Evaluating effective school improvement: Case studies of programmes in eight european countries and their contribution to the effective school improvement model

Abstract

This article describes the empirical research that contributed to the development of the model of “effective school improvement”. The focus is mainly on the findings of that research but the problematic nature of designing a methodology that is applicable in 8 very different education systems is also discussed. The 4 key factors to emerge from the research were the importance of context, the role of external changes agents, the importance of internal change agency, and the complexity of the relationship between all the factors and influences. These factors and their contribution to the emerging ESI model are discussed in relation to the theoretical reflections reported in the previous article.

Notes

1. These are reported more fully elsewhere (De Jong, 2000; Hoeben, 1998).

2. For further details, see Stoll, Wikeley, and Reezigt (2002).

3. Greece did not rate its own schools because the strength of their teacher unions means that any judgements made about schools needs to be negotiated with them before data are collected and this had not been done. The Greek country team, however, agreed that other country teams could rate their programmes.

4. Some of these issues are described in detail here. The remainder are explored in Stoll et al. (2002).

5. It should be noted that since the completion of this research, teacher retention has become a problem in England with many teachers leaving the profession.