Abstract

The essay addresses the changing governance of the Italian schooling system in times of crisis. In particular, the work by drawing on an ongoing policy historiography illustrates how standards of input and standards of outcomes are becoming objects of value for the spending containment and assessment. The article illustrates the features, the limits and the effects of the ongoing standardization that are changing the ecology of educational practice (Kemmis et al., 2012; Landri, 2012). Ten years after the policy of school autonomy a governance of standards, data and performance is emerging albeit the direction of the current changes is not yet irreversible.