Abstract

This paper gives a critical overview of school reform measures taken in the German state of Bavaria in the aftermath of the OECD’s PISA 2000 study. While the highly selective Bavarian school system has provided the best test results among the German federal states, its overall performance in an international context has been mediocre. In order to improve the Bavarian education system a whole range of initiatives have been started in recent years. While following pedagogically sensible ideas in most cases, however, the projects started have been hampered by fiscal restraints, ideological reservations against breaking up the traditional three tier system of secondary education, prevailing bureaucratic restrictions, and missing improvements in incentives for teachers’ self-selection and involvement in reform. As a consequence, genuine, fundamental changes in the traditional system have not been initiated and are unlikely for the years to come.