Education privatization has grown in tandem with the spread of neo-liberal ideology around the globe. While the privatization of education is not a new phenomenon, what has changed over the past few decades is the sheer scope, scale and penetration of privatization in the education sector. The Canadian Teachers' Federation (CTF) believes strongly…

In his 1847 "Report on a System of Public Elementary Instruction for Upper Canada", Egerton Ryerson stated that public education was created in Canada to ensure that youth were prepared for their "appropriate duties and employments of life … as persons of business, and also as members of the civil community in which they live."…

Perhaps the most predictable lesson learned about the imposition of fiscal austerity over the past few years has been that it has generally failed where it has been tried. A recent Education International study of EI members examines global trends in freedom of association and collective bargaining in the education sector since the 2008 financial…

Every three years the focus of the international education community shifts to the release of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). No other international study of education commands as much attention as PISA. In an age of intense global…

In this era of accountability-by-numbers, the elevated status accorded to large-scale external assessments such as the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is symptomatic of a trend towards data-driven policy initiatives in education, and the need for regular sources of outcome data to constantly feed narrow indicators of…

Large-scale assessment regularly takes place in most jurisdictions across Canada, a fact not lost on the Fraser Institute and other right wing think tanks such as AIMS (Atlantic Institute for Market Studies) which use the test results as the primary basis for compiling school rankings at both the elementary and secondary level (see Gutstein,…

The underfunding of public education over the years has forced schools and school communities to compensate in various ways: door-to-door fundraising campaigns, advertising revenue, exclusive marketing contracts, and seeking donations or handouts from the private sector. Although numerous stories have been gathered ranging from the mundane to the…

In the context of boys' declining academic achievement in schools in relation to girls, this article highlights some critical issues arising from the debate on boys' education. The emphasis is on the contribution of feminist analysis and other perspectives to broaden and contextualize the debate. This includes, for example, the need to carefully…

Talk of accountability (or the lack thereof ) dominates current Canadian education debates. We're not alone in this regard. Mawhinney (1998) observes that "the educational reform agenda in many industrialized nations today is driven by a perceived crisis in accountability" (p. 98). Unfortunately, as Earl (2001) also reminds us,…