The three actors with veto power in education policymaking have complex preferences. These preferences are presented below in order of their approximate intensity (meaning, for instance, that if a union has to choose between more jobs and job security for those teachers already employed, it will tend to prefer the latter).

Executive: Improvement of education as part of larger modernization and development agendas, maintaining overall political stability, use of the education payroll as a channel of patronage, votes, keeping budgets under control. Short-term horizon. Modernization, efficiency-oriented ideologies play a role.

Unions: Job security, more teaching positions, control over appointments and functioning of the education system (capture), preservation of nationwide bargaining power, better salaries. Long-term horizon. Labor and Leftist ideologies are often present.

Subnational players: Creation and/or expansion of opportunities for patronage, votes, avoidance of unfunded mandates and constraints on discretionary spending, improvement of local economy in a context of interjurisdictional competition.