Accountability synopticism: How a think tank and the media developed a quasimarket for school choice in British Columbia

This paper describes how a locally developed school ranking systemaffected student enrolment patterns in British Columbia over time.In developing an annual school ‘report card’ that was published innewspapers and online, the Vancouver-based Fraser Institute createda marketplace for school choice by devising an accountability schemethat highlighted and concealed visibility asymmetries between schools.Against the backdrop of a shifting political landscape, report cardshelped focus the public’s attention on school achievement scores thatidentified low-, mid-, and high-performing schools. A quasi-market foreducation emerged in the non-place of language and discourse whenschool ranking results became the basis by which parents made decisionsabout where to send their children to school. When student achievementdata is used to identify British Columbia’s ‘best’ and ‘worst’ performingsecondary schools in this way, standardized assessment practices may beconsidered high-stakes