The Arts in Schools - Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

6 Assessment, evaluation and accountability127 Reasons The debate about education has grown in part from publicfor the demand for schools to be more accountable — to showchapter results. There is an understandable and legitimate pressureon teachers to assess and evaluate their work with children.There is a danger in thinking that this can always be doneeffectively through formal tests and examinations. Ourarguments in this report have clear implications in theseareas of assessment, evaluation and accountability whichwe hope to make clear in this chapter. We begin by lookingat the need for accountability. We then distinguish betweenassessment and evaluation looking at some of the processesinvolved. We look particularly at how these apply to thearts and offer some strategies for meeting the demands ofaccountability.128 The We firmly endorse the principle of educational accountability.need for Parents and employers have vested interests in education andaccount- a right and a need to be kept informed of children's progressability and attainment in all areas of the curriculum, including thearts. This need for information lies at the centre of what wehave to say. The basic demands from parents and employersare reasonable enough. They are fora adequate teaching of certain skillsb continuing improvements in the general standard ofeducational attainmente adequate information to be made available aboutpupils' actual achievements and personal potentialA positive response to these demands in the schools canonly help to raise the level of public understanding about,and involvement in, education. The problem is to ensurethat the forms of accountability — the actual measures81