For many decades the discussion on the governance of educational systems focussed on criticism of bureaucracy. Therefore a long time change-agents thought about "education governance" as a synonym of "bureaucracy" and "control" - which means: as an obstacle of school improvement. Within the last years this judgement changed. The theoretical limited and partially narrow-minded interpretations on isolated processes without an integral look at the social context gave rise to criticism. There's a need for a systemic view to understand processes taking place on the micro-, meso- and macro-level of the educational system simultaneously. Following the international and especially European and Anglo-American debates theorists in Austria discuss the implications of this "governance-view on education". This point of view opens up new vistas on education governance not as an obstacle but a force of school development. Considering the structural impact of specific constellations of involved persons and ways of decision- making on school-development, it seems necessary to widen the view in order to describe this phenomenon in a more adequate way. The proposed paper refers to interview- studies on school improvement-plans to analyse the effects of the mentioned new governance-perspective on our interpretations of school development as well as the possible impact on school development itself.