The Evolving Political Economy of Education and the Implications for Educational Evaluation

The global transformation of school systems into engines to propel national economic development is altering expectations for educational evaluation. The field conventionally has concentrated on measuring student achievement and educational program performance. Dominant issues have been academic and methodological, and the professional orientation of evaluators has been toward practitioner colleagues and educators. This is changing. Managerial orientations are replacing professional relations as the prime expectations of the enterprise, and the social environment in which evaluation takes place is becoming intensely politicized. New institutional arrangements are needed to resolve the tension between these shifting societal conditions and the traditional norms and practices of those engaged in educational assessment. This paper explains the evolving human capital imperative and its relationship to education, describes emerging components of a global model of schooling, summarizes the conventional orientation of the educational evaluation field, suggests the evaluation dynamics that develop when nations reshape schooling systems in order to enhance economic growth, and proposes a new paradigm for national educational appraisal.