If free market advocates had total control over education policy, would the shared public system of education collapse? Would school choice revitalize schooling with its innovative force? With proliferating charters and voucher schemes, would the United States finally make a dramatic break with its past and expand parental choice? Those are not…

School choice is a hotly debated issue in today's press, politics, and public discourse. In principle, the idea of families being able to choose the public school that is best for their children has widespread appeal. Interest in choice has been fueled in part by distinctive views about educational approaches and in part by the fact that…

The marketization of K-12 education has led to an increase in school-based marketing efforts. Relatively little research, however, has examined how public schools market themselves, who is involved in marketing, and how these marketing efforts impact key stakeholders, including school administrators, teachers, students, and parents.We explore…

School choice policy, especially as embedded in No Child Left Behind, assumes that empowering parents with choice will improve education by holding schools accountable and will reenergize democratic participation in public education. While parents are seen as critical change agents, little research documents how engaging in school choice affects…

The National Coalition on School Diversity has updated this review of federal support for school integration during the tenures of Secretaries Arne Duncan and John King, who both served during the Obama Administration. While much remains to be done, the Obama Administration has made concrete progress on school integration policy. This overview…

Since the early 1990s when the nation's first charter school was opened in Minneapolis, the scope and availability of school-based options to parents has steadily expanded. No longer can public education be characterized as a monopoly. Sponsored by the National Center on School Choice (NCSC), this handbook makes readily available the most rigorous…

Since the development of magnet schools in the 1960s--and more recently, the proliferation of charter schools in the last fifteen years--school choice has been a pervasive element on the education reform landscape. With this growth has come the need for information tools to help site-based educators manage, grow, and improve their schools. This is…

"Alabama Education News" is published monthly except for June, July, and December by the Alabama Department of Education. This publication, authorized by Section 16-2-4 of the "Code of Alabama," as recompiled in 1975, is a public service of the Alabama Department of Education designed to inform citizens and educators about…

Intradistrict programs that allow parents to consider different neighborhood schools are desirable. However, choice programs that encourage a wide spectrum of specialty schools (mostly magnet, charter, and custom-designed schools) represent a serious threat to the core (democratic) purpose of public education. Neighborhood schools will be at the…

Research on requests to transfer to magnet schools in Montgomery County, Maryland, suggests that racial factors play a strong role in school choice. The paper argues that unfettered choice still has the potential to exacerbate racial separation, even in relatively liberal and progressive settings like Montgomery County. (SM)

This book asserts that alternative programs remain a practical management strategy for educating diverse student learners, offering specific ideas for program implementation, accountability for student learning, and quality service provision. The information serves as an overview of important factors to consider for those seeking new approaches to…

Argues that mandatory busing, while resulting in cases of "White flight," has had positive consequences in the re-emergence of "choice" programs and magnet schools. Contends that choice programs can be expanded on intradistrict, metropolitan, and statewide levels. Suggests that Federal funding and private education should be…

Inter- and intra-district public school choice, vouchers, tuition tax credits and other forms of school choice have been advocated for decades, in large part on grounds that the market forces engendered will improve public education. There are many studies of school choice policies and programs and a large theoretical literature on school choice,…

Conventional school desegregation techniques have failed because they do not redress the root causes of segregation. An alternative approach, controlled choice, maximizes personal choice within an equitable, educationally enhanced system. This approach has been adopted by three school systems and is being reviewed by several more. (VM)

Will greater school choice result in more responsive, higher quality schools and happier parents? Or will proliferating options further sort students and families by race, social class, and special interest? Increasingly, education is viewed as a private good. If parents become autonomous, self-interested consumers, erosion of common purposes and…