School Choice

This book addresses one of the most urgent questions in American society today, one that is currently in the spotlight and hotly debated on all sides: Who shall rule the schools--parents or educators? School Choice or Best Systems: What Improves Education? presents an overview of research and practical applications of innovative--even radical--school reforms being implemented across the United States. These fall along a continuum ranging from "parental choice" to "best systems." At the one extreme are schools of choice, which allow parents to choose and even govern schools for their children. These include charter schools, traditional private and parochial schools, schools that are privately governed but publicly funded through vouchers, and those that are funded by private scholarships provided by both corporations and wealthy individuals. At the other extreme are centralized state or district systems, based on reform initiatives and new systems of education that have been developed in response to views of citizens and legislators that schools can do much better. These schools, which specify uniform goals, policies, and programs for each school, are highly innovative systems based on research or representing advanced thinking about "what works," and have attracted wide interest. Important questions related to schools of choice and best systems are addressed: How can we choose among schools of choice and best systems? Among the various approaches within each of these alternatives? How can we understand their guiding principles and operational practices? What results do they produce? How can we evaluate their claims? In choosing among the alternatives, how should issues of student achievement, accountability, costs, feasibility, and equity be factored in? This volume brings together leading researchers and education leaders who have carried out the latest studies and advances in the field, providing a forum for them to set forth the arguments and evidence that will be most helpful in making choices for tomorrow's schools. It does not provide a single "right" answer--values and preferences differ across parents, schools, districts, and states. However, there are benefits for all from seeing the rigorous research, challenging thinking, and alternate points of view this volume presents.

This insightful look at American education explores difficult but realistic solutions to the education dilemma. Focusing on parent/student choice and deregulation or privatization of public schools, the authors suggest that these two ingredients would revitalize American education. Reform efforts within the present government monopolistic system will inevitably fail because this system ignores basic laws of human behavior. Rinehart and Lee argue that increased choice and unencumbered competition among schools result in dramatic educational improvement. Written for professionals and laymen, this volume views the American educational system from a provocative new perspective.

Set against the backdrop of a monopoly public school system that consigns millions of disadvantaged children to educational inequality, the recent Cleveland school vouchers case, appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, has brought this issue to national attention.

American education is undergoing rapid change. Concern over poor student performance, the ability and motivation of teachers, and the inefficiency of school bureaucracy have led to numerous recommendations for changing the structure of American education. These vary from small changes in the current structure to wholesale privatization of public schools. The contributions in this book discuss a wide range of proposals, including greater school choice, charter schools, promoting contact with the business community, public-private partnerships, and more. Several chapters assess the current research on choice and restructuring. Overall the consensus is that proposed reforms have a good chance of yielding significant benefits.

Public school choice is a policy gaining wide popular and political support. Spurred by perceptions of an education system in crisis, proponents of school choice argue that an education marketplace will produce better schools. Give students and parents choice, these advocates claim, and schools will be forced to improve or close. The promise of a choice-based system, however, is largely unfulfilled. Despite all the rhetoric, the successes of existing choice systems are questionable, and the theories and assumptions that provide intellectual support for choice have never been systematically tested. This book provides that test. Professors Smith and Meier show that a choice-based system will not improve American education. Choice theorists have exaggerated the decline in educational performance and misidentified its causes. Their proposed market cure is modeled on unfounded assumptions. Persuasive though it may sound, the school choice argument is demonstrably false and misleading. And what is worse, it is likely to promote racial, religious, and socio-economic segregation.

This volume is a thorough and comprehensive examination of the concerns about educational choice. Pearson identifies errors, omissions, and fallacies in the economic and political theories used to justify choice and raises questions about the potential impacts of choice on both urban and rural public schools and consumers. The range of potential consequences of choice have not been thoroughly examined before implementation--a serious problem because educational choice may undermine the basic principles of public education in a democratic society and increase existing inequities in educational opportunities for many students.

Advocates of school vouchers and other choice proposals couch their arguments in the fashionable language of economic theory. Choice initiatives at all levels of government have succeeded, it is claimed, because they shift responsibility for education reform from government to market forces. This timely book disputes the appropriateness of the market metaphor as a guide to education policy.