But Finland, the most successful system, has a relatively low level of school autonomy.
The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition has put great faith in school autonomy: there are now 1, 500 academies in England.
Higher levels of school autonomy are a characteristic of many higher performing systems - headed by China, the Netherlands, the UK and Hong Kong (which is considered as a separate school system in such education rankings).
But over the next two decades the school system shifted from high autonomy and low accountability to the very reverse: low autonomy and high accountability.
The beauty of a public charter school lies in its great autonomy and self-determination -- this is what drew me to charter schools in the first place.
The level of autonomy is questioned by teachers at the school.
One school reckons that the government should give ever more autonomy to its enterprises and managers, and hope that this will lead to more transparency and cleaner accounting.
Expect considerable discussion of the issues around autonomy, centralisation, governance and collaboration in the English school system.
The Conservatives were particularly interested in the funding arrangements for this school, where the state gives the school a lump sum each year - and then allows them considerable autonomy.
We have significantly reduced bureaucracy, given more autonomy to schools than ever before through our academy and free school programmes and are ensuring good teachers are better recognised through the pay system.
But the schools minister has announced plans to make the qualification voluntary - promoting autonomy rather than regulation - and to have the content of the training revised by the National College for School Leadership.
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