ABSTRACT
What should be government’s role in primary and secondary education? The answer to this question has not yet been provided in this book, but some directions have been suggested through the market role assessment conducted thus far. In this chapter, we return to the foundations of our analytical framework and review the findings from preceding chapters. Recalling the ill-structured nature of public policy questions like that of primary and secondary school reform, one needs to remember the importance of circumscribing the problem as an early step toward problem solution. Therefore, the first task in moving toward answers about government’s role in school reform is to summarize and illuminate the analytical findings regarding the division of the seven identified market roles between economic actors in the public sector and the private sector. Many of these economic roles overlap and interact; thus, it is important to consider the distribution of the roles as a whole, as well as in the isolated fashion presented in the separate chapters earlier in the book. However, it is appropriate to begin with a general look at the findings made with respect to each of the economic roles. To improve analytical clarity, these economic roles are addressed in a slightly different order from that of the preceding chapters.1
