Across Canada, school districts have been confronting a backlash to their equity and social justice initiatives. Critics of public education have been arguing that the solution to these controversies is to increase school choice. Using several examples from the United States, this paper argues that the endgame of these strategies is to undermine…

Since the 1980s, education in Canada has been through a process that led to school choice, targeting the improvement of students' performance through school competition. These policies fostering an education quasi-market became an ideal framework for the expansion of IB schools. Since the Diploma Programme of the International Baccalaureate (IBDP)…

Little is known about the school choice practices of Aboriginal families in settler-colonial societies, where they have been removed from their ancestral lands and/or have been subjected to discriminatory educational policies. Through the lens of settler-colonial theory, this study elucidates the "spatially positioned" school choice…

This article examines the transformation over time of alternative secondary school programs in Vancouver, British Columbia (BC). It approaches school choice from a historical standpoint, to make the point that today's choice policies are neither entirely recent nor entirely neoliberal in origin. Instead, they are built on past precedent and policy…

This paper examines increasing privatisation of education in the province of British Columbia, Canada. Conceptually, the paper is informed by theories of privatisation and social justice; and methodologically, it uses policy analysis to examine documents and financial records obtained from government departments. The paper critically analyses…

Freedom of any kind has intrinsic value, and education freedom is controversial, in need of empirical assessment of possible and likely trade-offs between freedom from state control and social goals such as equity and cohesion. Without a reasonable empirical measure of education freedom we can only cite the controversies and choose sides. The…

This paper considers the establishment of three alternative programs within a school district over time to explore the assumption that such programs reflect families' preferences and that consumer demand dictates their survival. We examine differences in discourses around alternative programs that relate to the type of program and when, why, and…

Both the United States and Canadian provinces have moved to enhance educational choice within their educational systems to improve educational productivity. In spite of this similarity of purpose and means, the two nations are taking very different approaches. Most Canadian provinces have moved to full provincial financing of schools and to the…

During 1994 to 1996, 15 school districts in British Columbia, Canada, received proposals to establish alternative public schools of choice based on the effective school model. These became commonly known as "traditional schools." Most of the proposals were denied, but four elementary schools were in existence by early 1998 and three…