This essay queries how ideas about school choice traversed the Pacific in the late twentieth century. Specifically, it reconstructs and deconstructs the visits of two African American proponents of parental school choice, Annette "Polly" Williams and Howard Fuller, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Aotearoa New Zealand in the 1990s. Drawing…

This article analyzes the case of school choice in the United States and its implications for the Brazilian context. This discussion is important to Brazil, given the fact that key actors are starting to advocate in favor of introducing charter schools and vouchers in the country. Evidence from countries that introduced this model can help shed…

This article examines how Chinese education officials interpret and utilise selective information from Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to legitimate and consolidate contested reform messages and initiatives in Shanghai. A content analysis of data obtained from newspaper articles, official documents and education essays…

This article analyses the narratives and counter-narratives which characterised the struggle between the Chicago Public School Board (CPS) and the Chicago Teachers' Union (CTU) preceding the 2019 Chicago teachers' strike. This was an extraordinary event which has received little scholarly attention. The paper explores the types and uses of the…

Homeschooling in America enjoyed significant and dependable growth for decades. However, federal estimates of homeschool participation failed to show statistically significant growth for the first time in 2012. Many dismissed this as measurement error and awaited the next round of federal estimates. In the fall of 2017 those estimates were…

This is the second and final brief on the Cowen Institute's 2022 annual poll of parents' and guardians' perceptions of K-12 public education in New Orleans. The Cowen Institute has conducted these polls since 2007 with the intent of providing insight into how parents, guardians, and the general public view New Orleans' highly decentralized K-12…

This essay discusses the role of religion as a central facet when researching the emerging social group -- the global middle class (GMC). It is argued here that religion is a particularly relevant feature for the constitution of this social group because of the GMC's transnational and cosmopolitan character. In this essay, I will draw on several…

Since 2011 DC School Reform Now (DCSRN) has worked to help families in the city's most economically disadvantaged neighborhoods find success with school choice and enroll in high-quality schools. DCSRN's parent advocates focus on understanding the families they serve and the barriers they must overcome--an approach that requires flexible,…

Tax credit scholarship (TCS) programs offer state tax credits to individuals or businesses that donate to scholarship funds for students to attend private elementary and secondary schools. Through these credits, donors may reduce the amount they owe in state taxes by the full or a partial amount of their donation, depending on each program's…

When many of today's parents were students, the process of applying and enrolling in school was fairly simple and involved few choices. In many cases, a family visited the neighborhood public school at the start of the school year and enrolled the child at the school's office. But now, the proliferation of school-choice policies in districts…

Prepared for a Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) Strategic Education Governance Learning Seminar, this working paper analyses the functioning of accountability mechanisms in the Flemish school system from a complexity perspective, particularly accountability of equity funding in primary and secondary education. The paper shows…

The Nordic countries are often perceived as a coherent group representing the Nordic model of welfare states, with a strong emphasis on the public provision of universal welfare and a strong concern with social equality. But today we see a change in the Nordic model as part of a global knowledge economy. The aim of this article is to examine…

For more than a quarter century, Michigan public schools have been financed under a structure commonly known as Proposal A. This funding system's greater dependence on using state revenue to finance an enrollment-based funding formula has led to greater parity among districts over time and fueled more publicly supported schooling options for…

Conventional wisdom suggests that evangelical Christians, often among the most vocal advocates of school choice efforts in the U.S., are promoting choice out of a sense of frustration with public schools and perceived bias against religion. Research by Marilyn Anderson Rhames, however, suggests that evangelicals are no more concerned about…

A privatization extremist. A religious zealot. A culture warrior. The new Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, was painted as any or all of these things in the fevered weeks between the 2016 presidential election and her confirmation hearing. In the days following that hearing, tens of thousands of people flooded the lines of congressional…