In 1959, France passed the Debre Act, inaugurating massive subsidies for private education by contracting secular instruction to private schools signing contracts. The policy has successfully provided parents with school choice without increasing social stratification but has led to some financial and political accountability problems. Choice…

Four decades of French experience with government funding of private schools is used to illustrate five possible effects if public aid is extended to private schools in the United States. One consequence is the possible affect on the balance between religion, politics, and social structure, a policy change that could profoundly impact United…

Government policy on public support for private schools in Sweden, the United States, Australia, Hong Kong, The Netherlands, France and Malta, and Canada is reviewed. In Sweden virtually all schools are government schools funded by local and national grants; only a handful of private schools exist and they receive no government funds. The United…

Those aspects of the French educational policy pertinent to the controlled choice issue in the United States are examined in this paper. A purpose is to overcome both the theoretical and empirical weaknesses of the controlled choice literature. First, arguments for the regulation of choice policies are related to the "neo-pluralistic"…

Reviews the concept of governmental funding of private schools and whether this would be the means whereby unwanted and obstrusive regulations would be applied to those schools. Government funding in Spain, Malta, and France was the mechanism by which those governments extended control over church-related schools. (MD)

The assumption that educational freedom is solely defined by freedom to choose a school is challenged in this paper. Based on the concept of a "system" of interdependent freedoms, a case study of the French school choice program adopted in 1959 is presented. Methodology involved longitudinal documentary analysis of primary sources…

Information about the French policy of government aid to private schools is presented in this report to promote understanding in the United States of the pluralist dilemma raised by the private school aid issue. An historical longitudinal policy evaluation involved document analysis and interviews with 16 French policy actors. The French policy is…

Reviews the major phases of development of the relationship between French private education and the state from the early 1950s when private schools (mostly Catholic) began receiving state subsidies. Concludes that the framework of subsidies has enabled Catholic schools to elaborate new social roles as well as to strengthen their traditional place…