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Markets don’t produce equity: Austrilian scholar

Author  :       Source  :    The Conversation     2014-05-19

Glenn C. Savage, Researcher and Lecturer in Education Policy, Melbourne Graduate School of Education at University of Melbourne, published an article in The Conversation, Why markets can’t deliver excellence and equity in schools, on May 8.

Australian education policies frame schools as ideally “excellent and equitable”. It is a myth because instead of providing opportunities for schools to be better and fairer, governments on both sides advocate for market-based reforms in education. Savage holds that markets don’t produce equity: they produce hierarchies and exacerbate inequalities.

He stresses that market-based reforms have proven deeply unsuccessful in the USA and the UK. The reforms give schools greater responsibility for self-management, marketing and recruitment, increase competition between schools by requiring schools to compete for funding, etc.

The consequences are: 1) Rather than working collectively for all young Australians, public schools are required to fight for limited resources and for the most talented teachers and students. Competition has been significantly amplified.2) Rather than offering equitable opportunities for all, schools sift and sort students like produce in a marketplace to ensure maximum returns. In this sense, market-based reforms are effective for producing excellence, but not excellence for all. 3) Principal autonomy over hiring and firing teachers produces a marketisation of human resources, which can have negative effects for disadvantaged schools.

Editor: Du Mei

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