In response to accountability systems dominated by external inspections and achievement data, calls are being made for "intelligent" accountability or a new accountability paradigm that focuses on "meaningful" learning, enabled by professionally skilled and committed educators within the system. In such systems, the actors are…

This paper investigates how and why test-based accountability (TBA), a global model for education reform, began to dominate educational debates in Norway in the early 2000s, and how this policy has been operationalised and institutionalised over time. In examining the adoption and retention of TBA in Norway, we build on the cultural political…

Recent educational reforms in Norway include national tests and monitoring mechanisms to see if key outcomes are being achieved. At the same time, Norway has not established the follow-up mechanisms like high-stakes incentives and rewards that are characteristic of accountability policies in some other countries. As a consequence, one could argue…

This article discusses how teachers construct new representations about accountability and professionalism in the context of increased external control. Over the last decade in particular, concerns about the quality of schooling and the quality of teachers has been raised by both politicians and the public alike, while prominent policy responses…

This article focuses on the comparison of organizational antecedents of teachers' fostering of students' effort in two quite different accountability regimes: one management regime with an external-accountability system and one with no external accountability devices. The methodology involves cross-sectional surveys from two different management…

As education systems around the world move towards increased accountability based on performance measures, it is important to investigate the unintended effects of accountability systems. This article seeks to explore the extent to which head teachers in a large Norwegian municipality may resort to gaming the incentive system to boost their…

What influence does the teacher exercise over their students' learning outcomes? This study investigates the impact of teacher quality on student learning outcomes in science halfway through the first year of high school. A multiple-measurement model estimates the potential impact of teacher influence on learning outcomes for 1,060 secondary…

School systems aspire to provide equal opportunity for all, irrespective of socio-economic status (SES). Much of the criticism of recent school reforms that introduce accountability, autonomy, and choice emphasizes their potentially negative consequences for equity. This report provides new evidence on how national features of accountability,…