What America Can Learn From School Choice In Other Countries

This book draws out the critical lessons for U.S. policymakers and shows how freedom to choose schools and healthy competition among schools can create strong academic success.

This volume of essays examines the empirical evidence on school choice in different countries across Europe, North America, sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. It demonstrates the advantages which choice offers in different institutional contexts, whether it be Free Schools in the UK, voucher systems in Sweden or private-proprietor schools for low-income families in Liberia. Everywhere experience suggests that parents are ‘active choosers’: they make rational and considered decisions, drawing on available evidence and responding to incentives which vary from context to context. Government educators frequently downplay the importance of choice and try to constrain the options parents have. But they face increasing resistance: the evidence is that informed parents drive improvements in school quality. Where state education in some developing countries is particularly bad, private bottom-up provision is preferred even though it costs parents money which they can ill-afford. This book is both a collection of inspiring case studies and a call to action.

Updated to reflect the latest developments and increasing scope of school-based options, the second edition of the Handbook of Research on School Choice makes readily available the most rigorous and policy-relevant research on K–12 school choice. This comprehensive research handbook begins with scholarly overviews that explore historical, political, economic, legal, methodological, and international perspectives on school choice. In the following sections, experts examine the research and current state of common forms of school choice: charter schools, school vouchers, and magnet schools. The concluding section brings together perspectives on other key topics such as accountability, tax credit scholarships, parent decision-making, and marginalized students. With empirical perspectives on all aspects of this evolving sphere of education, this is a critical resource for researchers, faculty, and students interested in education policy, the politics of education, and educational leadership.

School Choice: The Findings is the most comprehensive and up-to-date survey available, summarizing the research on charter schools, vouchers, and public versus private school effectiveness, from one of the country's most distinguished education scholars. The focus is on rigorous studies—those using randomized control groups (as in medical research), those that monitor achievement changes over time, and those based on large numbers of students. The findings presented here also go beyond academic achievement, covering students’ civic engagement, cost comparisons across school types, and public and parental opinion about schools and school choice. Dr. Walberg reveals how much Americans know about school choice. Do they support it? What about families whose children are enrolled in charter schools or in private schools thanks to a voucher program? Are they happier with the quality of their children’s education than those whose children attend an assigned public school? While acknowledging and discussing some notable exceptions, Dr. Walberg concludes that the consensus of the high-quality international research overwhelmingly favors competition and parental choice in education over the monopoly systems that dominate the United States and many other industrialized countries.

The United States is in the midst of historic experiments with publicly funded choice in K-12 education, experiments that recently received a "green light" from the Supreme Court. Other nations have long experience with the funding and regulation of nonpublic schools, including religious schools. This book asks what U.S. policymakers, public officials, and citizens can learn from these experiences. In particular, how do other countries regulate or structure publicly funded educational choice with an eye toward civic values—looking not only for improvements in test scores, but also in tolerance, civic cohesion, and democratic values such as integration across the lines of class, religion, and race? The experience of Europe and Canada with school choice is both extensive and varied. In England and Wales, public school choice is widespread, as parents play a significant role in selecting the school their children will attend. In the Netherlands and much of Belgium, a majority of students attend religious schools at government expense. In Canada, France, and Germany, state-financed school choice is limited to circumstances that serve particular social and governmental needs. In Italy, school choice has just recently arrived on the policy agenda. In spite of the diversity of national experiences, in all of these countries choice is regulated by the government in significant and varied ways to promote civic values. In several of these countries, school choice policy itself appears to have played an important role in promoting social cohesion and integration. This book presents a wealth of experience designed to aid policymakers and citizens as they consider historic changes in American public education policy.

Are public charter schools more effective than traditional public schools? This book provides quantitative evidence to answer this question and considers a better way to undertake a policy of school choice. School Choice: A Balanced Approach is the most comprehensive examination of traditional public schools, public charter schools, and faith-based schools that has ever been undertaken. By considering and comparing the overall data on these three types of educational systems, it provides insight on likely outcomes of school choice programs. The author's objective is not to advance any particular agenda, but rather to provide readers with an unbiased analysis of research that has been embraced by both the G.W. Bush and Obama administrations that will allow for fresh thinking and the betterment of American education as a whole. Author William H. Jeynes, PhD, asks vital questions regarding the school choice issue that are often overlooked: Which specific programs of school choice are likely to work, and which would likely fail? Is school choice really a boon for the private sector? How might the implementation of school choice programs increase or decrease the financial burden on government budget deficits? This book carefully addresses a relevant topic that ultimately affects every American, making it essential reading for everyone from government officials and educators to students and the general public.

This book argues that the structure of public education is a key factor in the failure of America's public education system to fulfill the intellectual, civic, and moral aims for which it was created. The book challenges the philosophical basis for the traditional common school model and defends the educational pluralism that most liberal democracies enjoy. Berner provides a unique theoretical pathway that is neither libertarian nor state-focused and a pragmatic pathway that avoids the winner-takes-all approach of many contemporary debates about education. For the first time in nearly one hundred fifty years, changing the underlying structure of America’s public education system is both plausible and possible, and this book attempts to set out why and how.

NOTE: NO FURTHER DISCOUNT FOR THIS PRINT PRODUCT-OVERSTOCK SALE -- Significantly reduced list price while supplies last Report of the White House Domestic Policy Council concerning the limiting of education options available to low-income urban families due the the rapid disappearance of faith-based schools in America's cities.