ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the question: do education policies work better if they are administered in a centralized way or are they doomed to fail, and if so, why? It describes the implementation process of the New Middle School (NMS) in Austria at secondary I. Traditionally this is a stage where after four years of comprehensive primary education, students in Austria have to decide which school type to attend. The NMS trial was implemented in 2009–10, integrated into the regular school system in 2012–13, and replaced the lower secondary school at the end of 2015–16. A study, NOESIS (2010–2017), evaluated the process using a multiple-methods multilevel design.
