This report looks at recent changes in governance across the public sector to provide context and examples for the National Commission on Governing America's Schools' efforts. The report is presented in six sections. Following a brief introduction in section 1, section 2 provides an overview of the forces that have changed public-sector governance over the past two decades. It looks at challenges of governance, troubled management systems, increased diversity, shrinking resources, new ideas and new technologies, and rethinking governance. Section 3 examines some of the common themes of the new governance, such as devolution, partnerships, mission-driven governance, the presence of complexity and uncertainty, continuous learning, and leadership. The fourth section then presents six partnership models of the new governance: (1) governance at the grass roots; (2) building performance into internal governance; (3) aging and complex program and administrative structures that have prompted participants in the governing process to find alternatives; (4) from arbitration to collaboration; (5) cooperative federalism at the grass roots; and (6) external support for public innovation experiments. The next section details some of the challenges of the new governance, such as accountability and replication. The document closes with an overview of new governance options, including suggestions for improving the existing system. (RJM)