This article reflects on the historic tensions of education under capitalism, arguing that they have been exacerbated in our era of neo-liberal globalisation. Government drives for greater "accountability" and "effectiveness" are a blinkered response to the threefold global crisis we face: poverty and debt; a collapse of the planet's ecosystem; and war. Indeed, privatisation and vocationalism threaten to remove the curricular space in which young people can develop the knowledge and social capacity to respond to these problems. Using the concepts of "voice" and "agency," and providing pedagogical illustrations, he presents some new directions for educational change and curriculum reform. (Contains 19 notes.)