PEX—the Public Education Exchange

A place for real conversation about education privatization

For decades, there has been a well-coordinated effort to unmake public education in Canada. As explained in Unequal Benefits: Privatization and Public Education in Canada (written by this article’s second author, Sue Winton and reviewed later in this publication), privatization is encouraged through myriad policies, including the persistent decline of public investment in public education. By design, government cuts validate and legitimize an increased reliance on private sources. The public passively accepts private influence as it becomes the only perceived option to offset budget shortfalls; in turn, consent for privatization is manufactured.1 This not only transfers the public responsibility of education funding to private companies, it also invites their interests into the system—interests that do not prioritize the public good.

Alongside cuts, the neoliberal reform movement has increasingly pushed to commodify, privatize, and marketize public education. To do this, ideas and practices are imported from the private sector to design and deliver aspects of education.2 For example, schools adopt efficiency models that necessitate increased managerialism, auditing, and surveillance of both students and teachers. Moreover, schools are encouraged to compete for students which results in a focus on branding and marketing combined with a view of students as consumers. Market “logic” is used to celebrate and motivate increased student and parental ‘choice’ in education. School choice is also encouraged through fear tactics surrounding ‘ideologically motivated teaching’ and a supposed lack of parental rights.3 Privatization is presented as a way to preserve parental cultural authority.4

When these tactics fail, reformers manufacture crises surrounding student achievement, test scores, and the need to ‘modernize’ schools.5 Coincidentally, reformers use the panic created by these supposed crises to undermine teacher professionalism and public boards.6 These manufactured crises are used to undermine confidence in the current system, veil underlying issues (such as poverty and underfunding), distract the populace from government defunding of public schools, and encourage “buy in” for reforms that advance marketization and privatization. All of this diminishes the collective aims, benefits, and responsibility of/for public education and instead encourages systems that ration education. This rationing exacerbates inequities and runs counter to the purpose of public education.

Attempts to marketize, commodify, privatize, and undermine public education are well-organized and coordinated. However, the different ways in which these reforms manifest provincially create the illusion of distinction. For example, the increased reliance on charter schools in Alberta may seem distinct from mandatory online learning in Ontario; yet both are motivated by neoliberal reforms that seek to undermine public education and motivate increased privatization. Provincial fragmentation veils the well-organized rhetoric and tactics of neoliberal education reforms. As a result, community and political responses are often confined within provincial borders. The reformers are centrally organized while resistors are not—until now.

The Public Education Exchange

The Public Education Exchange (PEX) is a new project that will connect researchers, educators, public education advocates, and other members of the public so they can share their knowledge about education privatization across Canada. Coordinated by Dr. Sue Winton, a Professor at York University’s Faculty of Education, the PEX is a formal partnership between York University, the University of Manitoba (U of M), the University of Windsor (U of W), the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation (BCTF), the Canadian Teachers’ Federation (CTF), and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). The PEX is led by a Steering Committee and involves individuals and organizations from across the country. OSSTF/FEESO, a PEX collaborator, will help the project achieve its three key goals: build a network; engage the public; and create knowledge.

The PEX Network will connect teachers, researchers, policymakers, community-based practitioners, and members of the public, enabling them to exchange knowledge about education privatization policies, practices, and effects. The Network will provide opportunities for information to flow to and from local, regional, and national levels to inform policy decisions. For example, school boards considering public-private partnerships (PPPs) as a strategy for addressing funding gaps will be able to learn about their effects in other sites.7 The PEX website (www.pexnetwork.ca) is the virtual home of the network and will make research and other resources (e.g., videos, fact sheets) about education privatization in Canada available to everyone.
The PEX will engage the public through a virtual speaker series, its dynamic website, and policy dialogues. Through structured discussions, participants across the country will share their experiences of education privatization. Knowledge exchanged and generated through the dialogues will contribute new understanding of the impacts of education privatization in classrooms and communities. Comparing findings from each dialogue will highlight similarities and differences across Canada.

A team of PEX researchers will also study the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education privatization in Canada. They will analyze policies introduced or revised since March 2020 to determine the values and practices they advocate and how they impact schools. Where policies are found to support education privatization they will be compared with pre-pandemic policies to determine how they changed during or after the pandemic. The PEX is funded by a grant from Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

PEX partnerships

In order to start building an interprovincial network of researchers, educators, and activists concerned about privatization of/in public education across Canada, PEX collaborator, Dr. Shannon D.M. Moore, and PEX co-leader, Dr. Ee-Seul Yoon, along with Dr. Melanie Janzen, hosted a symposium in May, 2023 at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) in Toronto, Ontario. The symposium, Public Conversations About Privatization: Rejecting the Marketization of Public School Systems in Canada, brought together academics, educators, activists, and community groups from across Canada to discuss: a) the ideological motivations of educational reforms; b) the way these reforms are manifesting “uniquely” in each province; and c) the political and community resistance to the reforms. The two-day symposium included ten thought-provoking presentations on the three symposium themes.

Theme 1: Ideological motivations

Dr. Ee-Seul Yoon (U of M) opened the symposium with their presentation, “From GERM (Global Educational Reform Movement) to NERM (Neoliberal Educational Reform Madness).” Through this presentation, Dr. Yoon spoke about the strengths and limitations of Pasi Sahlberg’s theorizing on the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM). In order to do this, Dr. Yoon drew on their own research on school choice and fundraising. Following Yoon, Erika Shaker (CCPA and PEX co-leader) presented their piece “Parental Choice: Another Play to Privatize.” Since the symposium, Shaker has published a version of this presentation in The Monitor, “Parental choice is a dog-whistle–let’s recognize it as such.” Pamela Rogers (CTF and PEX co-leader) and Nichole Grant (CTF) concluded this theme with their presentation, “‘Data my ass’: Tracing the political levers of privatization in public education.” The title for this presentation was inspired by the words of New Brunswick Premier, Blaine Higgs when he refused to consider evidence he had requested.

These three presentations were followed by one hour roundtable discussions with all of the presenters and invited attendees at the symposium—OSSTF/FEESO Public Policy Analyst & Researcher, Chris Samuel, was among the invited guests at the symposium. A graphic artist from Fuselight, Brittany Datchko captured the presenter’s main ideas and the subsequent conversations around these themes within the roundtables.

Theme 2: Provincial privatization

As education is a provincial and territorial responsibility, discussions about the erosion of public education are often confined within borders. Yet, as the presenters under this symposium theme demonstrated, the seemingly disparate attacks on public education within provincial borders share many similarities. Dr. Lana Parker (U of W and PEX co-leader) and PhD student, Adamo Di Giovanni (U of W) opened this theme with their presentation, “Is it a choice? Selling neoliberal marketization and privatization in Ontario education.” Heather Ganshorn (Support Our Students and PEX collaborator), followed with the presentation, “Extreme ideologies, ‘parent choice,’ and education privatization in Alberta.” Recent M.Ed. graduate, Ellen Bees (U of M), ended this section with the presentation, “Co-opting equity to advance a neoliberal agenda in Manitoba education reforms.” The presentations were once again followed by roundtable discussions and represented by Datchko’s graphic recordings.

Theme 3: Resistance

The symposium ended with four presentations regarding resistance to privatization across Canada. Dr. Beyhan Farhadi (OISE and PEX co-leader) started this series with their presentation, “Resisting neoliberal education restructuring in Ontario.” Graduate student, Justin Fraser (U of M), followed with their presentation “Exposing the spectre: Resisting neoliberal education reform in Manitoba.” Dr. Vidya Shah (York and PEX collaborator), Dr. Stephanie Tuters (OISE), and Dr. Sachin Maharaj (University of Ottawa) used their presentation, “In defence of public education: Attacks on critical race theory and democratic approaches to anti-Racism in public education,” to speak about a province-wide study they are currently conducting into how school boards are attempting to achieve greater racial and social justice. Dr. E. Wayne Ross closed out this theme with their presentation, “School activism and resisting G.E.R.M.” Dr. Ross then got everyone out of their seat dancing to think about the path of activism.

Dr. Melanie Janzen ended the symposium with a discussion about the ways we can continue to collaborate and collectively respond to educational reforms aimed at commodifying, marketizing, and privatizing public education.

Through the summer of 2023, Dr. Shannon D.M. Moore co-hosted a special series of the podcast, Public Good. This special series includes interviews with the symposium presenters and will be released in September, 2023. Finally, article versions of the presentations will appear in a special issue of Critical Education to be published in 2024.

This symposium was supported by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. It also received funding and in-kind support from: U of M, Faculty of Education; OISE, U of T; and the journal, Critical Education.

The symposium helped to launch interprovincial connections that will be further fostered through the PEX project.

Join the Public Education Exchange (PEX)!

In its first year (2023–2024) the PEX is looking forward to the launch of its dynamic website and its virtual speaker series. Inspired by the success of the Public Conversations About Privatization symposium, the PEX is planning to host an in-person symposium in Montreal in May 2024. Check out the PEX website at www.pexnetwork.ca and consider signing up to receive updates about the PEX’s research and events, including the times and sites of its public dialogues in 2024–2025. Everyone is welcome to join the PEX to defend and celebrate public education in Canada!

 

Farhadi, B. (2022, May 27). Online learning means classroom cuts—No matter what students do. The Monitor. https://monitormag.ca/articles/online-learning-means-classroom-cuts-no-matter-what-students-do/
Parker, L. (2017). Creating a Crisis: Selling Neoliberal Policy Through the Rebranding of Education. Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, 183, Article 183.
https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/cjeap/article/view/31168
Rogers, P. (2020, Summer/Fall). Are we there yet: Neoliberal education and never-ending reform. Our Schools/Our Selves. https://policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/Are%20we%20there%20yet.pdf
Shaker, E. (2023, June 23). “Parental choice” is a dog-whistle—Let’s recognize it as such. The Monitor. https://monitormag.ca/articles/parental-choice-is-a-dog-whistle-lets-recognize-it-as-such/
Winton, S. (2018). Challenging fundraising, challenging inequity: Contextual constraints on advocacy groups’ policy influence. Critical Studies in Education, 59(1), 54–73.
https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2016.1176062
Yoon, E.-S., Marmureanu, C., & Brown, R. S. (2020). School Choice and the Polarization of Public Schools in A Global City: A Bourdieusian GIS Approach. Peabody Journal of Education, 95(3), 229–247. https://doi.org/10.1080/0161956X.2020.1776071

NOTES
1. Fallon, G., & Poole, W. (2016). Introduction to the special issue: Manufacturing consent for the privatization of education in canadian contexts. Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, 180.
2. Ball, S. & Youdell, D. (2007). Hidden privatization in public education. Institute of Education. University of London.
3. Schneider, J., & Berkshire, J. (2021, October 21). Parents claim they have the right to shape their kids’ school curriculum. They don’t. Washington Post.
4. Ganshorn, H. (2022, July/August). Populism, polarization and privatization in Alberta education. Our Schools/ Our Selves (OS/OS).
5. Parker, L. (2017). Creating a Crisis: Selling Neoliberal Policy Through the Rebranding of Education. Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, 183.
https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/cjeap/article/view/31168
6. Ganshorn, H. (2022, July/August).
7. Winton, S. (2023, July 20). Promises and perils of public-private partnerships. The Monitor.