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Education by Choice: The Case for Family Control presents a compelling analysis of educational reform through family choice, exploring the concept of educational vouchers and entitlements as alternatives to traditional, locality-based public schooling. This approach centers on granting parents and children direct authority over school selection, shifting control from state-appointed officials to families themselves. This model allows families to choose from a diverse array of educational institutions, including private schools, to better match individual needs and preferences. Advocates argue that increased family choice fosters greater educational equity and innovation, as schools must respond to parental preferences, potentially elevating the quality and accessibility of education across socioeconomic backgrounds. The authors, Coons and Sugarman, build upon their foundational work in Private Wealth and Public Education, applying principles of financial equity to educational choice. They propose that a voucher system, which would provide equal educational resources regardless of residential or economic factors, addresses disparities more effectively than centralized funding alone. By enabling'family power equalizing,'vouchers support diverse and inclusive educational environments, bridging economic gaps and offering a viable alternative to rigid, locality-based systems. Through this detailed examination,'Education by Choice'addresses philosophical, structural, and practical dimensions of educational vouchers, laying the groundwork for an approach that respects family agency while aiming to enhance educational access and quality across all communities. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1978.

'No Size Fits All'is a book whose time has come—a book that offers a proposal that could revolutionize public school policies in the United States at the federal, state and local levels. The book calls upon Congress to require all public school systems that benefit from federal funding to offer parents and children a choice of alternative schools, exempt from the broadly unpopular Common Core testing regime, some of which would use the time-tested Montessori, Waldorf and Sudbury methods to give American students more freedom in determining what they study and when. The politics of federal education policy has devolved into an all-or-nothing fight between defenders of a status quo that its critics condemn as oppressive and proponents of a school choice reform—vouchers, as proposed by Betsy De Vos—that its critics condemn as subversive. No Size Fits All interrupts this all-or-nothing argument with a humane and sensible alternative—one that could lay the groundwork for broad new consensus on federal education policy.

School Choice at the Crossroads compiles exemplary, policy-relevant research on school choice options—voucher, private, charter, and traditional public schools—as they have been implemented across the nation. Renowned contributors highlight the latest rigorous research findings and implications on school vouchers, tuition tax credits, and charter schools in states and local areas at the forefront of school choice policy. Examining national and state-level perspectives, each chapter discusses the effects of choice and vouchers on student outcomes, the processes of choice, supportive conditions of school choice programs, comparative features of school choice, and future research. This timely volume addresses whether school choice works, under what conditions, and for whom—further informing educational research, policy, and practice.

Carpetbagging America's Public Schools probes the financial intrigue underlying the charter school industry. This book is a forensic accounting analysis of the financial effects of twenty years of charter schools and vouchers on the publics investment in public education. Written from an insider's perspective by an early advocate for charter schools, the work exposes the underbelly of the radical deregulation of our public schools.

Many activists and writers have ascribed continuing racial segregation in American schools to a failure of will. In this view, forced transfers of students and other aggressive judicially mandated policies would lead to greater equality in education if only legislators and judges had the will to continue trying to make school districts conform to plans for redesigning schools and even American society. Controls and Choices: The Educational Marketplace and the Failure of School Desegregation provides a detailed examination of the nature of the educational marketplace, supported by historical evidence, to argue that school desegregation failed because it involved monopolistic efforts at redistributing opportunities. These efforts were fundamentally at odds with the self-interest of the families who had the greatest ability to make choices in the educational marketplace. The authors use the concept of the educational marketplace to explain how market-based attempts at school reform, notably vouchers and charter schools, have grown out of the failure of desegregation and remain hampered by lack of recognition of how the schools really function as markets. Some additional key features of this book include:Gives a clear understanding of how schools function as marketsIllustrates the argument with histories of specific school districtsLinks the history of school desegregation to school vouchers and charter schoolsIncludes easy to read and interpret graphs and figures Includes most up-to-date school population and census information

This in-depth chronicle of 110 families in Washington, DC's Opportunity Scholarship Program provides a realistic look at how urban families experience the process of using school choice vouchers and transform from government clients to consumers of education and active citizens.

Expanding school choice and competition is the single most important action we can take to improve America's schools. Although school choice faces strong opposition from powerful teacher unions and their entrenched political allies, expanding choice via vouchers, charters, and tax credits has repeatedly been shown to improve student achievement, reduce segregation, promote civic values, and facilitate other productive reforms. This eloquent Broadside outlines the case for school choice and shows how it is the most appealing strategy for anyone serious about educational reform.

This book reveals that, far from being the result of a groundswell of support for parental choice in American education, the origins of school vouchers are seated in identity politics, religious schooling, and educational entrepreneurship.Inserting much-needed historical context into the voucher debates, Freedom of Choice: Vouchers in American Education treats school vouchers as a series of social movements set within the context of evolving American conservatism. The study ranges from the use of tuition grants in the 1950s and early 1960s in the interest of fostering segregation to the wider acceptance of vouchers in the 1990s as a means of counteracting real and perceived shortcomings of urban public schools. The rise of school vouchers, author Jim Carl suggests, is best explained as a mechanism championed by four distinct groups—white supremacists in the South, supporters of parochial school in the North, minority advocates of community schools in the nation's big cities, and political conservatives of both major parties. Though freedom was the rallying cry, this book shows that voucher supporters had more specific goals: continued racial segregation of public education, tax support for parochial schools, aid to urban community schools, and opening up the public school sector to educational entrepreneurs.

This book examines reform in American education over the past fifty years and against this backdrop presents a compelling analysis of why contemporary voucher plans and charter schools have yet to fulfill the expectations of their advocates. It is the only book to date to attempt a comprehensive synthesis and analysis of the emerging research base on vouchers and charter schools. Suitable for courses in school policy, school reform, school leadership, or educational issues, it will also be of interest to anyone (parents, teachers, policymakers) directly involved with the charter school movement. Key features of this timely new book include the following: • A Historical Perspective--The early chapters look at American educational reform over the past fifty years and analyze why these efforts have fallen short of their goals. • Student Achievement--Chapter 3 provides an insightful assessment of American students'school achievement from 1970 to the present and, in the process, counters the widely held myth that, overall, student achievement has deteriorated. • Voucher Plans and Charter Schools--Chapter 4 looks specifically at choice and vouchers in American education while chapters 5-7 provide a comprehensive and balanced examination of the charter school movement. • Policy Recommendations--The book concludes with explicit policy suggestions that attempt to balance the educational needs of children and youth against the rights of schools to experiment. Suggestions for developing broader coalitions to support public education, particularly in the inner cities, are also offered.

While school vouchers have captured the headlines, a different policy has captured the students. Tuition tax credit laws are now entrenched in Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Iowa, and Georgia, and they affect far more students. Yet few people understand the nature of these policies or the political and legal issues surrounding them. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the structure, legality, and policy implications of tuition tax credits, which have garnered only scant attention even while expanding to cover more students than the voucher policies they're designed to emulate. At a time when tax credit policies are becoming a major form of American school choice, this book offers insights into both the strengths and weakness ofthe approach.

Winner of the 2009 Critics Choice Book Award of the American Educational Studies Association (AESA)Through careful ethnographic research, Market Movements represents community leaders, school officials, and most importantly, African American working class families who have used vouchers as a means of removing their children from public schools they deemed unacceptable. The book works to discern the overlaps and tensions between the educational visions of African American voucher families and those of powerful conservative educational forces in U.S. society which purport to be allied with them. To the extent that there are points of divergence with the educational right, and points of convergence with educational progressives, this book provides a hopeful message and a practical vision. It seeks to accomplish some of the critical empirical and conceptual groundwork that is necessary in order to renew the increasingly fractious relations between those social actors—teachers, communities of color, critical researchers, and labor unions—most likely to defend and expand previous social democratic victories.

Fifty years ago, Milton Friedman had the ground-breaking idea to improve public education with school vouchers. By separating government financing of education from government administration of schools, Friedman argued, parents at all income levels would have the freedom to choose the schools their children attend. Liberty & Learning is a collection of essays from the nation's top education experts evaluating the progress of Friedman's innovative idea and reflecting on its merits in the 21st century. The book also contains a special prologue and epilogue by Milton Friedman himself. The contributors to this volume take a variety of approaches to Friedman's voucher idea. All of them assess the merit of Friedman's plan through an energetic, contemporary perspective, though some authors take a theoretical position, while others employ a very pragmatic approach.

The voucher debate has been both intense and ideologically polarizing, in good part because so little is known about how voucher programs operate in practice. In The Education Gap, William Howell and Paul Peterson report new findings drawn from the most comprehensive study on vouchers conducted to date. Added to the paperback edition of this groundbreaking volume are the authors'insights into the latest school choice developments in American education, including new voucher initiatives, charter school expansion, and public-school choice under No Child Left Behind. The authors review the significance of state and federal court decisions as well as recent scholarly debates over choice impacts on student performance. In addition, the authors present new findings on which parents choose private schools and the consequences the decision has for their children's education. Updated and expanded, The Education Gap remains an indispensable source of original research on school vouchers.'This is the most important book ever written on the subject of vouchers.'—John E. Brandl, dean, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota'The Education Gap will provide an important intellectual battleground for the debate over vouchers for years to come.'—Alan B. Krueger, Princeton University'Must reading for anyone interested in the battle over vouchers in America.'—John Witte, University of Wisconsin

In School Choice and the Future of American Democracy, Scott Franklin Abernathy shows what is lost in the school choice debate. Abernathy looks at parents as citizens who exert power over the educational system through everything from their votes on school budgets to their membership on school boards. Challenging the assumption that public schools will improve when confronted with market-based reforms, Abernathy examines the possibility that public schools will become more disconnected and isolated as civic life is privatized.'Scott Abernathy takes up big questions and provides answers grounded in the complex reality of policy and politics. School Choice and the Future of American Democracy is a book written for those who understand that the world does not fit the simple explanations too often put forward.'--Clarence Stone, Professor Emeritus, University of Maryland, and Research Professor, George Washington University'Will school choice revive or eviscerate democratic processes and institutions? Will it narrow or exacerbate the range of educational inequities? This book takes several differently angled slices into these questions and draws intriguing answers.'--Jeffrey R. Henig, Teachers College, Columbia University, and author of Rethinking School Choice: Limits of the Market Metaphor'Through extensive research and refreshingly impartial analysis, Scott Abernathy probes how the use of market principles to reform public schools affects democratic citizenship. Treating citizens first and foremost as customers, he finds, threatens civic engagement and the well-being of schools, especially in the nation's neediest communities. This thoughtful and balanced appraisal is must-reading for those concerned about the future of American education and democracy.'--Suzanne Mettler, Alumni Associate Professor, Syracuse University, and author of Soldiers to Citizens: The G.I. Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation Scott Franklin Abernathy is Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Minnesota

This book offers a prescription for reform that includes freedom of choice among public and private schools.

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has declared school voucher programs constitutional, the many unanswered questions concerning the potential effects of school choice will become especially pressing. Contributors to this volume draw on state-of-the-art economic methods to answer some of these questions, investigating the ways in which school choice affects a wide range of issues. Combining the results of empirical research with analyses of the basic economic forces underlying local education markets, The Economics of School Choice presents evidence concerning the impact of school choice on student achievement, school productivity, teachers, and special education. It also tackles difficult questions such as whether school choice affects where people decide to live and how choice can be integrated into a system of school financing that gives children from different backgrounds equal access to resources. Contributors discuss the latest findings on Florida's school choice program as well as voucher programs and charter schools in several other states. The resulting volume not only reveals the promise of school choice, but examines its pitfalls as well, showing how programs can be designed that exploit the idea's potential but avoid its worst effects. With school choice programs gradually becoming both more possible and more popular, this book stands out as an essential exploration of the effects such programs will have, and a necessary resource for anyone interested in the idea of school choice.

Explore this controversial approach to education, its practical applications, successes, and failures in a straightforward guide that covers every facet of the issue, from for-profit schools to outsourcing of school management to vouchers.The book covers everything from school vouchers to little-known market-based educational reforms like for-profit management of public schools, commercialism in the classroom, philanthropic tuition sponsorships, faith-based charities, educational tax credits, corporate curriculum, and advertising as well as exclusive agreements between companies and schools. It includes case studies of two well-established voucher systems: the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program and the private national voucher policy in Chile, a program started in l973. The book also includes a chronology, directories, bibliographies, and other reference content.

While the merits of vouchers have been the subject of intense public debate in recent years, there has been very little available evidence upon which to gauge their efficacy. The first publicly funded voucher plan involving private schools wasn't established until 1990 in Milwaukee; before then, the only data on school choice came from a small, poorly designed program in California. Voucher programs grew dramatically in the latter half of the 1990s. In 2000, about 60,000 students participated in seventy-one programs, most privately funded. This growth is now providing researchers with the ability to measure the impact of vouchers for the first time in multiple cities. The Education Gap is the first book to gather a significant body of data on vouchers in multiple locations, and it reveals startling new evidence that voucher programs benefit African-American students more than participants from other ethnic groups. To explain this phenomenon, the authors point out that residential selection is the most common form of school choice available in American public education today. Since this process is likely to leave African Americans in the worst public schools, new forms of choice directed toward low-income families are most likely to benefit black students. The authors examine the effects of school vouchers on test scores, parental satisfaction, parent-school communications, and political tolerance among students and parents participating in four pilot programs in New York City; Dayton, Ohio; Washington, D.C.; the Edgewood school district in San Antonio; and a program that offered vouchers to 40,000 low-income families nationwide. Though the programs operated in a wide variety of settings, the findings were surprisingly consistent. After two years, African-American students who used vouchers to switch from public to private schools scored substantially better on math and reading tests. By contrast, no significant positive effects on the test scores of ot

This volume brings together the most current empirical research on two important innovations reshaping American education today-voucher programs and charter schools. Contributors include the foremost analysts in education policy. Of specific significance is cutting-edge research that evaluates the impact of vouchers on academic performance in the New York City, Washington, D.C., and Dayton, Ohio, school systems. The volume also looks beyond the American experience to consider the impact of market-based education as pioneered by New Zealand. Contributors also take stock of the movement's effects on public schools in particular and public opinion at-large. With thorough summaries of the existing research and the legal issues facing school choice, Charters, Vouchers, and Public Education will be key to readers who want to stay current with the burgeoning debates on vouchers and charter schools. Contributors include Terry Moe (Stanford University and the Hoover Institution), Gregg Vanourek (Yale University), Chester E. Finn Jr. (Manhattan Institute and the Fordham Foundation), Bruno V. Manno (Annie E. Casey Foundation), Michael Mintrom and David Plank (Michigan State University), Helen Ladd (Duke University), Edward Fiske (former New York Times columnist), Jay P. Greene (Manhattan Institute), William G. Howell (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Patrick J. Wolf (Georgetown University and the Brookings Institution), Mark Schneider, Paul Teske, Sara Clark, and S. P. Buckley (SUNY-Stony Brook), Robert Maranto (Villanova University), Frederick Hess (University of Virginia), Scott Milliman (James Madison University), Brett Kleitz (University of Houston), Kristin Thalhammer (St. Olaf College), Joseph Viteritti (New York University), Paul Hill (University of Washington and Brookings Institution), and Diane Ravitch (New York University and Brookings Institution).

'Moe's new book is not an argument for or against vouchers; it is an analysis of public opinion on vouchers that is likely to be very influential in shaping the movement's future. Moe has written a nuanced and thoughtful treatise that goes beneath the notoriously unreliable single-shot question favored by the media: Do you favor or oppose school vouchers?'Richard D. Kahlenberg in The Nation'In a brilliant, definitive analysis of the subject, Terry Moe tells us who does—and does not—like vouchers as well as who says they will use them, if the opportunity arises. He illuminates not only the school choice debate but the nature of public opinion more generally.'Paul E. Peterson, Harvard University'No book tells us more about how Americans evaluate schools.... This book will be the starting point for anyone interested in any school reform, not just vouchers. A model analysis of public opinion on a public policy.'—Samuel Popkin, University of California-San Diego'Finally, a book on school vouchers that explores what ordinary Americans want and believe when thoughtfully engaged on the issue.'—Stephen D. Sugarman, University of California

How can the education of our nation's children be improved? Vouchers and charter schools aim to improve education by providing families with more choice in the schooling of their children and by decentralizing the provision of educational services. While supporters argue that school choice is essential to rescue children from failing schools, opponents claim that it may destroy America's public education system. The authors undertake an exhaustive and critical view of the evidence on vouchers and charter schools. The book is a useful, unbiased primer for all those interested in this controversial topic.

In Schools for Sale, author Ernest House debunks the myth that economic productivity should shape educational policy and practice. House conclusively illustrates that the attempts by the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations to reshape the school to make'productive workers'ignore how schools work and how students learn, and in the end are doomed to failure. Politically driven proposals for vouchers and privatization and increased calls for accountability and standards gain headlines and capture the attention of the public, but they routinely ignore the need to involve teachers and schools in the debate over the future of our schools.