This volume evaluates the implications of change for the providers and consumers of post-1988 secondary education for the 21st century. The issues covered include school governance, parental choice and the market place and local management of schools.

Part 1 Schooling and the market: dynamics of competition - the effects of local competitive arenas on schools, Philip Woods, Carl Bagley and Ron Glatter; education and business - converging models, Ian Jamieson; unsaleable goods and the education market, Eric Blyth and Judith Miller. Part 2 Changing school governance: the school, the parent, the banker and the local politician - what can we learn from the English experience of involving lay people in the site-based management of schools? Rosemary Deem; school governing bodies in Northern Ireland - responses to local management of schools, Penny McKeown, Caitlin Donnelly and Bob Osborne; devolved management - variations of response in Scottish school boards, Margaret Arnott, Charles Raab and Pamela Munn; the grant maintained schools policy - the English experience of educational self-governance, Sally Power, David Halpin and John Fitz. Part 3 Experiencing local management: the new head in England - financial management and micropolitics in schools, Julia Evetts; a question of costs - budget management in secondary schools, Lynda Huckman and John Fletcher; educational change in the United Kingdom - a North-South divide, Sally Brown; when breadth and balance means balancing the books - curriculum planning in schools post-ERA, Dawn Penny and John Evans.