School Choice Policies and Outcomes

Perhaps no school reform has generated as much interest and controversy in recent years as the proposal to have parents select their children's schools. Opponents of school choice fear that rolling back the government's role will lead to profit-driven financial scandals, sectarianism, and increased class and racial isolation. School choice advocates believe that state provision, oversight, and regulation stifle entrepreneurial creativity. The contributors to this volume not only provide a clear assessment of the logic and evidence supporting the different sides of the debate but also unmask the assumptions about the relationship between markets, government, and educational achievement. Their message is that neither markets nor government alone will guarantee freedom, equality, achievement, or community. If choice is to improve education and advance equality, then educational policy cannot be placed on automatic and left to the "free" market. Rather, choice policy must be deliberately directed toward meeting these goals, and this book shows how that could be accomplished.

Acknowledgments

Introduction          
Walter Feinberg and Christopher Lubienski

1. Common Schooling and Educational Choice as a Response to Pluralism
Rob Reich

2. Educational Equality and Varieties of School Choice
Harry Brighouse

3. Evidence, the Conservative Paradigm, and School Choice
Kenneth R. Howe

4. Intergenerational Justice and School Choice
Kathleen Knight Abowitz

5. The Politics of Parental Choice: Theory and Evidence on Quality Information
Christopher Lubienski

6. Social Class Differences in School Choice: The Role of Preferences
Courtney A. Bell

7. Managers of Choice: Race, Gender, and the Political Ideology of the “New” Urban School Leadership
Janelle T. Scott

8. Where Does the Power Lie Now? Devolution, Choice, and Democracy in Schooling
Liz Gordon

9. Parental Choice: The Liberty Principle in Education Finance in Postapartheid South Africa
Bekisizwe S. Ndimande

10. The Dialectic of Parent Rights and Societal Obligation: Constraining Educational Choice
Walter Feinberg

List of Contributors
Index