In 1988, Margaret Thatcher, the United Kingdom’s famously conservative prime minister, approved a revolutionary reform: Allow secondary schools to shrug off local control and become autonomous, central government- funded entities. To convert into one of these so-called grant-maintained schools (GMs), a school had to secure the majority vote of its students’ parents. By 1997, some 900 of the United Kingdom’s 3,500 state-funded secondary schools had gone GM (the rough equivalent…

To read this article and start a full year of unlimited online access, subscribe now!

Already a subscriber?

Need to register for your premium online access,
which is included with your paid subscription?

Read more stories by Alana Conner.