well as its functioning. Alongside with the aim of providing students with curricular knowledge, school work is also driven by the intention of giving them the opportunities to develop personal, social and civic skills, such as the capacity of living within a society, capacity of adaptation to different circumstances, critical thinking and, more recently, an emphasis on developing creativity and innovation skills. This has led educational systems and schools to adapt their practices and to evolve as providers of the necessary conditions and environments. For its turn, these changes have drawn attention to school functioning and quality assurance (Rosa et al, 2008; Saraiva et al, 2003). The need of verifying the quality of the service provided by schools and to ensure that schools perform their functions accordingly to what is expected of them became a concern, and school evaluation processes seems to be the answer.
However, there seems to be a gap between what is stated as intentions and goals of school evaluation, and the orientations for developing such processes present in educational policies (Marchesi, 2002). On one hand, the role of the State as a provider of resources, and the fact that modern societies, resting partly on the capitalist ideals, perpetuate discourses of accountability, encouraged the implementation and production of policies regulating schools evaluation processes. These help inform governments and decision makers on the status of school education, in order for them to act accordingly with the identified needs, problems and constrains (Clímaco, 1992; Rocha, 1999; Guerra, 2002). It is within this paradigm that school evaluation became an obligation in many countries. This, however, falls on the spectrum of mere accountability. On the other hand, the school aim of promoting students' development, providing them with skills for future life in society, for responding to challenges and complex situations, sustains the implementation of verification processes as a means to help develop changes and improvements in schools, which could be achieved through school evaluation (Alaiz et al, 2003; Clímaco, 2005; Bolívar, 2003; Guerra, 2002). Within this perspective, school evaluation constitutes a means of guaranteeing the fulfillment of school tasks successfully and being able to respond to a society in constant evolution, at the same time it is able to constitute a starting point towards school improvement.
Considering this and the centrality school evaluation processes gained in recent years, it is important to study and understand this gap. Countries such as Portugal and England, that perform schools' evaluation for quite some time, are good examples for understanding political discourses concerning school evaluation and to explore this apparent gap. This presentation presents the results of a comparative policy analysis, currently in progress, focusing legal documents concerning school evaluation from Portugal and England.
