In a prior study we have analysed the effects of new educational policies giving school more autonomy and of allowing them to develop different „school profiles“ – on the coordination of work within and between Austrian secondary schools (see Altrichter et al. 2011). Our conclusion was that these policies did not fully overturn the traditional governance regime of hierarchical-professional double regulation which is typical for German speaking school systems but resulted in hybrid governance constellations (see Dupriez & Maroy 2003) in which traditional modes of coordination exist side by side with more ‘modern’ regulation features derived from evidence-based and New Public Management-policies. However, in all cases “competition” (see Zymek 2009) and „in-school hierarchy“ (see Altrichter 2010b, 101f.) seem to have become more important regulation principles. New instruments of evidence-based governance attracted surprisingly little attention in the schools of our study in spite of heavy investments of the ministry in promoting school programmes and in-school quality management. This, however, might change – we hypothesized   when educational standards and standard-based tests are implemented on a broad scale.

This is exactly the vantage point of the new project this paper will report on: In August 2008 educational standards found their way into Austrian educational law. Since that time teachers are legally obliged “to attend to competences and the related educational standards when planning and conducting teaching and to observe, further and secure the students’ performance in these fields” (http://www.bifie.at/bildungsstandards). In 2012 nation-wide performance tests of educational standards will take place for the first time ever for year 8 – students in Austria, in 2013 year 4 – students will be tested (vgl. http://www.bifie.at/bildungsstandards).

Our new project examines whether or not and in what way in-school and cross-school coordination has been changed through the introduction of educational standards and standard-related tests. The paper will explain research interests and the conceptual framework of the study. Then it will discuss the results of the first round of data collection which concentrates on the following questions: How do schools and intermediate and central agencies of the school system use educational standards in their daily work? How do these actors prepare for standard-related testing? How are these new instruments aligned to or conflicting with established practices of schooling?

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