This paper attempts to assess outcomes of decentralization in education in Poland. National examination results for all students in Poland are analyzed using the value-added model of teaching quality to estimate the effectiveness of decentralized spending and decision making on achievement growth. Exploring three-years-data on achievement growth we are able to control for hidden characteristics of local governments when estimating the impact of spending and other decisions on student progress. Additionally, detailed description of trends in local government spending on education and provision of preschool facilities over the last 16 years is presented based on the extensive database of sub-national budgets. The main conclusion is that while there is some evidence that decentralization changed patterns of school expenditures there is no evidence that this had any systematic impact on teaching quality. There is also no evidence that higher spending translates to more equally distributed outcomes. However, there is some evidence that availability of preschool education, which solely depends on local governments autonomous decisions, have impact on achievement and that many local governments decided to limit preschool services despite their effect on education quality. Impact of local governments choices is further discussed with examples of recent programmes which combine efficient solutions with well-targeted spending and could be implemented in other local areas to increase overall effectiveness of the system.