Abstract: Educational reforms are here regarded as interactive ways to deal with societal changes. During the early 1990s the Swedish model of welfare state education was transformed from a centralistic system, based on political decisions as solutions to educational problems, towards a performative turn where a number of actors participate in the governance of an efficiency-oriented educational system. It is argued that in such governance the production and use of information of educational qualities and performances is of vital importance. Thus, what does such information tell us about the performances of the performative turn? Given the ambitions to increase efficiency and to improve school results the performances are negative - the costs are increasing and in international comparisions the overall tendencies are deteriorating results for Swedish schools. It is argued that the faith in the performative turn is based on a lack of a social understanding of education and teaching inherent in the performative turn. This deficiency is serious given that education needs have to deal with social changes.