This author begins by mapping the policy changes of the past 20 years that have occupied and changed the educational terrain in New Zealand. Fundamentally, the reform of education was premised on ideological conjecture that some changes (structural, administrative, pedagogical and managerial) were required, and that these changes would deliver "new" and arguably better and more beneficial ways of leading, managing, and learning. Fitzgerald then turns to examining two specific phases of educational reform that effectively changed the core purpose of schools, reforms that were deeply connected with the politics of privilege: the "functional period" and the "production period." Social justice is an impossibility if it rests on notions of deficit--that some individuals and groups have less than others and that in some way the social, economic, cultural and political conditions in which they live are less desirable and, accordingly, invoke disadvantage. Fitzgerald suggests that critical questions need to be raised about the values of those groups with considerably more power and resources and the decisions they have made that have segregated communities on social, economic, and, more often, class and racial lines. The challenge for educators is to think about how they can reclaim education as a site for advocacy and action that leads to socially just outcomes.