The 1988 Education Reform Act sought to deconstruct the framework of post-Second World War social democratic governance and replace the tacit rule of professional providers with mechanisms of choice and market competition, thus empowering parents and school leaders. Functions, powers and responsibilities were fundamentally reconstituted and have transformed the governance of education. New Labour, when it came to power in 1997, did not alter but extended the practices of this neo-liberal polity. Now, within the frame of this regime, a new re-constitution of the governance of education may be emerging: schools, colleges and agencies are encouraged not to compete, but to collaborate in creating a community of practice with families. Two modes of governance are developing in parallel. This article concludes that only a wider reconstituting of the public sphere, one that restricts the power that the advantaged are accruing from the education market place, can enable very different purposes of learning, and conditions necessary for a cosmopolitan civic society to emerge. (Contains 1 note.)