Private sector involvement in public schools : an analysis of policies of educational organisations in British Columbia
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Public officials are increasingly contracting with the private sector for a range of educational services. With much of the focus on private sector accountability on cost-effectiveness and student performance, less attention has been given to shifts in democratic accountability. Drawing on data from the state of New York, one of the most active contracting contexts, the authors examine how contracting poses challenges to democratic accountability and provide suggestions for how policy makers engaging with private sector providers might better attend to the broader public purposes of schooling.
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Commonwealth government funding of private schools in Australia has occurred since 1962. Opponents of public funding consider it a dilution of funding available to public schools and overgenerous to schools where parents pay fees. Since 1992, areas where such funding is available to private schools (and public schools) have increased. The longstanding requirement of such funding has been financial accountability initially provided through general provision funding acts. Since 1996, Commonwealth governments have introduced legislation stating further requirements including ‘educational accountability’, requiring public, and increasingly private, schools in receipt of public funding to agree to new national policy agendas and reporting requirements to government and the community. This article describes the law around processes for establishing private schools in Australia and the nature of current educational accountability requirements for public funding. We consider whether the consequences of both of these are not publicly-subsidised private schools but privately-subsidised public schools, as part of overall strengthened Commonwealth government national control of all education policy and practice in Australia through the appropriation of revenue to the States and Territories. i public aNd priVatE schooliNg iN australia Schooling in Australia is governed by strongly centralised Commonwealth and state or territory government statute and funding. 1 All schools must be accredited at state or territory level. Schools include government schools administered and run by or on behalf of the state or territory governments, hereafter referred to as public schools, and non-government schools that are not conducted ‘by or on behalf of the government’ or ‘for profit’, hereafter referred to as private schools. Private schools in Australia include secular, that is, not associated with religious authorities, and nonsecular, associated with religious authorities, schools. The latter can be independent or systemic, including Catholic systemic, schools. The Catholic systemic schools have played a major role in the development of Australian Commonwealth funding policy, as discussed later, and have frequently been accorded a differential status from other private schools, and even private school systems. 2 The Australian Commonwealth government, and by implicit accord, State and Territory governments, states that parents have a right to choose the school for their child, whether public or private. 3 The right is taken seriously by parents. Thirty-four per cent of Australian school
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