In the climate of EU-adherence Romania implemented a series of measurements to increase Roma educational attainment, school mobility and reduce school drop out; a curricula for teaching Romany language and culture was developed, separate places for Roma in secondary schools were introduced and the trans-national programme, The Second Chance was implemented. Aim of this paper is to investigate some unintended outcomes of these policies by using the framework of evaluation research (van Willigen, 2002). In doing so, we start with the formal documents regarding the educational policies for Roma in Romania, in order to identify its official targets. Then a case study follows, based on a long-time ethnographic fieldwork (participant observation, interviews with headmasters, teachers and parents) started in 2011 in a public school in a Romanian town, with predominantly Roma children, to reveal, how these aims were put into practice in a local institution. Educational policies are placed in a larger context, too, within the general setup of the Romanian educational system. This approach intends to identify, how aspects of the system, with apparently no connection to the education of Roma in Romania are operating and influencing the letter. According to our findings, state-based financial polcies, the centralized curricula of the public schools, the opportunitites to offer simbolical and material incentives to the teaching staff and auxiliary teachers, the national system of testing mental abilities serve a basis for all projects targeting the Roma, therefore, the national system of education influences, in some cases even obstructs the intended results of Roma policies aiming school integration.

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