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PAM Articles 
Educational Governance and the New Public Management
LANCE D. FUSARELLI, PH.D. AND BONNIE JOHNSON, PH.D.
PAM, Vol. 9 No. 2,
(2004)
Despite the long-held view that schools are loosely coupled organizations,
recent outcomes-based accountability and school choice reforms, exemplified by the No
Child Left Behind Act, represent an attempt by federal and state policymakers to employ
techniques of the “New Public Management” and to impose more tightly coupled policy
strictures on the educational system. The authors explore the origins of this movement
and locate it within the context of an emergent neo-corporatist ideology that has
fundamentally altered the traditional distinction between the public and private spheres.
The authors conclude with a discussion of the impact of the NPM on educational
governance and policy.
