ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the rise of accountability systems as a lever for school improvement within education systems. A number of educational systems around the world have adopted approaches based on high levels of accountability. For example, in the United States ‘high-stakes’ testing and the No Child Left Behind Act 2002 tend to dominate a culture of performativity and accountability (Meiner and Wood 2004). A number of systems in developing countries have also adopted such approaches; in Malawi systematic inspection has been introduced as a lever for school improvement (West 2003) and several European countries have developed various accountability systems which are underpinned by the elements of inspection combined with use of performance data and target-setting (Zachariou 2008).
