ABSTRACT
Overt displays of lack of confidence may be no more than pragmatic adjustments to declining public belief in the wealth-creating and opportunity-creating effects of schooling. Great Britain is currently experimenting with an educational policy collage which appears, at first glance, to stand astride both horns of this dilemma, trying simultaneously to privatize the schools on a relatively large scale and in diverse ways, yet to impose strong and pervasive central control and standards on maintained. Educational reform in England during the latter years of the Thatcher administration meant two major, and seemingly contradictory, policy thrusts. Thatcher's Tories have extended the ambit of their privatization efforts well beyond attempts to funnel more private and less public funds into the maintained schools. Public for publicly operated systems, variable mix for private schools, although the public contribution is significant. The ultimate sense behind the strange combination of standardization and privatization probably lies in the usefulness of standardization as a stepping-stone toward further privatization.
