Chapter 1: The Data -- Examining Canadian public education policy products of the 20th century

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The transcribed collection has utility

   I designed a website http://www.canadianeducationalpolicystudies.ca to reveal the hidden layer. It constructs the public policy production history as revealed through Canadian commission reports. The website is an integral aspect of this research. This website is useful. It provides a searchable data base of 20th century Canadian public education policy commissions and reports. 

   As I began the project I decided to transcribe the Hall-Dennis (1969), the Worth Report (1971) and Learning: Tradition and Change in the Northwest Territories (1982). I refer to these three as the "big book coffee-table type” documents. I wanted to be able to refer to the texts without having to negotiate the graphics and layout. I wished to be able to do word searches in these documents for key terms and study the way they were designed in terms of themes. But also Alberta's "Worth Report" is an embarrassment. Studying it appeared to be (according to my observations in Education Policy Studies, University of Alberta) something one did rather and privately. The Worth Report needed to be freed to its pure text through transcription. It is also difficult not to limit the text of the "big book" documents of the 1970s to an intepretation that is not constrained by hackneyed analytical versions as a consequence of their design. In order to get to what the text actually says, it is much easier, and I would argue a requirement, at this time in Canadian public education policy analysis, to have the text of these documents available as text only. A transcribed version of such a document might significantly alter how one may engage with it, and this opens the way for fresh interpretation. I reduced the three aforementioned to textual simplicity for the purposes of comparative analysis and it seemed I would be facilitating access for students in education who would like to read these historical documents online, condensed via transcription (if these documents were scanned it would certainly defeat the purpose because the limitations imposed by the originals would be reproduced particularly for the “coffee-book” documents). I wanted to achieve a treatment that would guide through a regularized system an overall preview of canadian public education policy in the 20th century. 

    For guidance in provinces that were outside my range of familiarity during early research, I initially searched the bibliographical references in the commission reports at hand. This was my approach before a librarian at University of Alberta introduced me to Cary F. Goulson's reference. The University of Toronto Press, 1981, published "A source book of Royal Commissions and other major governmental inquiries in Canadian education, 1787-1978. University of Victoria followed in 1985 with "A source book of Royal Commissions and other major governmental inquiries in Canadian education 1979-1983. Cary F. Goulson’s work allowed me to locate commission reports and other inquiries directly.

    A transcribed collection of the Canadian public education commission reports of the 20th century has the potential to facilitate a comparative Canadian public education course, a foundations policy course that opens up “big picture” understanding for Canadian public education graduate students. The transcribed collection allows interested researchers to engage with the historical Canadian public education commission reports without having to individually attempt to collect together all the different documents. What must be underlined is that comparative knowledge is challenged by access to such documents in Canada. In 20th century public education policy departments, such a comparative was not considered relevant because it did not adhere to “decentralized” production of policy as dictated by control over education prescribed in the Constitution of Canada. As a consequence of decentralization and production of documents in all provinces and territories across the century, not all documents are available in any one government or education library stacks at any one location across the provinces and territories. This is certainly true for the commission reports produced before 1994 and not available online. My transcribed collection therefore covers most of the 20th century documents that are otherwise difficult to consider side by side, unless they are made available using this method. 

    Another problem with Canadian public education policy analysis is confusion concerning the value of the numerous documents and whether there are just too many to be sorted and combed through. It seems that the task is considered impossible due to volume. Goulson's two little known source books provided a guide to deciding what Canadian documents of the 20th century would be most important to include in the data set I was building for the big picture purpose of national analysis. Goulson's important work provided me with the essential knowledge I needed concerning selection. Goulson is not cited in Manzer's noteworthy 1994 book, Public Schools and Political Ideas: Canadian Educational Policy in Historical Perspective, but one of Goulson's source books was published by University of Toronto. His work has been overlooked and essentially lost. The documenting of Canadian public education report production has fallen behind because it is not considered relevant. The condition of education policy analysis in Canada is considered to have "advanced" to greater autonomy and moved toward 21st century perfection, in a sense, as a consequence of 20th century democracy and decentralization. I believe democracy is now challenged because Canadians cannot interpret public education policy historically or nationally using actual historical reference points and information. Without such a perspective, provincial public education systems cannot be assessed according to historical shifts and trends occurring as a consequence of Canadian culture and politics, and this is true at this time in history particularly when looking for Canadian 20th century historical shifts and changes. At this time the Canadian big picture on public education policy is the challenge. 

   Each province and territory has a series of foundational documents (royal commissions and special commissions and reports). British Columbia would be an ideal provincial model with four specific commission reports dated to 1925, 1945, 1960 and 1988. How can a researcher assess these four documents back to back if they do not know where to look, if they haven't even considered the public policy history outside their province of origin? Goulson's list doesn't include British Columbia's 1988 document because he stopped his listing in 1985. A twentieth century overview is obscure to researchers but the public education academic elite in British Columbia, of which perhaps only one or two scholars may actually have studied the four original documents. This is the way it is in Canada. At this time in history the limitations are enormous. That is why a transcribed collection is valuable.