Making up our mind : what school choice is really about / Sigal R. Ben-Porath and Michael C. Johanek.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ben-Porath, Sigal R., 1967- author.

Johanek, Michael C., author.

Contributor:

James Hosmer Penniman Book Fund.

Series:

History and philosophy of education

History and philosophy of education series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States.

School choice--United States.

School choice.

Education--Aims and objectives--United States.

Education.

Education--Aims and objectives.

Educational equalization--United States.

Educational equalization.

Physical Description:

180 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Chicago, IL : The University of Chicago Press, [2019]

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? Those are not only the wrong questions-they're the wrong premises, 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. 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. Looking beyond the simplistic divide between those who oppose government intervention and those who support public education, 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.

Contents:

Introduction

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.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the James Hosmer Penniman Book Fund.

ISBN:

9780226619460

022661946X

9780226619637

022661963X

OCLC:

1051678049