School S Choice

Access issues are pivotal to almost all charter school tensions and debates. How well are these schools performing? Are they segregating and stratifying? Are they public and democratic? Are they fairly funded? Can apparent successes be scaled up? Answers to all these core questions hinge on how access to charter schools is shaped. This book describes the incentives and pressures on charter schools to restrict access and examines how charters navigate those pressures, explaining access-restricting practices in relation to the ecosystem within which charter schools are created. It also explains how charters have sometimes responded by resisting the pressures and sometimes by surrendering to them. The text presents analyses of 13 different types of practices around access, each of which shapes the school’s enrollment. The authors conclude by offering recommendations for how states and authorizers can address access-related inequities that arise in the charter sector. School’s Choice provides timely information on critical academic and policy issues that will come into play as charter school policy continues to evolve. Book Features: Examines how charter schools control who gains and retains access.Explores policies and practices that undermine equitable admission and encourage opportunity hoarding.Offers a set of policy recommendations at the state and federal level to address access-related issues.

Understanding School Choice in Canada provides a nuanced and theoretical overview of the formation and rise of school choice policies in Canada. Drawing on twenty years of work, Lynn Bosetti and Dianne Gereluk analyze the philosophical, historical, political, and social principles that underpin the formation and implementation of school choice policies in the provinces and territories. Bosetti and Gereluk offer theoretical frameworks for considering the parameters of school choice policies that are aligned and attentive to Canadian educational contexts. This robust overview successfully shifts the debate away from ideology in order to facilitate an understanding that the spectrum of school choice policy in Canada is a response to the varying political challenges in society at large. This book is essential reading for those who desire a deeper understanding of school choice policies in Canada.

In this important new volume, distinguished legal and public policy scholars address issues that are critical to the successful drafting and implementation of school choice programs, yet are usually overlooked in the choice debate. They explore whether school choice is a threat or an opportunity to the many children who are largely deprived of choice today and they offer a variety of perspectives, with some authors enthusiastic, others more skeptical. The book begins with a discussion of the types and extent of school choice, what is known about its consequences, and how politics has influenced its development. It then focuses on three important public policy issues: how school choice can revolutionize the way schools are financed, what policy interventions are necessary to increase the supply of choice schools, and how choice programs can be held accountable to parents and the state without undermining institutional autonomy. The book addresses legal issues, including whether public and private choice schools will be required to observe student and teacher rights generally recognized in traditional public schools, how the religion and speech clauses of the First Amendment may affect the participation of religious schools in school choice programs, whether school choice will enhance or aggravate opportunities for racial justice, what the implications of school choice are for teacher unions and collective bargaining, and whether children with disabilities will be accommodated in school choice programs under federal disability law. Throughout the book, the authors offer recommendations for public policy development. The contributors are Jeffrey Henig, Robert Bulman and David L. Kirp, Paul T. Hill, Robert M. O'Neil, Jesse H. Choper, Betsy Levin, William G. Buss, and Laura F. Rothstein. Stephen D. Sugarman is Agnes Roddy Robb Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. Frank R. Kemerer is Regents Professor and director of the Center for the Study of Education Reform at the University of North Texas.

This book asserts a controversial proposition: that a system dominated by attendance-zoned, political process managed, uniformly comprehensive mega-schools (TPS) cannot adequately address unique educational needs and interests.

This collection of essays will help readers to disentangle the complex relationship between school choice and student diversity in the post-Brown era. Presenting the views of the most prominent researchers of school choice reforms in the U.S., this book argues that the contexts under which school choice plans are adopted are actually responsible for shaping student diversity within schools. Using sociological, economic, and political analysis, the authors present studies of controlled and voluntary choice plans, charter schools, private school selection, and their interaction with race, social class, gender, and student disability.

Educational policy in a democracy goes beyond teaching literacy and numeracy. It also supports teaching moral reasoning, political tolerance, respect for diversity, and citizenship. Education policy should encourage liberty and equality of opportunity, hold educational institutions accountable, and be efficient. School Choice Tradeoffs examines the tradeoffs among these goals when government affords parents the means to select the schools their children attend. Godwin and Kemerer compare current policy that uses family residence to assign students to schools with alternative policies that range from expanding public choice options to school vouchers. They identify the benefits and costs of each policy approach through a review of past empirical literature, the presentation of new empirical work, and legal and philosophic analysis. The authors offer a balanced perspective that goes beyond rhetoric and ideology to offer policymakers and the public insight into the complex tradeoffs that are inherent in the design and implementation of school choice policies. While all policies create winners and losers, the key questions concern who these individuals are and how much they gain or lose. By placing school choice within a broader context, this book will stimulate reflective thought in all readers.

The Wiley Handbook of School Choice presents a comprehensive collection of original essays addressing the wide range of alternatives to traditional public schools available in contemporary US society. A comprehensive collection of the latest research findings on school choices in the US, including charter schools, magnet schools, school vouchers, home schooling, private schools, and virtual schools Viewpoints of both advocates and opponents of each school choice provide balanced examinations and opinions Perspectives drawn from both established researchers and practicing professionals in the U.S. and abroad and from across the educational spectrum gives a holistic outlook Includes thorough coverage of the history of traditional education in the US, its current state, and predictions for the future of each alternative school choice