School Choice and School Improvement PDF Download

Author: Mark Berends
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781934742525
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Provides a direction in the development of school choice.

Author: Peter W. Cookson
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300064995
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
The school choice reform movement believes parents should have a choice of where they send their children to school. In this book the author, an educational sociologist, discusses the practice and politics of school choice objectively and comprehensively.

Author: Douglas N. Harris
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022669478X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
In the wake of the tragedy and destruction that came with Hurricane Katrina in 2005, public schools in New Orleans became part of an almost unthinkable experiment—eliminating the traditional public education system and completely replacing it with charter schools and school choice. Fifteen years later, the results have been remarkable, and the complex lessons learned should alter the way we think about American education. New Orleans became the first US city ever to adopt a school system based on the principles of markets and economics. When the state took over all of the city’s public schools, it turned them over to non-profit charter school managers accountable under performance-based contracts. Students were no longer obligated to attend a specific school based upon their address, allowing families to act like consumers and choose schools in any neighborhood. The teacher union contract, tenure, and certification rules were eliminated, giving schools autonomy and control to hire and fire as they pleased. In Charter School City, Douglas N. Harris provides an inside look at how and why these reform decisions were made and offers many surprising findings from one of the most extensive and rigorous evaluations of a district school reform ever conducted. Through close examination of the results, Harris finds that this unprecedented experiment was a noteworthy success on almost every measurable student outcome. But, as Harris shows, New Orleans was uniquely situated for these reforms to work well and that this market-based reform still required some specific and active roles for government. Letting free markets rule on their own without government involvement will not generate the kinds of changes their advocates suggest. Combining the evidence from New Orleans with that from other cities, Harris draws out the broader lessons of this unprecedented reform effort. At a time when charter school debates are more based on ideology than data, this book is a powerful, evidence-based, and in-depth look at how we can rethink the roles for governments, markets, and nonprofit organizations in education to ensure that America’s schools fulfill their potential for all students.

Author: Paul T. Hill
Publisher: Hoover Press
ISBN: 0817910131
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
Paul T. Hill examines the real-world factors that can complicate, delay, and in some instances interfere with the positive cause-and-effect relationships identified by the theories behind school choice. He explains why schools of choice haven't yet achieved a broader appeal and suggests more realistic expectations about timing and a more complete understanding of what must be done to make choice work.

Author: Charles V. Willie
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN: 9780897898485
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Diversified schools, in which students of various racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic characteristics are balanced, have a positive contextual effect on achievement for all groups compared to schools with homogeneous student bodies that tend to help affluent, white students and harm poor students and students of color. The authors advise school districts convicted for operating segregated schools on how to make all schools schools of choice that must compete for students who enroll in them. And it discusses ways of being fair and just in the distribution of educational resources to affluent as well as poor students and to white students as well as students of color. School systems that are reluctant to use racial fairness guidelines in the enrollment process are advised to use socioeconomic fairness guidelines, because the absence of any enrollment fairness guidelines tends to result in the return to segregation and a dual school system helpful to a few but harmful to many students. This book suggests ways of empowering parents and professional educators and it discusses how to achieve a good outcome for urban as well as rural school districts and for large as well as small school systems. Among communities mentioned in this study are Cambridge, Boston, Brockton MA; St.Lucie County, Lee County, Hillsborough County (including Tampa) FL; Santa Rosa County CA; Seattle WA; New Haven CT; Rockford IL; Milwaukee WI; and Charleston County SC.

Author: Mark Berends
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351210432
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
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.

Author: Margaret C Wang
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135661790
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
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.

Author: Jay P Greene
Publisher: Encounter Books
ISBN: 1594035954
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 55

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Book Description
Expanding school choice and competition is the single most important action we can take to improve America's schools. Although school choice faces strong opposition from powerful teacher unions and their entrenched political allies, expanding choice via vouchers, charters, and tax credits has repeatedly been shown to improve student achievement, reduce segregation, promote civic values, and facilitate other productive reforms. This eloquent Broadside outlines the case for school choice and shows how it is the most appealing strategy for anyone serious about educational reform.

Author: Virginia Walden Ford
Publisher: Beaufort Books
ISBN: 0825308216
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
Winner of the 2020 Silver Nautilus Book Award On a cold winter night in February of 1967, a large rock shattered a bedroom window in Virginia Walden Ford's home in Little Rock, Arkansas, landing in her baby sister's crib. Outside, members of the Ku Klux Klan burned a cross on her family's lawn. Faceless bigots were terrorizing Virginia, her parents, and her sisters–all because her father, Harry Fowler, dared to take a job as the assistant superintendent of personnel for the Little Rock School District. He was more than qualified, but he was black. In her searing new memoir, legendary school choice advocate Virginia Walden Ford recounts the lessons she learned as a child in the segregated south. She drew on those experiences—and the legacies handed to her by her parents and ancestors—thirty years later, when she built an army of parents to fight for school choice in our nation's capital. School Choice: A Legacy to Keep, tells the dramatic true story of how poor D.C. parents, with the support of unlikely allies, faced off against some of America's most prominent politicians—and won a better future for children.

Author: Caroline M. Hoxby
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226355349
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 367

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Book Description
Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has declared school voucher programs constitutional, the many unanswered questions concerning the potential effects of school choice will become especially pressing. Contributors to this volume draw on state-of-the-art economic methods to answer some of these questions, investigating the ways in which school choice affects a wide range of issues. Combining the results of empirical research with analyses of the basic economic forces underlying local education markets, The Economics of School Choice presents evidence concerning the impact of school choice on student achievement, school productivity, teachers, and special education. It also tackles difficult questions such as whether school choice affects where people decide to live and how choice can be integrated into a system of school financing that gives children from different backgrounds equal access to resources. Contributors discuss the latest findings on Florida's school choice program as well as voucher programs and charter schools in several other states. The resulting volume not only reveals the promise of school choice, but examines its pitfalls as well, showing how programs can be designed that exploit the idea's potential but avoid its worst effects. With school choice programs gradually becoming both more possible and more popular, this book stands out as an essential exploration of the effects such programs will have, and a necessary resource for anyone interested in the idea of school choice.