ABSTRACT
Largely the outcome of policy borrowing from the charter school program, English free schools were volunteered as the answer to some of the perceived social and economic problems associated with state education in England (Gove, 2010). Based on a similar charter style arrangement, free schools policy created opportunities for actors other than the state to engage in educational provision (Department for Education, 2010). This chapter will use the stories of two women who were instrumental in setting up community schools, one a U.S. charter school, the other an English free school. Using primary and secondary data, the chapter plots the development of the two schools and considers the forces that affected them. In particular, it considers the ways in which both schools were powerless in affecting existing social relations and their reproduction. Rather than focusing on a desire for a demand-led model, we argue here that policymakers should consider whose demand is being recognized as well as whose is not. It is only when the values of the educationally disenfranchised are part of the process of governance that existing social hierarchies can be challenged.
