Notes on the American Fascination with the English Tradition of School Inspection

The paper briefly explores the dynamics of the American school reform movement to explain the current American interest in English school inspection. The main explanation suggested is that there is a clear and growing awareness of the difficulties of ‘knowing schools’ through standardized testing. Knowledge from testing is a poor resource for schemes of school accountability and for supporting the work of teachers. Reflecting American interest, the ‘Study of School Inspection’ (Wilson, 1995) was carried out in 1992 to discover the underlying assumptions in the ways traditional English inspection knows and judges schools. The study, which was based on watching LEA and HM inspectors at work over a 9 month period, considers some of the ramifications of the English approach for American assessment and reform