The Market Approach to Education: An Analysis of America's First Voucher Program.

In 1990, Milwaukee, Wisconsin implemented a school choice program aimed at improving the education of inner-city children by enabling them to attend a selection of private schools. This book provides a broad, yet detailed, framework for examining the Milwaukee approach and its implications for the market approach to U.S. education. It explains why the Milwaukee program seems to be working, but discusses why such programs do not necessarily promote equal education and how they might harm the disadvantaged if applied across the socioeconomic spectrum. The chapters are: (1) "Introduction"; (2) "The Enduring Controversy over Educational Choice"; (3) "Educational Choice and the Milwaukee Voucher Program"; (4) "Who Participates in Choice Programs?"; (5) "The Milwaukee Choice Schools"; (6) "Outcomes of the Milwaukee Voucher Program"; (7) "The Politics of Vouchers"; and (8) "Implications and Conclusions." (Contains 5 figures, 34 tables, and 140 references.) (SLD)