ABSTRACT
This chapter talks about methodological issues in the justification and verification of educational policy programs. In every-day language the phrase “quality of education” carries a reference to both the quality of the service delivered (processes) and an appraisal of the level of output. The only sense in which assessment should be independent is that curriculum development on the one hand and achievement test construction on the other can be seen as two imperfect, fallible processes of specifying educational objectives, which had better be organized separately, in order to avoid duplicating bias. One of the arguments to refrain from assessing non-cognitive outcomes, namely that it is doubtful whether we properly know how to teach them, as used by Hofstee, fits quite well within a process-output perspective on educational quality. The dual educational system in the Netherlands (public vs. private schools) has repeatedly been criticized for its inefficiency.
