This authoritative book examines the long-standing campaign that resulted in today's school voucher policies. Advocates of private school vouchers promulgated a vision of service to low-income families, students of color, and other marginalized student populations. Vouchers were sold as a way to advance civil rights. But as voucher policies grew…

School choice reforms are increasingly common across the U.S. This symposium summarizes and presents the most recent research on the social effects of private school choice programs and public charter schools. All three papers consider heterogeneity in effects that can and should inform policymaking. The first paper, "Charter School Entry and…

Privatisation of education is on the rise, being offered as the best alternative to achieve universal education and improve its quality and cost-efficiency. However, the benefits of the entry of private providers in education are highly controversial and tend to be judged in terms of market criteria such as choice and efficiency, neglecting the…

This report reviews and analyzes California policies that are designed to support early learning in children from birth through age five years. The analysis is limited to early childhood (EC) education-related programs and supports that are likely to directly affect children's cognitive and social development. The information in the report comes…

Equality and equity are often mischaracterized as interchangeable terms in public education. This may explain why efforts towards reform and restructure are often not met with any real measure of success. "Equity, Equality, and Reform in Contemporary Public Education" provides emerging research on the reformation of education curriculum…

This groundbreaking volume considers the ultimate fate of the comprehensive high school as individuals enter the twenty-first century. Contributors consider whether the question of the high school's seeming demise is exaggerated and why it is experiencing the many problems that it does. Essays focus on the United States, the United Kingdom,…

What is the value of an education? Volume 4 of the Handbooks in the Economics of Education combines recent data with new methodologies to examine this and related questions from diverse perspectives. School choice and school competition, educator incentives, the college premium, and other considerations help make sense of the investments and…

Now even more affordably priced in its second edition, "Classic and Contemporary Readings in the Philosophy of Education" is ideal for undergraduate and graduate philosophy of education courses. Editor Steven M. Cahn, a highly respected contributor to the field, brings together writings by leading figures in the history of philosophy and…

Local school boards have traditionally assigned the school that a child is to attend. Only by selecting their neighborhoods have parents exercised their choice of school. In recent years, this tradition has slowly given way to magnet schools, inter-district choice programs, charter schools, voucher programs, and many other forms of choice,…

This collection of essays builds a case against those who see children as customers or workers and those who want to turn learning into a business. Following an introduction, The 500-Pound Gorilla by Alfie Kohn, section 1, Commercialism in Schools, contains: (1) Buy Me! Buy Me! (Alex Molnar and Joseph A. Reaves); (2) Commercialism in U.S. Schools…

America's urban Catholic schools are in crisis. This report finds that over 1,300 schools have shut down since 1990, mostly in our cities. As a result, some 300,000 students have been displaced--forced to attend other public, private, or parochial schools. The school closures have cost taxpayers more than $20 billion to accommodate the additional…

Public-private partnerships in education exist in various forms around the world, in both developed and developing countries. Despite this, and despite the importance of human capital for economic growth, systematic analysis has been limited and scattered, with most scholarly attention going to initiatives in the United States. This volume helps…

This book addresses the question of who should rule the schools--parents or educators? It presents an overview of research and practical applications of innovative--even radical--school reforms being implemented across the United States. The book is comprised of 10 chapters: (1) "Understanding Market-Based School Reform" (Herbert J.…

In this collection, the contributors look at the current spread of universalizing discourses concerning young children across the globe, examining the way these discourses, which purport to describe everyone in a scientific and neutral way, actually create mechanisms through which children are divided and excluded. The contributors to this book…

Studies in this volume provide a comprehensive examination of the use of vouchers. The contributions to this book examine a variety of applications in such areas as education, child care, employment training, housing, food, and health care, and they discuss the dimensions along which vouchers should be compared to alternative delivery mechanisms.…