The school evaluation movement has started in Portugal by the end of the 80’s, and the different political orientations and technical features in the evaluation systems can be viewed as a consequence of the growing internationalization of the country, and of the implementation of a global program of the country modernization on promoting a culture of evaluation and accountability and educating more autonomous and responsible citizens. In this paper it will be mentioned firstly the contexts where the different school evaluation programs were born, their characteristics and modes of implementation, as they may partly explain the structure of information to be collected,  and the kind of knowledge about schools’ performance to be produced.  

A mention will be made to the most meaningful projects implemented either by the Ministry of Education or by private entities, having in mind the number of schools involved, their stated goals and their impact on the involved schools.

The current system, which will complete a five year cycle of implementation in 2011, will be presented in a more detailed way, highlighting strengths and weaknesses in the field work processes, in the quality of the feedback to schools to support their improvement, and in the level of accountability to society involving partners and sharing responsibilities. Notice will be given of the reflection being conducted at national level about the issues deserving to be improved either in the model or in the field work to better serve the political and social purposes of accountability and school improvement.

School evaluation systems, school self evaluation, accountability, school improvement.