An Epidemic of Education Policy: (what) can we learn from each other?

ABSTRACT

Education policy is in a state of change across the industralized countries. Governments everywhere are re-examining many aspects of the provision of schooling. This paper examines the extent to which countries and their subjurisdictions (such as states in the US or provinces in Canada) are learning from each other about the nature of change and reform in education. It draws on formal policy documents and published policy literature in Canada, the US and Britain and on my experience as a government official in education as well as through visits to and extensive contact with colleagues in the other two countries. I conclude that mutual learning is not necessarily a good description of the movement of policies and suggest that analogies to disease and epidemics may be a useful way of thinking about what is happening.