Cross-purposes and crossed wires in education policymaking on equity: the Ontario experiences, 1990-1995

Between September 1990 and June 1995, the Canadian province of Ontario expe rienced its first ever social-democratic government. This paper examines th e record, in terms of both process and policy, of that government on educat ional equity at the elementary and secondary school levels. It reviews the government's record in educational equity and measures that record against the agenda the party had set for itself before the 1990 election. The gover nment's policy-making on educational equity offers a rarely equalled case s tudy of cross-purposes, non-communication, ostensibly wilful ignorance and crossed wires. The results have gone far to discredit educational equity as a meaningful (rather than symbolic) educational goal in Ontario.