ABSTRACT
Through the PER, Hashimoto and his MITI and MCA bureaucrat partners achieved the first significant restructuring of the education system since World War II. The three changes described in Chapter 3 created a favorable context different from the one that frustrated Prime Minister Nakasone in the 1980s. First, as the Japanese economy stagnated in the 1990s, worries about schools’ effect on economic competitiveness became more widespread and pressing. Second, structural and managerial reforms had become accepted as legitimate ideas, regularly championed by business leaders and government reform councils. Finally, the education policy community was fractured by divisions among teachers’ unions and other educational specialists.
