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By the early twenty-first century, a startling consensus had emerged about the overall aim of American school reform. In an era of political discord, and in a field historically known for contentiousness, the notion of promoting educational excellence for all students was a distinct point of bipartisan agreement. Shaped by a corps of entrepreneurial reformers intent on finding "what works" and taking it to scale, this hybrid vision won over the nation's most ambitious and well-resourced policy leaders at foundations and nonprofits, in state and federal government, and in urban school districts from coast to coast. "Excellence for all" might, at first glance, appear to be nothing more than a rhetorical flourish. Who, after all, would oppose the idea of a great education for every student? Yet it is hardly a throwaway phrase. Rather, it represents a surprising fusion of educational policy approaches that had been in tense opposition throughout the twentieth century--those on the right favoring social efficiency, and those on the left supporting social justice. This book seeks to understand why the "excellence for all" vision took hold at the time it did, unpacks the particular beliefs and assumptions embedded in it, and details the often informal coalition building that produced this period of consensus. Examining the nation's largest urban school districts (Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York), the author details three major reform efforts in chapters titled "The Right Space: The Small Schools Movement"; "The Right Teachers: Teach for America"; and "The Right Curriculum: Expanding Advanced Placement."
Choosing Excellence in Public Schools explains the origins of the low expectations we have of children, including, notably, children of color, those for whom English is a second language, poor children and children with disabilities. The book dispels the basis for low expectations. It makes clear the economic, demographic, civic, personal and moral imperative to educate all children to high standards and the consequences of not doing so. Hornbeck and Conner set forth a comprehensive, radical agenda based on proven practices and practical experience that will result in education success for virtually all children where faithfully implemented. This book breaks new ground. It establishes that the missing ingredient in school reform is the absence of values-driven, focused, well-financed, professionally staffed, technologically sophisticated grassroots expression of the public will insisting that the political, media, business, judicial and organized labor institutions that make the choices that result in our children's learning conditions make different, and effective choices. We get the education for our own children and grandchildren and those of others that we tolerate or demand.
An inside look at America's most controversial charter schools, and the moral and political questions around public education and school choice. The promise of public education is excellence for all. But that promise has seldom been kept for low-income children of color in America. In How the Other Half Learns, teacher and education journalist Robert Pondiscio focuses on Success Academy, the network of controversial charter schools in New York City founded by Eva Moskowitz, who has created something unprecedented in American education: a way for large numbers of engaged and ambitious low-income families of color to get an education for their children that equals and even exceeds what wealthy families take for granted. Her results are astonishing, her methods unorthodox. Decades of well-intended efforts to improve our schools and close the "achievement gap" have set equity and excellence at war with each other: If you are wealthy, with the means to pay private school tuition or move to an affluent community, you can get your child into an excellent school. But if you are poor and black or brown, you have to settle for "equity" and a lecture--about fairness. About the need to be patient. And about how school choice for you only damages public schools for everyone else. Thousands of parents have chosen Success Academy, and thousands more sit on waiting lists to get in. But Moskowitz herself admits Success Academy "is not for everyone," and this raises uncomfortable questions we'd rather not ask, let alone answer: What if the price of giving a first-rate education to children least likely to receive it means acknowledging that you can't do it for everyone? What if some problems are just too hard for schools alone to solve?
School choice seeks to create a competitive arena in which public schools will attain academic excellence, encourage individual student performance, and achieve social balance. In debating the feasibility of this market approach to improving school systems, analysts have focused primarily on schools as suppliers of education, but an important question remains: Will parents be able to function as "smart consumers" on behalf of their children? Here a highly respected team of social scientists provides extensive empirical evidence on how parents currently do make these choices. Drawn from four different types of school districts in New York City and suburban New Jersey, their findings not only stress the importance of parental decision-making and involvement to school performance but also clarify the issues of school choice in ways that bring much-needed balance to the ongoing debate. The authors analyze what parents value in education, how much they know about schools, how well they can match what they say they want in schools with what their children get, how satisfied they are with their children's schools, and how their involvement in the schools is affected by the opportunity to choose. They discover, most notably, that low-income parents value education as much as, if not more than, high-income parents, but do not have access to the same quality of school information. This problem comes under sensitive, thorough scrutiny as do a host of other important topics, from school performance to segregation to children at risk of being left behind.
Proponents of market-driven education reform view vouchers and charters as superior to local-board-run, community-based public schools. However, the author of this timely volume argues that there is no clear research supporting this view. In fact, she claims there is increasing evidence of charter mismanagement—with public funding all-too-often being squandered while public schools are being closed or consolidated. Tracing the origins of vouchers and charters in the United States, this book examines the push to “globally compete” with education systems in countries such as China and Finland. It documents issues important to the school choice debate, including the impoverishment of public schools to support privatized schools, the abandonment of long-held principles of public education, questionable disciplinary practices, and community disruption. School Choice: The End of Public Education? is essential reading for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the past and future of public education in America. Book Features: Provides a comprehensive historical account of the origins of vouchers and charters. Includes accounts of intriguing historical experiences. Examines the defunding of neighborhood public schools in favor of often underregulated charters. Reveals charter school “churn” that often follows the closing of a mismanaged charter. Provides a cogent counternarrative to the claim that charters are necessary for America to compete globally. “How fortunate that we have another soon-to-be classic from Mercedes Schneider that informs and empowers us all for the fight back!” —Joyce E. King, Georgia State University “Schneider provides a must-read for anyone, especially educators, interested in the future of public education.” —Margaret-Mary Sulentic Dowell, Louisiana State University “Outstanding! Powerful! This is the most interesting and best-researched book on school choice I've ever read.” —Julian Vasquez Heilig, California State University
WINNER OF THE 2020 FOREWORD INDIES GOLD AWARD IN EDUCATION WINNER OF THE SILVER IPPY AWARD FOR BEST EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES You want your children to benefit from a great education. But every student is unique. One type of school might be a great fit for your neighbor's child, but it might not work for your son or daughter. Across the country, many parents today have more choices for their children's education than ever before. If you are starting the process of finding your child's first school—or if you want to choose a new learning environment—The School Choice Roadmap is for you. This first-of-its-kind book offers a practical, jargon-free overview of school choice policies, from public school open enrollment to private school scholarships and more. It breaks down the similarities and differences between traditional public schools, public charter schools, public magnet schools, online public schools, private schools, and homeschooling. Most importantly, The School Choice Roadmap offers a seven-step process that will help you harness the power of your own intuition—and your own expertise about your child's uniqueness—to help you find a school that reflects your family's goals, values, and priorities. Filled with sage advice from dozens of other parents who have pursued the school search process, and interviews with school leaders and teachers, The School Choice Roadmap is an optimistic, empowering book that cuts through the confusion in K-12 education—so that you can give your children every opportunity to succeed in school and in life.
There has been much recent talk and rhetoric in both educational and political circles about the utility of choice as a means of improving our educational system. Timothy W. Young and Evans Clinchy point out in Choice in Public Education, we should always be talking about choice in public schools - where parents can choose the kind of public school they want for their children and educators can choose the kind of public schooling they wish to practice. While private schools will always play a role in our educational system, the authors argue that voucher plans that simply make it easier for financially well-off families to send their children to a private school are not the answer.
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.