Evaluation in Local School Governance: A Framework for Analysis

This article develops a conceptual framework for exploring the role and consequences of evaluation at the local level of school governance. It also provides a frame of reference for the articles in this special issue on the role of evaluation in local school governance in Sweden. It consists of key concepts, three models of decentralised governance (state model, local government model and multi-actor model of governance) and four types of evaluation (indicator-based monitoring and evaluation systems; stand-alone evaluations; synthesis studies; and informal, occasional or everyday evaluations). Local school governance refers to governance that occurs in a municipality and in a quasi-market where local school actors govern and influence schooling and education. It includes the efforts of actors and institutions to govern and influence matters such as school policy, education, school climate and school safety. Evaluation is used as a generic term that refers to, for example, evaluation, inspection, quality assurance, ranking and to both stand-alone evaluations and evaluation systems. The article briefly demonstrates how the framework can be applied in an analysis of the role of evaluation at the local level of school governance by providing an example, and discusses the framework’s advantages and limitations.