School Choice
The End of Public Education?
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Teachers' College Press
Published:8th Jul '16
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Proponents of market-driven education reform view vouchers and charters as superior to local-board-run, community-based public schools. However, the author of this timely volume argues that there is no clear research supporting this view. In fact, Schneider claims there is increasing evidence of charter mismanagement—with public funding all-too-often being squandered while public schools are being closed or consolidated. Tracing the origins of vouchers and charters in the United States, this book examines the push to “globally compete” with education systems in countries such as China and Finland. It documents issues important to the school choice debate, including the impoverishment of public schools to support privatized schools, the abandonment of long-held principles of public education, questionable disciplinary practices, and community disruption. School Choice: The End of Public Education? is essential reading for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the past and future of public education in America.
Book Features:
- Provides a comprehensive historical account of the origins of vouchers and charters.
- Includes accounts of intriguing historical experiences.
- Examines the defunding of neighborhood public schools in favor of often underregulated charters.
- Reveals charter school “churn” that often follows the closing of a mismanaged charter.
- Provides a cogent counternarrative to the claim that charters are necessary for America to compete globally. <
"Mercedes Schneider’s book examines the contradictions of school choice, which is now the rallying cry for those who call themselves reformers. She documents the history of this idea, beginning with economist Milton Friedman’s 1955 essay advocating school vouchers."
—Diane Ravitch, The New York Review of Books
"Public education in America is under attack by the diversion of massive amounts of public funds to special interest private schools and for-profit charter schools, thanks to their political enablers. Experienced educator Mercedes Schneider provides a devastating critique of this sabotage in this well researched, documented book."
—Voice of Reason
ISBN: 9780807757253
Dimensions: 229mm x 156mm x 11mm
Weight: 318g
224 pages