This paper focuses on the school governance system of Germany with outlooks to Austria and Switzerland. Germany consists of federal states, where the educational autonomy is with each state. The German speaking countries and in particular Germany had until the mid 1990s an input-oriented school governance-system. It was - in academia but also in administration on policy level - predominantly determined by the discourse around Bildung, e. g. about the theory of education, the discussion of curriculum or the education of teachers. Later on in the 1990s and in the 2000s, the discussion within the German speaking countries was dominated by transnational policy trends, defined by OECD and pursued/ implemented by IEA, like pupil achievement testing and the development of organizational quality. This influence of an rather output-oriented educational governance highly influenced by ideas of new puplic management still persists. However, in Germany as well as in Austria and Switzerland it took on a specific character trying to mix traditional aspects with neo-liberal instruments of school governance. The attempts to decentralise decision-making power did not lead to deregulation but increased different and specific facets of regulation formulation, ie. Setting expectations through different forms of quality frameworks and pupil assessment, teacher and school evaluation and different forms of accountability. The political debate was loaded by the rhetoric of OCED and the influence of pupil testing and school inspection overshadowed the professional debate on education quality.

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