School choice in the US urban context: racism and policies of containment

Authors:
Publisher website
Google Scholar
Abstract
School choice proposals in the us have emerged in a variety of forms to address numerous ills of the nation's public school system. To date, these forms include alternative education in the public schools, magnet schools under controlled choice desegregation plans, statewide school choice plans, and, most extremely, tuition voucher and tax credit plans for private schools. It is, however, the advocates of the voucher and tax credit who have been the most vocal in their criticism of public schools because, in their view, the cost of schooling has markedly increased while student achievement has not. They complain that despite higher graduation standards, the doubling of teachers’ salaries (since 1983) to a national average figure of $36,000, and increased average per pupil expenditures, us public schools are still not performing at the highest levels of academic achievement (Kristol and Lefkowitz 1993). The only way to resolve this predicament, they contend, is to enact a market‐driven school choice policy that would include competition from the private sector. It is only in this way, according to the choice supporters, that the inept public schools would be forced to perform at higher levels or, failing that, to face closure because parents would exercise their rights as consumers to send their children to the best schools ‐‐ public or private ‐ of their choice.

This publication has 14 references indexed in Scilit: