The federal government is devoting millions of dollars to charter and voucher programs that currently require parents to abandon regular public schools. The goal of the authors of The School Choice Hoax is to expose the misleading hyperbole that has been driving the school choice movement and to show how charter schools can become more effective and useful to public school districts. Both authors have been following the school choice movement for over a decade. Together they bring to the topic an unusual blend of academic and practical knowledge derived from long, successful careers as a sociologist (Corwin) and former Deputy Executive Director of the American Association of School Administrators (Schneider). The authors have formed their conclusions from years of research and analysis and have devoted a great deal of attention to making sensible recommendations designed to make school choice models more useful to public schools. This book will be helpful to parents who are faced with the prospect of making choice work better. The authors' conclusions have been carefully drawn from, and documented with, current research derived from years of neutral observation. Throughout, the book is packed with observations about school choice that will inform parents, politicians, and other community members about the advantages and disadvantages of choice schools. The authors offer explanations that will help the average citizen understand and appraise overblown claims by advocates. They also provide detailed reviews of other reforms, some of which are already infused in existing choice models. The book contains six chapters: (1) The School Choice Quagmire: Anomalies within the Movement and the Models; (2) Claims for Charter Schools and School Vouchers: An Assessment; (3) How to Improve Charter Schools: Clues from Open Enrollment, School-Based Management, The Coalition of Essential Schools, and Small School Initiatives; (4) Why Choice Schools Should Be Specialized: Charter Schools and Vouchers Schools within a Planned Division of Labor; (5) Plight of the Poor and Minority Student in an Uncaring Society: Using District-Operated Charter Schools to Improve Poverty Schools; and (6) Conclusions.