Raise the bar. Lower the gap. Increase public confidence

The interaction between the government and the professional organizations and interest groups has been evolving during the last decades. In Denmark, known to be one of the Scandinavian corporate states, the political field of education policy has one of the shortest traditions for cooperation between the state and the organizations in the civil society. Nevertheless, since the 1960‟s there has been periods with very intense cooperation, and other times, when the organizations was kept out in the dark. The last decade has been tumbling especially for the organizations that represents the special interests in primary and secondary schools, primarily organizations representing parents and teachers, and the two organizations has represented very different approaches to the challenges they have met.\nThe Danish government has introduced new principles for governing. In the 1980‟s they left the principles of Public Administration, and turned to implement the principles of New Public Management instead. New Public Management is known to introduce NPM, compared to other public management theories, is more oriented towards outcomes and efficiency through better management of public budget. It is considered to be achieved by applying competition, as it is known in the private sector, to organizations in the public sector, emphasizing economic and leadership principles. New public management addresses beneficiaries of public services much like customers, and conversely citizens as shareholders.\nIntroducing the principles of New Public Management often creates problems with the public employees, who often loses benefits or whose jobs is outsourced during the implementation. In the paper I introduce some interesting ways of implementating New Public Management-principles in the school system in Ontario, Canada. Here the government has used principles of New Public Governance to implement the New Public Management-strategies. And that has worked out very effective.\nIn the paper I compare the political situation in Ontatio, Canada with the situation in Denmark during the 2000‟s. Canada and Denmark differ when you look at the traditional administrative practices. Denmark is a corporate country, with strong continental European traditions of policy making and administration. Canada is a rather pluralistic, anglo-american country in ways of dealing with policy-making and administration. But besides this I find a lot of similarities in the tense situations of political mismanagement, both countries has seen, and which has involved the professional organizations and special interest groups concerning primary and secondary schools.\nThrough interviews with members of the Teachers Union and the Chairman of , lawmaking-documents and other sources of information I try to draw a picture of What has the changes in political and administrative principles meant for the power that the professional organizations and interest groups has in society? Which new principles can be introduces to take back power to the professional organizations and interest groups? Can the danish primary and secondary school system learn from the Canadian Reform from 2003?

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