The contributors provided in this book shed light on and initiate debates about important policy issues associated with education reform and improvement. The authors do this by linking conceptual frameworks to past research, analyzing these challenges, and speculating about the contours of future research and school practice. Centering on policy research-based examinations of the future in public education in the United States, this book examines policy issues as they relate to public education governance, finance, curriculum development and community relations. At a conceptual level, the volume explores along several dimensions whether or not public education should exist in its current form, and what is the connection between future configurations of public education, policy development and the global economy,