Education: You're Fired, Mr. Chips

Not for at least a generation had any major Western nation made such a drastic change in its entire educational system. Out of patience with a structure it views as rambling and inept, the Conservative government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has pushed through Parliament a reform bill that will radically change the way Britain educates its young. Among other things, the new law wipes out tenure for university professors appointed or promoted after November 1987; puts control of financing higher education under a pair of powerful new government-appointed funding councils; imposes a back-to-basics curriculum for publicly funded elementary and secondary...