ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on matters of economic and political justice given their relevance in current debates about school autonomy, school accountability and social justice in English education. It identifies how a dis-embedding of education markets through academies reform has constrained social justice at the school and system levels through producing a context of maldistribution in drawing increasingly limited public resources away from the public sector and misrepresentation in closing down opportunities for the transparent and democratic government of schools. Attempts to free up the English education system by devolving power and control to schools and their communities has been driven by neoliberal and market logic. A key premise of school autonomy reform is that more freedom in the hands of excellent leaders and teachers will deliver an excellent education. One key mechanism that is managing and holding to account the increasingly dispersed system of English education, is network governance.
