ABSTRACT
This chapter examines two broad ideological movements within recent educational policy that have attacked the comprehensive ideal. Doing so will illustrate some of the problems that comprehensive schools sought to overcome, and show that those problems are being intensified by recent increases in privatization and selection. Privatization has been one of the major policy priorities of successive Conservative governments since 1979. Most obviously, it refers to the sale of government owned monopolies and trading companies to shareholders, but the range of areas where privatization can be said to have occurred includes residential homes for the elderly, bus deregulation, the sale of council houses, and changes to pensions, health and social services. There are several aspects of the 1993 Education Act and subsequent government announcements that reemphasized the government's commitment to privatization and selection. Privatization and selection have been important ideological motivations for many Conservative policies in education since 1979.
