Abstract:

How to enable the right pupils to receive the right education from the right teachers, at a cost within the means of the state? This basic question, underlying discussions carried out in the educational management field, remains always open. In this context, an issue of how lower secondary (ISCED2) and upper secondary (ISCED3) schools in Poland use and benefit from application of available instruments designed to support them in evaluation and improvement of their performance and effectiveness, would be discussed. The most recent results of research carried out by the Educational Research Institute (Warsaw) in 2013 on implementation by schools of the internal school evaluation system (self-evaluation) is to be presented. Special attention is to be drawn to application of the educational value added instrument. Both, the SSE and in particular EVA, are well recognized, developed and used in educational systems of other EU countries. However, in Poland these measures remain currently under continuous development. As schools may face challenges with their implementation, it is therefore interesting to look both at how they introduce them (what problems are faced), as well as what improvements can be observed in schools as a result of implementation of these measures.

The presentation refers to results of:
1) the qualitative research on SSE carried out at a sample of 28 lower secondary and upper secondary schools
2) qualitative research on implementation of EVA carried out at a sample of 11 lower secondary schools and quantitative study at a representative sample of approximately 1500 lower secondary and upper secondary schools.

The following issues would be discussed: identification of the means of use of evaluation results by schools, indication of changes which may occur in schools as a result of the evaluation processes, identification of mechanisms supporting and/or jeopardizing the use of evaluation instruments in schools.

The ERI research is linked with overall evaluation of the system and research results should serve as an input into this process.

Keywords:

School self-evaluation, internal school evaluation system, implementation of educational value added, educational value added in Poland.