After more than a decade of furious debate over educational policies and ideas, major institutional changes are being imposed. Under the 1988 Education Act, the powers and procedures of Local Education Authorities are being re-ordered. The book looks at new right education and public education. Whatever the outcome of the first election of the 1990s, the 1988 Act and the National Curriculum have set many conditions for the new phase, rather as the 1944 Act constrained the post-war reforms, though in a different direction. 1944 could be turned into a charter for universal public provision and local experimentation, 1988 though complex and ambiguous as we shall see, sets the scene for split provision and central curriculum control. If 1944 was informed by a heavily qualified universalism, 1988 is animated by the spirit of Education Ltd. Education-as-a-Business-Corporation - commercial in outlook, hierarchical in organization, limited in liberality or extent - unless you pay for more. Even if 1992 brings in a Labour government, it will still be difficult, even if desirable, to restore public education to its pre-1979 state. The book examines the new right education, the peculiarities of English education and public education.