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Competition in Education—The Last Sacred Cow
The National Post kindly printed my letter in response to this article which reports on the mediocre Ontario provincial test results. The article quotes Peter Cowley of the Fraser Institute’s famous school comparison reports.
Cowley calls on schools to be run more like businesses:
“‘Competition’ is a word you never use when talking about education because once you use the word competition, people stop listening to you—which is odd since one of the first things you see when you walk into a school is the trophy case,” said Mr. Cowley, author of the education handbook” The Parent’s Guide”.
Mr. Cowley advised educators to seek out successful school models and replicate them in the same way successful businesses replicate themselves.
“In some areas, the replication of a successful school is exactly like the replication of a successful coffee shop: You figure out what works.”