Discusses the difficulties of funding parental or school choice systems in public schools through traditional school finance mechanisms. It examines the parental-choice program as enacted in Massachusetts, and reveals that parental choice undermines local control over education. It also explores school choice and educational equity, arguing…

Governments restrict choice about what students learn within the public school system in the name of improved performance and accountability, but have simultaneously introduced choice among schools by enabling "exit" from the public system. Defenders of public education need to consider how public schools can provide citizens with…

Attempts to address the potential advantages and disadvantages of school choice. Describes why school choice is attractive to parents, but poses concerns for teachers. Addresses how choice programs in the United Kingdom and the United States attempt to allay these concerns. Contends that research does show school choice affects academic…

Analyzes the patterns and variations of "grapevining," or social networks, through interviews with 172 parents who were in the process of choosing secondary schools for their children. Finds that there are three types of parent responses to using the grapevine as a means for school choice: (1) suspicion; (2) doubt; and (3) acceptance. (CMK)

The Reason Foundation commissioned a survey of 800 registered voters in California to determine attitudes about education and education reform. School choice was a major topic of the survey. Support for school choice was strong as was disappointment with public schools. Across different demographic groups, respondents supported the idea of school…

Criticizes national education reports that call for a return to authoritarian schools in order to achieve excellence. Extolls the strengths and achievements for which magnet schools are responsible. (MD)

This booklet recommends cooperatively re-examining U.S. public education and recognizing that though there are disagreements in the ongoing education debate, everyone's goals are the same (to provide all children with a quality education and to prepare them for participation in public life). After noting that schools are not living up to American…

A study was conducted to determine the association among variables representing parent and school demographics, parents' opinions of the school, their reasons for choosing it, and their willingness to support the school in various ways, including the level of tuition they would pay. Data were collected from a stratified sample of 10 high schools…

School choice seeks to create a competitive arena in which public schools will attain academic excellence, encourage individual student performance, and achieve social balance. In debating the feasibility of this market approach to improving school systems, analysts have focused primarily on schools as suppliers of education, but an important…

A sweeping parental choice bill passed recently in Minnesota spearheaded parental choice plans recently passed or under consideration in more than a dozen states. Explores the background and pros and cons of parental choice. (MLF)

Analysis of a sample of 1,636 11- to 20-year olds from the Ghana Living Standards Survey showed the following: no strong selectivity bias in the sorting of higher ability children into better schools; indirect effects of improving school quality on student achievement; and repairing classrooms as a cost-effective investment compared to providing…

Faced with pupil flight to more prestigious public and private schools, French secondary schools create "good classes," reinforce security and discipline, and try to strengthen links to feeder schools. Parents remain skeptical about relevant criteria for judging school quality; measures are needed to equalize their choosing ability.…

Defends the ideas presented in "Liberal Equity in Education: A Comparison of Choice Options" (SO 532 109) by responding to the arguments of John Coons, Jeffrey Henig, and Janet Weiss. Discusses the role of the competitive market, integration, tolerance in education, the meaning of diversity and "the state," and the liberal purposes of education.…

The 2006 Public Opinion Survey on Education in Indiana gauged the attitudes and perceptions of a representative sample of Hoosiers on such key educational issues as kindergarten and pre-kindergarten programs, No Child Left Behind and P.L. 221, school funding and taxes, teacher quality, school choice and charter schools, and the achievement gap in…

The purpose of the Voluntary Public School Choice (VPSC) Program is to assist states and local school districts in the development of innovative strategies to expand options for students, and to encourage transfers of students from low-performing to higher-performing schools. This report presents interim findings from the National Evaluation of…