ABSTRACT
As we noted in Chapter 1, the common underlying assumption of much neoliberal and ‘Third Way’ analysis is that government failures cause significant inefficiencies in the public provision of goods and services. Extending or imitating market forces has become a shared policy response, aimed at generating a new performance culture in the (smaller) public sector. While market-testing and privatisation have been the preferred responses of the neoliberals, education policy makers of all persuasion have been willing to encourage public sector management to adopt what might regarded as ‘private sector practices’ for strategic development. Sometimes referred to as ‘restructuring’ (e.g. Lawton 1992), this may or may not be accompanied by market reforms. In the case of schooling, this begs two questions which determine appropriate approaches to formulating strategy in schooling. First, which should be regarded as the ‘prime business unit’, the school or the complete public school system? Second, to what extent are the implications of alternative schooling processes for current and future social welfare known or knowable?
