Education 960: Article Summary and DiscussionNym Hughes

School reforms in Ontario: The marketisation of education and the resulting silence on equity. (1999). Dei, George & Karumanchery, Leeno. In Alberta Journal of Educational Research. 45 (2), 111.

[P]olitical and educational concepts…are part ofa larger social context, a context that is constantly shifting and is subject to severe ideological conflicts. Education itself is an arena where these ideological conflicts work themselves out. It is one of the major sites in which different groups with distinct political, economic and cultural visions attempt to define what the socially legitimate means and ends of a society should be. (Apple,M., 1993, p. 49)

The Authors:

Dr. George J. Sefa Dei, Ph. D. is the Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education at OISE. Dr. Leeno Karumanchery, Ph. D. was the Director of Organizational Change for the Hamilton Children’s Aid Society (2004) and is currently a facilitator for the Diversity Training Institute. Both have published extensively in the field of educational equity and anti-racism.

Article Summary:

The article is a critique of Ontario provincial government educational reform legislation from 1995-1998 based on an anti-racist, educational equity perspective.

In Canada, liberal democratic beliefs in fairness, justice, equity and meritocracy conflict with, often mask and sometimes directly contribute to attitudes, policies and practices of racism and discrimination. The education system is a major site for the reproduction of inequalities. Educational reform is indeed necessary, but “the task of transforming Ontario’s schools rests on conscious and sincere attempts to match the pursuit of academic excellence and quality considerations with considerations of equity and social justice” (p. 7).

Successful education reform, according to Schorr (1997)

  • is comprehensive, flexible, responsive and persevering
  • views children in relation to their families
  • engages members of the neighborhood or larger community
  • has a clear mission and a long-term, preventive orientation
  • is managed in an exemplary manner
  • is staffed by trained individuals
  • functions in co-operative environment built on trust, mutual respect and strong interpersonal relationships

The authors of this article hold that, in addition, equity issues must be front and centre.

“It has been painfully obvious for some time that equality of access does not result in equality of outcomes”. (p. 3).

The Ontario situation is one example of much larger international initiatives by “fiscally conservative governments” characterized as “market-driven reform policies” that are a response to “budget deficits, economic recessions and other monetary woes” ( p. 4). In all countries where these reform initiatives are occurring, “equity issues are in jeopardy of being cut back or stopped altogether” (p. 3).

Kenway (1995) analyzes educational re-structuring initiatives and finds them marked by:

  • Devolution- reducing state funding/decentralizing government responsibilities while centralizing curriculum and assessment
  • Deregulation- removing any barriers to the full functioning of “the market” in education – e. g. collective agreement provisions
  • Dezoning – parents can enroll child in any school
  • Dissaggregation- replacement of collegial/co-operative values in schooling by competition

In Ontario, the government manufactured a “crisis in education” . Their motto was “the system does not work and it needs fixing” (p.6) . The fix was Bill 160: The Education Improvement Act. Its provisions included:

  • restricting the rights of teachers to strike
  • educing professional activity days
  • reducing the power of teacher’s federations
  • standardizing curriculum
  • quantifying educational quality and improvement
  • implementing standardized testing
  • establishing an Educational Accountability Office
  • reducing the number of elected trustees
  • amalgamating and thereby reducing the number of school boards

The authors characterize the overall intent of Bill 160 as “Decentralize state responsibility to schools while centralizing power under the auspices of government control” (p. 5).

Bill 160 provisions will or may negatively impact equity in Ontario schools.

  • May eventually result in two-tier system where the wealthy can chose quality education while the poor and disadvantaged are stuck with under-funded public schools.
  • A common curriculum will likely reflect dominant (White) views and leave invisible the histories, values, ideas, knowledge of everybody else
  • Teaching and pedagogical strategies will be tailored to the standardized tests and leave out “local contexts, sensitivities, histories and social politics” (p. 7).
  • Emphasis on “choice” does not include choice for parents of minority students of schools that , for instance, “respond to the needs of African- Canadian students”.
  • Teacher lay-offs may primarily affect newer teachers who are more likely to be women/racial minorities.
  • Class size discussion is rhetoric not reality – will result in larger class sizes with negative impacts for students.
  • School Councils – will they involve minority parents? Will they have any real power? Will they lead to charter schools?

Major concern is that “without the added influence of anti-racist, inclusive practices…market-based initiatives that encourage parental-choice, power-sharing and coalitions between pro-market conservatives will probably continue to oppress and suppress vices that exist on the margins while asserting that it is again time for the majority to gain more power in schooling” (p. 9).

“In these times where the marketisation of education seems almost a foregone conclusion, it is crucial that all models of school reform take equity issues into consideration…steps must be taken to ensure that marginalized and minority students do not fall through the cracks of the system and that they are afforded a real chance in the structure of the new regime” (p. 9)

How?

  • inclusive schooling “an indispensable voice”
  • keeping kids in school through inclusive educational practices can be seen as cost-effective
  • reform policy should be based on actual classroom practices
  • the “environment, culture and organizational life of schools reflects the complex and diverse make-up of student populations” (p. 9)
  • choice in market-place terms means choice of private schools for the wealthy- poor parents want alternative schooling to increase positive outcomes for youth. Poor parents’ voices may be “co-opted” to support a choice perspective that will not serve their interests
  • an “integrative, anti-racist and inclusive approach” to schooling could “rupture” the system and lead to greater social justice by challenging White privilege, responding to the needs of all its members and incorporating the knowledge and experiences of subordinate groups and aiming to “remove structural disadvantage” (p.10)

Inclusive schooling means

1. Representation

  • visual – all children reflected in physical structures of school and classroom
  • knowledge- learning about other cultures, histories and experiences
  • staff- a diverse teaching and administrative staff

2. Language integration- maintaining first language, use of multiple languages along with English development skills

3. Integration of school, family and community partnerships – cooperative and collaborative learning model involving family and community members

4. Cooperative education- promoting cooperative learning amongst students and between students and educational staff- “emphasizes communal work and de-emphasizes individual competition

5. Equity, values and access in education- all strategies that address issues of equity and social justice as they enhance student success

Reccommendation: Proposed new Ontario curriculum to be based on an antiracist pedagogical approach

“Meaningful educational change cannot relegate equity issues to the background. Equity must be front and center of the agenda to reform school systems to meet the needs of all youth. Dealing with diversity is not simply a challenge- it is an imperative. “ (p. 12)

Key themes:

  • There is a high level of denial in Canada about the existence of racism and discrimination.
  • The existing Canadian educational system does not serve minority students well – it reproduces inequality.
  • The goal of Canadian schools should be to serve all children well including those least able to take advantage of education, not just those most able.
  • The Canadian school system needs reforming but that reform should not be based on market-driven ideologies and practices but on inclusive and anti-racist principles and practices.
  • The Ontario reforms will likely increase inequality in educational outcomes for minority youth and further entrench inequality.
  • There are theoretical perspectives that lay out characteristics of inclusive schools and all students would benefit from their adoption.

Author perspective: “We are left with no choice but to move beyond the safe and seductive zone of ‘innocent discourse’ and adopt a tone of advocacy” (p.4).

The ideological position is critical theory and specifically an anti-racist pedagogical stance.

Evidence: While the authors say that “we wish to present this article as a theoretical discussion informed by field research” (P. 4), the tone is one of passion and critique rather than research-based “evidence”. While they say they draw on their research as the basis for their recommendations, there is no description of the research process or outcomes so the recommendations read as assertions.

Connections to our other readings: Clear connections with the readings both last class re gender and ethnicity in education and this class on wider context of globalization and the implementation of accountability measures. This article is, as the authors say, a Canadian perspective on wide-ranging international educational reform movements.

My comments on the reading:

On a personal level, I tend to agree with Dei and Karumanchery. I would far prefer an education system that was based on principles on inclusion, anti-racism and social justice that one based on devolution, deregulation, dezoning and dissaggregation.

Because one of the questions I was considering in my draft research proposal had to do with marketisation initiatives in the BC college system, I did read this article in the context of some of the other readings I had already done.Based on that, I would agree with Dei and Karumanchery that while several discuss equity issues in a broader framework, no other scholars have placed an anti-racist analysis at the centre of their critique of marketisation. In addition, there is almost nothing that I found that dealt specifically with the Canadian experience. So on those two grounds alone, I thought the article made a valuable contribution.

I would have appreciated a clearer definition of what marketisation was and why it was happening in Ontario beyond just that the Harris Conservatives had been elected and that their agenda was driven by a desire to “ insert Ontario into the global marketplace, thereby ensuring that schools would be able to produce a cheap and compliant labour force” (p. 5).

As seems inevitable in academia, the whole question of marketisation in education and the research into the impacts of marketisation seem somewhat more complex and contradictory than Dei and Karumanchery have presented here. Simon Marginson, an Australian education scholar, helped give me a fuller context re globalisation and marketisation.

Under the sign of the New Right…market liberalism constitutes a new political rationality, supported by a new language of markets, competition and enterprise, in which the objective of government was not so much the welfare of its citizens per se as the formation of a competitive economy…The conception of citizenship was changing, from the citizen of the welfare state, bound by solidarity and mutual interdependence, to a market-active and entrepreneurial citizen whose objective was personal fulfillment…In education, as in other programmes of government, there was a growing use of self-managing institutions, whether ‘public’ or ‘private’ and self-managing individuals. Education systems were conceived as competitive system-markets… The norms of public service were replaced by those of competition, efficiency and customer demand… Market liberal government imagined education as a process of private investment and students as self-managing investors in themselves. (Marginson, 1997, p.65)

Most writers support Dei and Karumanchery’s view that marketisation in education does have negative impacts on equity.

Michael Apple, writing about the United States in 1993 says, “Equality, no matter how limited or broadly defined, has become redefined. No longer is it seen as linked to past group oppression and disadvantage. It is simply now a case of guaranteeing individual choice under the conditions of a free market. ((Apple, 1993, p. 50).

Jill Blackmore (1999), an Australian education researcher, says that gender and other equity initiatives have been transformed to ‘diversity management’ - “exploiting individual differences for corporate ends…reconceptualizing justice by the New Right as ‘individual choice in the marketplace’… means inequitable power relationships are now naturalized as market forces”(Blackmore, 1999,p.102).

Several researchers, however, looking at reform initiatives including marketisation, point out the dangers in drawing sweeping conclusions.

Sharon Gewirtz and Stephen Ball (2000) claimed that the changes in language and practice occurring in the shift from a welfarist to a new managerialist discourse in education in England are not predictable, but are always mediated by local factors: the market position of the educational institution, the micropolitics of the educational institution and the biographies of key players. Simkins (2000) warns that idealization of a mythical pre-reform golden age is dangerous, that education policy and practice is constantly changing and that any perspective position is unstable. Terri Seddon (2003), another Australian writer, says bluntly that “there are no necessary connections between post-welfarism and social justice” but rather that social justice in education is shaped by myriad factors.

Significance for leadership:

The Ontario situation came a few years before similar initiatives in BC. Looking at what happened in Ontario can help us understand what is happening here and how we might best respond.

Anyone in education is dealing with the impacts of major changes in the ideological landscape of society in general and education in particular. As leaders, I think we have a responsibility to utilize both the passion for equity and social justice that Dei and Karumanchery exemplify – and to inform ourselves with some of the more detailed historical and economic analyses.

I think Marginson captures the significance for educational leaders very well when he says:

It is no longer viable for critics and opponents of markets in education to base their strategies on a return to the old non-market structures and conditions. The road to something better must now pass through the marketised systems… (Marginson, 1997,p.280)

References

Apple, M. (1993). Thinking 'right' in the USA: Ideological transformation in an age of conservatism. In B. Lingard, J. Knight & P. Porter (Eds.), Schooling reform in hard times. London: The Falmer Press.

Blackmore, J. (1999). Troubling women: Feminism, leadership and educational change. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Gewirtz, S., & Ball, S. (2000). From 'welfarism' to 'new managerialism': Shifting discourses of school headship in the education marketplace. [Electronic version]. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 21(3), 253-269. Retrieved October 6, 2004., from the Academic Search Elite database.

Marginson, S. (1997). Markets in education. St. Leonards, Australia: Allen & Unwin.

Seddon, T. 1. (2003). Framing justice: Challenges for research. Journal of Education Policy, 18(3), 229.

Simkins, T. (2000). Education reform and managerialism: Comparing the experience of schools and colleges. [Electronic version]. Journal of Educational Policy, 15(3), 318-324. Retrieved October 3, 2004, from the Academic Search Elite database.