Neo-institutionalism and “Educational Governance” are two relatively new approaches of empirically grounded theorizing about educational institutions. In this contribution, it will be shown – and illustrated by empirical examinations on institutions of adult and second chance education - how the combination of both approaches can lead to new insights on institutionalized educational processes. It will be discussed, how these two theoretical perspectives are complementary. The discussion will be lead by two hypotheses. (1) Any concept of evidence-based governance in the educational system has to account for the decoupling of formal structures and activity structures on the one hand, and for the empirically observable gap between control structures and effort structures. (2) Processes of mutual observation both between schools and between educational politicians can lead to isomorphism (between school profiles / between educational policies), which still may superimpose possible evidence-based improvements.