Includes bibliographical references (pages 131-173) and index.
Contents:
Conclusion: making up our collective mind. School choice today -- Not your parents' schooling -- Design trade-offs -- What follows -- Historical reflections on school choice. Original choices ; An educational ecology emerges ; Between Rome and Albany ; Rebels with causes ; Choosing neighbors and schools ; Brown: crawling past plessy ; The bus stops here ; Experimental visions ; Toward plural public education ; From plural visions to bounded choices ; Federal support shifts from magnets to charters -- The value of choice: a normative assessment. Whose education is it? ; Private options for education consumers ; Schools for the public, by the public ; Can parents be effective education consumers? ; Labs for innovation, or unaccountable "ghost districts"? ; Choice through privatization supports innovation ; The limits of innovation ; Limits of accountability through private choice ; Accountability through transparency ; Accountability through participation ; Accountability through sanctioning ; Accountability through resistance ; Equal access to quality education, or another layer of separation? ; Choice provides equal access to quality education ; Choice creates another layer of inequality and separation ; Higher-quality education? ; Equal access to quality education? ; New layers of separation -- Conclusion: making up our collective mind.
Summary:
If free market advocates had total control over education policy, would the shared public system of education collapse? Would school choice revitalize schooling with its innovative force? With proliferating charters and voucher schemes, would the United States finally make a dramatic break with its past and expand parental choice? That's not only the wrong question--it's the wrong premise, argue philosopher Sigal R. Ben-Porath and historian Michael C. Johanek in Making Up Our Mind. Market-driven school choices aren't new. They predate the republic, and for generations parents have chosen to educate their children through an evolving mix of publicly supported, private, charitable, and entrepreneurial enterprises. This process has arguably always been influenced by market forces, especially those of parental demand, and, more recently, by the impact of coordinated corporate and philanthropic influence. The question is not whether to have school choice. It is how we will regulate who has which choices in our mixed market for schooling--and what we, as a nation, hope to accomplish with that mix of choices. Making Up Our Mind looks beyond the simple divide between those who oppose government intervention and those who support public education as a way to nurture a democratic, integrated public sphere. Instead, the authors make the case for a structured landscape of choice in schooling, one that protects the interests of children and of society, while also identifying key shared values on which a broadly acceptable policy could rest.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.