ABSTRACT
Educational innovation and school effectiveness seem to be different programmatic concepts for different schools of thought on school improvement. Educational innovation focuses on what is new in education with the risk of underestimating the importance of traditional practices that are proven worthwhile. This influences the view of what education should be about: its goals and objectives. The concept of school effectiveness primarily deals with students’ achievement. A school's effectiveness is defined by the level of achievement of its students. This chapter details a hypothesis which is investigated in a secondary analysis of research into the innovation of Dutch primary schools. The research aimed at a description of the progress a representative sample of Dutch primary schools made in their process of innovation towards the new “Basic School” as required by law. The first sample contained all schools that had started their innovation on a voluntary basis before parliament passed the law in 1985.
