This paper begins by discussing reasons for the failure of important aspects of Conservative education policy in the United Kingdom and finds them in contemporary Conservatism's "fundamentalist" handling of questions of culture and tradition. The term "fundamentalist" refers to certain religious, cultural, and political ideologies that invoke a narrow and authority-centered account of tradition without attempting to enter into discourse about its value or premises. The paper then discusses the cultural meaning of teachers' opposition to Conservatism, as manifested in the national testing boycott of 1993-94. The paper suggests that aspects of social-movement theory can illuminate the achievements of this opposition. It concludes by considering what space for cultural action is offered by the educational policies of the new Labour Party. A problem with the Labour Party's agenda is that it discounts the intellectual work of teachers as well as the persistence and increasing sophistication with which questions relating to learning, cultural difference, and inequality have been pursued in schools. (Contains 24 endnotes.) (LMI)