Education Finance: Current Canadian Issues

Alexander D. Gregor is director of the Centre for Higher Education
Research and Development at the University of Manitoba and the co-editor
of Postsecondary Education in Canada: The Cultural Agenda.

Edited by a recognized Canadian specialist, this collection of 11
articles is aimed primarily at graduate students in education and
related fields, and at administrators and policymakers involved in the
field of education. The book, which places its primary focus on the
K–12 public school sector in Canada, appears at a time when virtually
all developments in education practice and policy derive to some extent
from financial considerations.

In a very useful introductory chapter, the editor provides a succinct
analysis of what he characterizes as a radical movement toward
government centralization and control. This movement, evidence of which
Lam discerns in everything from parental advisory bodies to constraints
placed on the collective bargaining process, is based on the reluctance
of government to leave the management of education to educators.

The contributed chapters, written mostly by university-based scholars,
are grouped into two broad sections. The first section deals with issues
emerging from the current educational scene, and includes chapters on
the history of public school finance, the impact of federal/provincial
block-grant arrangements, decentralization and school reform, and
aboriginal education. The second section looks at ways in which the
educational system can continue to fulfil its mandate under
circumstances of reduced resources and increasing government control,
and at the question of what educational leadership means in that
changing context. Topics here include the promotion of equity,
nontraditional funding, relationships with the private sector, and the
use of technology.

Education Finance provides a timely and useful addition to the
professional literature.