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Centralized Market-Driven Funding Policy in British Columbia. Implications for Equity, Social Justice and Local Decision Making Wendy Poole and Gerald Fallon, UBC. Purpose of the Study.
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Centralized Market-Driven Funding Policy in British Columbia Implications for Equity, Social Justice and Local Decision Making Wendy Poole and Gerald Fallon, UBC
Purpose of the Study • To examine government policy that encourages the establishment of entrepreneurial (market-driven) education finance mechanisms at the school district level in BC • Limited to a comparison of levels of revenue generated from international student tuition • Discussion of the implications for equity, social justice and participatory democracy at the local level
Theoretical Perspective • Contextualized within globalized neo-liberal education policy and social justice as defined by Fraser (1995) • Social justice has economic and cultural dimensions • Economic dimension of social justice in education includes the ways in which schools are funded • Inequities in funding are interconnected with social injustices by impeding equal participation in making substantive decisions in the education system
Context for the Study • Liberal government elected in BC in 2001 • Enacted a new policy direction (neo-liberalism) • Opened boundaries between school catchment areas and districts to encourage competition • Implemented spending restraints that created structural underfunding over more than a decade • Moved to enrolment-driven funding formula • Enabled school districts to engage in entrepreneurial activities to generate supplementary funding
Methodology • Critical document analysis • Sources of data: Financial documents from school districts, government and non-governmental organizations • Analysis: • Compared average levels of international student tuition (IST) generated annually from 2007-2012 • Additional comparison of IST in relation to geographical location, community affluence, and student composition
Summary of Findings: • Intersections between international student tuition (IST) per capita, community affluence, proportion of Aboriginal students, and geographical location
Implications • Privatization withinan otherwise fully-funded public education system. • Cultural-economic social injustice. • Reproduction and exacerbation of hierarchies of social privilege and marginalization. • Ethics of market-driven education finance in relation to participatory democracy at the local level.