Can the Market Save Our Schools?

Luke Lawson is a teacher and administrator in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

In the words of its editor, this book—a publication of the right-wing
Fraser Institute—“[aims] to study the potential of market based
solutions to address the problem facing Canadian education.” These
solutions revolve around the notion of more choice for parents,
decentralization of the education system, the use of vouchers and tax
incentives, and the promotion of charter and private schools.

While the contributors offer some solid points to back up their
solutions, there are two key weaknesses in this book. First, the authors
vastly underestimate the power of teacher unions. While many of their
arguments make sense, there is a huge gap between theory and practice.
The reality is that, in Canada, unions and other left-wing groups have
been very successful in curbing the growth of charter schools, while
vouchers are still an untested concept. The second major weakness is
that most of the book is devoted to case studies from other countries
(e.g., the United States, New Zealand, and India). The distinctiveness
of Canada’s political, religious, and ethnic environment calls into
question the value of using international situations to solve the
Canadian problem. More attention to Canadian perspectives would have
made for a stronger case than the one presented in this book.