Neoliberalism and Public Education Finance Policy in Canada: Reframing Educational Leadership as Entrepreneurship

This book explores how neoliberal forces have impacted K–12 public education finance policy in British Columbia, Canada, through a multi-dimensional conceptual framework. It highlights emerging financial inequalities, exacerbated inequities for students, increased entrepreneurialism, closer alignment of administrators' subjectivities with a managerial approach, and an illusion of local autonomy. It provides a critical policy analysis of the neoliberalized model of public-private funding in education, calling attention to detrimental processes of neoliberalization, marketization, and privatization.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 148 pages
Publication date: 25 September 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

This book employs a multi-faceted conceptual framework to elucidate the profound ways in which neoliberal forces have been manifest through significant alterations to K–12 public education finance policy in British Columbia, Canada, spanning from 2001 to 2015. By undertaking an in-depth critical policy analysis, the text vividly illustrates how the public education system has been profoundly impacted by the emergence of a hybrid model of public-private funding. Through the examination of the consequences of this neoliberalized model, in which school districts are compelled to engage in fierce competition for public funding and participate in for-profit endeavors, the book sheds light on the emergence of burgeoning financial inequalities, exacerbated disparities for students, heightened entrepreneurialism, a closer alignment of administrators' subjectivities with a managerial approach to educational leadership, and the creation of an illusion of local autonomy. Ultimately, this text makes a substantial contribution by drawing attention to the detrimental processes of neoliberalization, marketization, and privatization within public education, as well as the managerialization of educational leadership.

This book will be of immense value to researchers, academics, educators, and educational leaders with a keen interest in the politics of education policy and finance, school district leadership, international and comparative education, and the sociology of education.

Weight: 453g
Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032171272