1 Introduction
Almost all countries in Europe arrange for evaluation of their schools in order to
improve the quality of education (Eurydice 2004, p. 1). The quest for quality has
become even more focussed in the last decade as economic globalisation has
increased the significance of quality education and international assessments of
student performance provide measures for comparative appreciation of education
results. Many education systems have attempted to modernize their governance by
establishing some variety of an “evidence-based governance regime” which may be
characterized by the following features (see Altrichter and Maag Merki 2010):
in six European countries. The results section of the paper starts with a summary of
the commonalities and differences of these six national inspection models with
respect to standards and thresholds used, to types of feedback and reporting, and to
the sanctions, rewards and interventions applied to motivate schools to improve.
Next, the intermediate processes through which these inspection models are expected
to promote good education (e.g. through actions of stakeholders) are explained. In the
concluding section, these assumptions are critically discussed in the light of research
knowledge.