An increasing number of countries are adopting accountability systems in education that rely on the external evaluation of students' learning outcomes through standardized assessments. The international dissemination of this form of accountability, often known as test-based accountability, does not imply that exactly the same policy is adopted…

In Spain since the Constitution was ratified in 1978, eight laws have been passed regulating the education system in non-university stages, thereby subjecting education to continual upheaval. In the first laws, from the 1980s and early 1990s, the debate was primarily political, but by the year 2000, coinciding with Spain's taking part in the…