Understanding the governance structure of U.S. education helps to explain the varying influence of the different public voices described in Chapter 2. However, the actual political structure of education doesn’t tell the whole story. Within the governance structure politicians and political parties vie for power. Outside the governance structure, as I will discuss in Chapter 4, civil society attempts to influence the decisions within the educational governance structure. Therefore the governance structure is nested in an arena of political rivalries and ideologies and the competing influences from nongovernment organizations that form civil society. Within this nested governance structure political forces decide what knowledge is most worth teaching and the best conditions and organizational structures for teaching that knowledge.