Reframing Public Educational Services and Programs as Tradable Commodities – A Synthesis and Critique of British Columbia’s Bill 34

Abstract

This paper is a critical analysis of British

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“…Developed against the backdrop of what has been referred to as a neoliberal policy agenda (e.g., Fallon & Pancucci, 2003;Fallon & Paquette, 2009;Fallon & Poole, 2014;Poole & Fallon, 2015), in 2002 the government of BC implemented Bill 34-2002: The School Amendment Act (Bill 34, 2002. In addition to its goals of greater "fiscal & academic accountability for public education," substantive reduction of the provincial deficit, "establishment of school councils," as well as via increases in "parental and student choices to attend any schools in [BC]" (Fallon & Pancucci, 2003, p. 51), Bill 34's market ideological approach to public education imposed upon school districts the "flexibility" to find non-governmental (i.e., private) sources of revenue.…”

“…In addition to its goals of greater "fiscal & academic accountability for public education," substantive reduction of the provincial deficit, "establishment of school councils," as well as via increases in "parental and student choices to attend any schools in [BC]" (Fallon & Pancucci, 2003, p. 51), Bill 34's market ideological approach to public education imposed upon school districts the "flexibility" to find non-governmental (i.e., private) sources of revenue. In simple terms, two corollaries of being granted this flexibility were: (a) a decrease in government responsibility to fund public education; and (b) an increase in the competition between school districts for the students and funding they bring-essentially treating schools as providers of marketable commodities, and students and parents as consumers of educational services and products (see Pancucci, 2003, andPaquette, 2009, for fuller discussions of Bill 34; see also Poole, 2014, andFallon, 2015, for in-depth discussion of the current state of K-12 educational financing in BC).…”