School improvement in Italy is in its infancy, and the opportunity lies for a robust thrust of this concept within European Social Funds to work towards the realization of major undertakings in this field.

Scope of this paper is to analyse the theoretical implications for a school improvement programme conceived within European Social Funds evaluation in Southern Italian middle schools. First in its kind in Italy, this programme originates from the necessity to audit the use of ESFs granted to each of the involved schools, while helping them find a way to start coherent and sustainable improvement practices.

After a diachronic literature review on school effectiveness and improvement models (Borman, G. D., Hewes, G., Overman, L.T., Brown, S., 2002; Buechler, M., 2002; Creemers, B.P.M., & Kyriakides, L., 2006; Goldspink, C., 2007; Hopkins, D., 2008; OECD, 2008; Reezigt, G. J.,  Guldemond, H.,  Creemers, B. P. M., 1999),  with a brief analysis of Italian school self-evaluation attempts (Castoldi, M., 2005a; Castoldi, M., 2005b; Melchiori R., 2001), this paper seeks to answer a very simple yet crucial question: why is school improvement so difficult to obtain? What is the focal point in dealing with students in the classroom in order to improve their performance?

Two speculative pitfalls of existing school improvement models are identified: the risk to loose theoretical focus during the operationalization process and simultaneously rely on behaviouristic practices such as rewards and punishments as main solutions.

Radical societal changes have been taking place since the inception of school effectiveness movements started in the 1980s. This essay proposes an updated theoretical approach rooted in learning to learn as both the focal process and the intended output for students, teachers and schools (Deakin Crick, R.,  Broadfoot, P., Claxton, G., 2004; Goldspink, C., 2007; Stringher, C. 2006, 2008). Aware of the need to guide practice from consistent theoretical grounds, the author defines learning to learn, synthesises a series of principles to be taken into account in planning school improvement actions and shares an improvement route for schools to implement.

The proposal is informed by a socio-cultural-constructivist epistemology and emphasises situational, transformative and organizational learning (Kolb, D. 1984; Resnik, L. 1987; Schön, D., 2006; Senge, P. et al., 2000; Taylor, E., 2008). It tends to move away from school effectiveness literature focusing just on statistical models and it departs also from EER tradition in that it inverts the logical approach: while EER usually analyses and compares large data sets in order to find factors affecting educational outcomes, this proposal starts at the student level to detect what affects their performance.

The author proposes an original theoretical approach grounded in learning to learn and reflection as the focus for students, teachers and organizations. A series of principles guiding improvement practice in schools is offered and delineates the need for actions to stem from clearly stated student, classroom and school objectives, rather than from abstract reasoning or from mere statistical exercises.

Considerations on this delicate task are provided together with implications for evaluation researchers at the central level and teachers or school principals at the local level.

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