What might be the outlines of a progressive education reform agenda?
This is something we are all struggling with. At the least, we need to ensure that there is more regulation of devolution in order to ensure equity. But the big question for progressive educators is how to institute such regulation and make sure it is legitimate and acceptable to people. I think we have got to move away from the notion that regulation is best done by distant bureaucrats. That route, which we went down before, helped created support for marketized policies. We have got to look at what sorts of bodies, maybe community education councils, can give local communities a real say in how equity policies are introduced and regulated, so that they are not just seen as inhibiting individual choice but as doing something positive for the community. We have got to give people voice as well as choice. The more voice communities have, the less they will see individual choice as the only alternative. We might, for instance, want to look at proportional representation on community coun
