Mark Harrison, Education Forum
2004
This fine new book by Australian economist Mark Harrison may supply more information about education in New Zealand than some readers feel is absolutely essential, but it's a solid piece of work that, among other things, demolishes familiar critiques of that country's 1990-era reforms by the likes of Helen Ladd and Edward Fiske. Whereas the latters' 2000 Brookings book, When Schools Compete, attempted to use New Zealand's reform experience to "caution" Americans against school choice, Harrison shows that a close examination of the evidence leads to the opposite conclusion: New Zealand's reforms, limited though they were (and partly rolled back since their original implementation), did children (especially poor and minority children) more good than harm while not going nearly far enough to establish a true competition-based system. Harrison contends that far more reform is needed in New Zealand education, that it's past time to replace a heavily centralized and top-down national primary-secondary system with a true market-based system, joined to related reforms in teacher deployment, pay, etc. The ISBN is 0958213364 and you can learn more by surfing to http://www.educationforum.org.nz/documents/features/education_matters.htm. If 400 pages on this topic is more than you want, check out the excellent recent report from New Zealand's Education Forum, A New Deal: Making Education Work for All New Zealanders, which explains why that land would benefit from market-style reforms, from major changes in teaching, and from introducing an effective assessment and accountability system. American readers will find themselves nodding in recognition of familiar ideas, debates, and research evidence applied to a very different country. You can find it at http://www.educationforum.org.nz/documents/other/a_new_deal.htm.
