The Case For School Choice: Introduction

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Public Schooling in Canada

Public education is one of the most contentious social issues in Canada today. Canadian education is not just inefficient but seriously inadequate. Statistical evidence of poor student performance coupled with the deterioration of public confidence suggests that, if it is not to become obsolete, public education must be redesigned.

Dropout rates, literacy levels, and academic achievement are signals of the dismal state of Canadian education today. Indicators published by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) show that 27 percent of Canadian adolescents drop out of high school--a higher rate than in any other OECD country. Of those young adults who have completed high school in the past decade, 33 percent are insufficiently literate to cope in contemporary society (OECD 1998a: 49-50; OECD 1998b: 98). International testing data indicate that the achievement of Canadian students in mathematics and science is mediocre compared to the achievement of their peers in other industrialized countries (TIMSS International Study Center 1997).

Public sentiment reinforces the statistical evidence that the education system is not serving Canadians well. Public opinion polls show that confidence in the education system is at a 30-year low (Guppy and Davies 1997). Tangible proof of this is the growing number of children withdrawn by their parents each year from government schools: the percentage of families choosing independent (private) schools has doubled over the past 25 years, while the popularity of home schooling is unprecedented and growing rapidly (Guppy and Davies 1997: 4). Groups of parents, educators, and business people calling for educational reform have also burgeoned across the country. They include, among dozens of others, the Society for the Advancement for Excellence in Education in British Columbia, the Collegium for Work and Learning in Toronto, Organization for Quality Education in Waterloo, Ontario and PARENT in Nova Scotia. Each group calls for major reforms to address the urgent need for improvement of public education.

This is not the first time Canadians have sought to improve the education system. Over the past 30 years, education ministers have enacted a panoply of reforms: smaller classes, "destreaming," 1 more arts, more technology, more basics, more money for teachers, more education for teachers. These reforms contributed to more than a tripling in the real cost of public schooling per student between 1960 and 1982 (Easton 1988: 41), but despite their variety and expense, they failed to improve either public satisfaction with the system or student achievement.

Why did they fail? Perhaps the reforms were superficial and did nothing to solve systemic problems. This is the answer arrived at by several other countries faced with the same problem, and it appears to apply in the context of Canadian education. Canada's provincial systems of education, like most others established in the last century, are founded on a highly centralized structure. Schools have little autonomy and are not accountable for their effect on student learning. Parents have little say in the education their children receive. The public is provided with little information about how their schools are performing. This is not the case everywhere.

The Restructuring of Public Education

In the past decade, several western countries have restructured their education policies and redefined the roles of education's stakeholders. In these countries, public education no longer means government-supplied education but, rather, government-facilitated education.

The United States, New Zealand, Denmark, and Sweden are four countries that have redefined the roles of government, schools, and families in the delivery of education. Each country has increased the educational options available to school-aged students and made it easier for parents to move their children from one school to another. They have also made it possible for educators to run publicly funded schools outside the jurisdiction of the school boards. One country is facilitating public accountability by publishing school assessments, which help parents make informed decisions about which school to choose for their children. Another gives taxpayers the option to direct a portion of their educational taxes to defray tuition costs for low-income families who seek, but could not otherwise afford, independent schooling.

By encouraging innovation and accountability, these countries have rejected the entrenched system of state-run education. Nevertheless, their new policies are not identical. The policy instruments enacted by the United States, New Zealand, Denmark, and Sweden represent several competitive-market models. Each one was designed to address issues of parental control and the accountability of educators, issues that are also of concern to Canadians. The instruments they use are charter schools, education vouchers, tax credits and the publishing of school assessments.

The Case for School Choice examines the implementation and effect of educational innovations in the United States, New Zealand, Denmark and Sweden. It concludes with a discussion of the potential risks and rewards of applying these innovations to Canada's provincial education systems.

The United States has witnessed the development of a variety of educational policies over the last decade, supported by grass-roots movements and politicians from both political parties. The Case for School Choice describes the development of charter schools, public vouchers, private vouchers, and tax credits, and evaluates these innovations by reviewing research documenting their effects on learning and parental satisfaction.

In 1988, New Zealand's government undertook a dramatic reform of its education system. Nationwide, it replaced the old system of district school boards and student catchment areas with autonomous charter schools, an Educational Review Office, and a voucher program for low-income students.

In Denmark, the public education system has always maintained the parents' right to determine how and where their children should be educated. The Danish government provides vouchers to all students who wish to attend independent schools. This has resulted in a significant and diverse independent-school sector that has become a supporting pillar of the Danish education system.

Educational reforms have swept Sweden over the past eight years. Since 1991, the Swedish Ministry of Education has offered vouchers to all students, subject to the availability of places in independent schools. The variety of educational choices is increasing dramatically as independent schools open and government schools begin to respond to parental concerns. The percentage of students in independent schools is small (3 to 4 percent) but growing rapidly to satisfy the large, unmet demand for school choice.

The discussion of each country includes the origins of the education reforms, a description of the policy instruments and their implementation, and some conclusions about their effects. In every case, where education has been removed from the management of government, it has improved. The new policies have resulted in greater public awareness of educational issues, greater responsiveness of schools to parental concerns, and a more dynamic, innovative, and accountable education system. The research carried out in the United States and New Zealand documents the effects these policies have had on the students' results, parental satisfaction, and school characteristics. The Case for School Choice presents these findings and supplements them with the views of educators, education scholars and public administrators involved in the reforms, who were interviewed by the author between October 1997 and January 1998.

Canadian governments, like those of Denmark, Sweden, New Zealand and the United States, need to address the fact that centrally managed education monopolies are no longer able to meet society's educational demands. A structural overhaul will provide no quick fixes. It may, however, pave the way for those educators with initiative, energy, and vision to serve students, parents, and their communities more satisfactorily. Canadian policy makers addressing the task should consider these new policy instruments--charter schools, vouchers, tax credits, and school report cards--as new ways to serve the public's educational interests.

Definition of Terms

Throughout the report, the term "independent school" refers to a school that is not run by the municipal school board. It includes schools that are autonomous from the state system of education, whether for religious, cultural, philosophical or pedagogical reasons. In the countries considered, different degrees of public funding and regulation govern these schools. They may receive all, some, or none of their funding from public and private sources. In some countries, heavy regulations prohibit autonomy in their hiring practices, student selection, ability to raise funds and set curriculum, while in others they enjoy greater freedom in some or all of those areas. The term "private" school is avoided because of its common association in Canada with schools whose clientele is restricted largely to the upper-middle class. This is not a characteristic of independent schools in the countries or states under consideration where school choice policies are functioning

"Municipal" or "government" schools refer to schools owned and administered by elected school boards and controlled by a central ministry. The term "public school" is not used synonymously because that term implies an inherent, vested partnership with "public education". The Case for School Choice argues that "public education" should refer to a variety of organizational structures, which offer the public diverse and accountable educational options for their children.

The term "charter schools" is used to refer to schools in the United States, Alberta, and New Zealand that are publicly funded but governed autonomously. In the United States, these schools are granted a charter by the state board of education, the local school board, or, in rare cases, an independent sponsor to provide an education clearly distinct from that offered by the local school board. They have some freedom from regulation, and may be closed if they fail either to attract sufficient students or to achieve the goals set out in their charter. The term is also used to refer to the new breed of "public school" in New Zealand, schools that used to be run and funded by the municipality and are now publicly funded, parent-governed schools with their own charters.

"Education voucher" and "voucher" are used to refer to educational funding, either public or private, that follows the student to the school of his parents' choice. In its simplest form, a voucher would be worth the total number of dollars dedicated to education divided by the total number of students in the school system. In various public voucher systems, factors that affect the voucher's amount may include a student's age, socio-economic condition, minority status, or learning disability; a school's size, location, record of achievement, and its teachers' experience may also be considered. Private voucher programs are usually less complex and offer a uniform amount per child or a percentage (usually between 50 and 90 percent) of the typical independent-school tuition. Parents must provide evidence of financial need in order to qualify and may apply the funds to any independent school of their choice. The term voucher is thought by some to have negative connotations and has sometimes been replaced, particularly in the United States, by the term "educational scholarships."

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