The Politics of Parent Choice in Public Education PDF Download

Author: W. Lewis
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137312084
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
This is the story of North Carolina parent choice advocates' push for the creation and expansion of choice policies. The exploration of the politics, ideology, and interests surrounding parent choice includes but also stretches beyond the most frequently discussed choice policies of charter schools, school vouchers, and tuition tax credits.

Author: W. Lewis
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137312084
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
This is the story of North Carolina parent choice advocates' push for the creation and expansion of choice policies. The exploration of the politics, ideology, and interests surrounding parent choice includes but also stretches beyond the most frequently discussed choice policies of charter schools, school vouchers, and tuition tax credits.

Author: Stephen D. Sugarman
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 9780815721086
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
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.

Author: Linn Posey-Maddox
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022612035X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
In recent decades a growing number of middle-class parents have considered sending their children to—and often end up becoming active in—urban public schools. Their presence can bring long-needed material resources to such schools, but, as Linn Posey-Maddox shows in this study, it can also introduce new class and race tensions, and even exacerbate inequalities. Sensitively navigating the pros and cons of middle-class transformation, When Middle-Class Parents Choose Urban Schools asks whether it is possible for our urban public schools to have both financial security and equitable diversity. Drawing on in-depth research at an urban elementary school, Posey-Maddox examines parents’ efforts to support the school through their outreach, marketing, and volunteerism. She shows that when middle-class parents engage in urban school communities, they can bring a host of positive benefits, including new educational opportunities and greater diversity. But their involvement can also unintentionally marginalize less-affluent parents and diminish low-income students’ access to the improving schools. In response, Posey-Maddox argues that school reform efforts, which usually equate improvement with rising test scores and increased enrollment, need to have more equity-focused policies in place to ensure that low-income families also benefit from—and participate in—school change.

Author: Paul Hill
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226336530
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
A heated debate is raging over our nation’s public schools and how they should be reformed, with proposals ranging from imposing national standards to replacing public education altogether with a voucher system for private schools. Combining decades of experience in education, the authors propose an innovative approach to solving the problems of our school system and find a middle ground between these extremes. Reinventing Public Education shows how contracting would radically change the way we operate our schools, while keeping them public and accessible to all, and making them better able to meet standards of achievement and equity. Using public funds, local school boards would select private providers to operate individual schools under formal contracts specifying the type and quality of instruction. In a hands-on, concrete fashion, the authors provide a thorough explanation of the pros and cons of school contracting and how it would work in practice. They show how contracting would free local school boards from operating schools so they can focus on improving educational policy; how it would allow parents to choose the best school for their children; and, finally, how it would ensure that schools are held accountable and academic standards are met. While retaining a strong public role in education, contracting enables schools to be more imaginative, adaptable, and suited to the needs of children and families. In presenting an alternative vision for America’s schools, Reinventing Public Education is too important to be ignored.

Author: Andrew Coulson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351506889
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 430

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Book Description
Discontent with public education has been on the rise in recent years, as parents complain that their children are not being taught the basics, that they are not pushed to excel, and that their classrooms are too chaotic to encourage any real learning. The public has begun to reject school bond levies with regularity, frustrated by what it perceives to be mounting education costs unaccompanied by increased achievement or accountability. Coulson explores the educational problems facing parents and shows how these problems can best be addressed. He begins with a discussion of what people want from their school systems, tracing their views of the kinds of knowledge, skills, and values education should impart, and their concerns over discipline, drugs, and violence in public schools. Using this survey of goals and attitudes as a guide, Coulson sets out to compare the school systems of civilizations both ancient and modern, seeking to determine which systems successfully educated generations past and which did not. His historical study ranges from classical Greece and ancient Rome, through the Islamic world of the Middle Ages, to nineteenth-century England and modern America. Drawing on the historical evidence of how these various systems operated, Coulson concludes that free educational markets have consistently done a better job of serving the public's needs than state-run school systems have. He sets out a blueprint for competitive, free-market educational reform that would make schools more flexible, more innovative, and more responsive to the needs of parents and students. He describes how education for low-income children might be funded under a market system, and how the transition from monopolistic public education to market education might be achieved. Coulson's Market Education touches on a wide range of issues, including declines in academic achievement, minority education, the role of public school teachers, and mismanagement and corruption in educational bureaucracies. Coulson examines alternative reform proposals from vouchers and charter schools to national standards for school curricula. This timely and engaging book will appeal to parents, educators, and others concerned with the quality and cost of schooling, and will serve as an excellent resource in college courses on the economics and history of education.

Author: John E. Chubb
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 9780815717263
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 348

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Book Description
During the 1980s, widespread dissatisfaction with America's schools gave rise to a powerful movement for educational change, and the nation's political institutions responded with aggressive reforms. Chubb and Moe argue that these reforms are destined to fail because they do not get to the root of the problem. The fundamental causes of poor academic performance, they claim, are not to be found in the schools, but rather in the institutions of direct democratic control by which the schools have traditionally been governed. Reformers fail to solve the problem-when the institutions ARE the problem. The authors recommend a new system of public education, built around parent-student choice and school competition, that would promote school autonomy—thus providing a firm foundation for genuine school improvement and superior student achievement.

Author: James S. Coleman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 042997812X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
This book examines the resources available to parents and the actions parents can take to further their childrens education. It is the first study of the subject based on major survey data, drawing from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988a national survey of 26,000 eighth graders, their parents, teachers, and school administrators. The authors explore several important debates, including the extent to which parental involvement can mitigate the constraints of poverty for minorities and disadvantaged students, school choice and equality of educational opportunity, and the effects that school-sponsored activities involving parents have on educational performance. }Parental involvement with children at home, in school, and in the community is one of the most important factors in educational success. Yet we know very little about the most effective approaches to parental intervention. Moreover, not all parents have the same resources or opportunities to act on the educational expectations they have for their children.This book examines the resources available to parents and the actions parents can take to further their childrens education. It is the first study of the subject based on major survey data, drawing from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988a national survey of 26,000 eighth graders, their parents, teachers, and school administrators. The authors explore several important debates, including the extent to which parental involvement can mitigate the constraints of poverty for minorities and disadvantaged students, school choice and equality of educational opportunity, and the effects that school-sponsored activities involving parents have on educational performance.Certain to change the thinking of educators and policymakers, this book is essential reading for scholars and parents as well. }

Author: Hubert Morken
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780847697212
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
The Politics of School Choice is the first comprehensive examination of diverse efforts to promote tax credits, public vouchers, private scholarships, and charter schools. Morken and Formicola provide the most current national report on the burgeoning American school choice movement. They analyze the strategies and tactics being used by a wide variety of individuals and organizations to leverage change, pass laws, win court cases, and mobilize community support to build successful, winning, school choice coalitions. Based largely on extensive interviews, documentary research, and surveys, this book covers the spectrum of school choice options and shows how they are being promoted in the United States today. It explains who the players are, what types of programs they endorse, and the various rationales behind them. The authors report the views of the entrepreneurs, religious leaders, heads of think tanks and foundations, public litigators, scholars, activists, minority leaders, and politicians who are in the forefront of providing parents with resources for educational alternatives. Finally, Morken and Formicola cover the strengths and weaknesses of the school choice issue, concluding that the movement has a wide ranging membership, that is uneven in its implementation, and that it is taking different forms in various regions of the country. As the pace of change accelerates and new school choice programs proliferate, this study is a critical resource for all those concerned about the present and future staus of American education.

Author: James Tooley
Publisher: Cato Institute
ISBN: 193970913X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Upon its release several years ago, The Beautiful Tree was instantly embraced and praised by individuals and organizations across the globe. James Tooley's extraordinary ability to braid together personal experience, community action, individual courage, and family devotion, brought readers to the very heart of education. This book follows Tooley in his travels from the largest shanty town in Africa to the mountains of Gansu, China, and of the children, parents, teachers, and entrepreneurs who taught him that the poor are not waiting for educational handouts. They are building their own schools and learning to save themselves. Now in paperback with a new postscript, The Beautiful Tree is not another book lamenting what has gone wrong in some of the world's poorest communities. It is a book about what is going right, and powerfully demonstrates how the entrepreneurial spirit and the love of parents for their children can be found in every corner of the globe.