Market-based reforms are the key to transforming Canada’s education system

Contact:

Claudia R. Hepburn, Director of Education Policy
The Fraser Institute, Tel: (416) 967-2923
Email: claudiah@fraserinstitute.ca

Release date: 21 June 2001

An educational market, one in which parents choose their children's schools and schools compete more freely for students, will produce better educational results for more students than the status quo in Canadian public education.

Can the Market Save Our Schools? brings together the work of internationally acclaimed education researchers who answer these questions: How does school choice affect public education? Can school choice improve student achievement? How does school choice affect low-income families and their schools?

Drawing on their global research, the authors lay out the evidence on today's most controversial education reforms: vouchers, charter schools, public- and private- school choice, and private contracting. Their collected papers explain the theory and examine the evidence on how school-choice policies have affected public education where they have been tested in Alberta, parts of the United States, New Zealand, India, other developing countries, and throughout history.

This research suggests that market-based reforms, such as voucher programs, charter schools and education tax credits, offer plausible answers both to the problem of declining academic achievement among Canadian students and to public frustration with our education system.

"The public's goals for its education system would be more attainable if we encouraged schools to respond to the demands of parents rather than to those of the bureaucracy," says Claudia Hepburn, the Institute’s director of education policy and the book’s editor.

Until now, most Canadian students have been forced to attend their local public school regardless of its quality. Students, their parents, and society have suffered from dwindling academic standards, unresponsive school boards, a paucity of choice, and regular job actions in their schools.

Established in 1974, The Fraser Institute is an independent public policy organization based in Vancouver, with offices in Calgary and Toronto.