The Arguments:

     For a list of the key arguments against school choice and scholarships for low-income families, along with responses to those arguments, see the MythConceptions page.

Books:

Rethinking School Choice:
Limits of the Market Metaphor

by Jeffrey R. Henig (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).

     "Rethinking School Choice" identifies several common arguments for privatizing our educational system, and then attempts to refute them. Indeed, author Jeffrey Henig succeeds in pointing out a number of serious flaws in some arguments for educational privatization. In particular, he correctly points out that many privatization advocates supply precious little evidence in support of their views, relying most heavily on economic or political theory.
     Where this book stumbles is in Henig's mistaken assumption that he has dealt with all the evidence and arguments for and against educational markets. In fact, the book completely ignores the single greatest source of evidence on this issue: the historical record. "Rethinking School Choice" also fails to deal with the most important modern evidence on the subject, because it was published before any significant data from the Milwaukee and Cleveland voucher programs were available. Given these omissions,   Henig's conclusions cannot be relied upon.
     A number of additional problems beset the book, including:        1) Its assessment of public school performance deals with some useful evidence, but ignores so much more that it arrives at an incorrect view of that performance. It does not examine, for instance, available data on U.S. score trends over time from international tests conducted by the IEA or from nation-wide tests of U.S. literacy. It further clouds the waters on educational outcomes by presenting evidence about educational inputs such as years of school attended, or courses taken by public school students. These input data are not reliable measures of educational outputs such as literacy or academic achievement.
     2) While Henig discusses white flight to private schools in the wake of the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown verdict, he fails to fully compare the segregation effects of public versus private schools. Public schools were legally segregated for 60 years, and while some private schools provided havens for opponents of desegregation in the years immediately following the Brown decision, many more all-white suburban public schools served the same purpose. More importantly, recent studies show that integration of the races is now greater and more meaningful in the private than in the public sector. (See the work of James Coleman, and Jay Greene's presentation to the American Political Science Association Meeting in Boston, September, 1998).
     3) The option of complete privatization of the educational system (with a private or jointly public/private funding mechanism for low-income families) is not seriously considered in "Rethinking School Choice." Only state regulated and state run choice systems are discussed in any depth, and these are not the sorts of school systems consistent with best practice as reflected in the historical evidence.
     In short, this book does not have what it takes to offer reliable conclusions on the relative merits of free market versus state-run school systems. Nevertheless, it is important that advocates of school choice understand that not all arguments in favor of choice are equally valid, and so "Rethinking School Choice" still makes a useful contribution to the debate.

Who Chooses? Who Loses? Culture, Institutions, and the Unequal effects of School Choice

Edited by Bruce Fuller and Richard F. Elmore, with Gary Orfield (NY: Teachers College Press, 1996).

Read a Review

Read the Conclusion Chapter

     "The Important issues involved in school choice--such as the short and long-term effects on students, minority student views, vouchers, magnets, and private school programs overseas--are clearly capsulized and explored." --From the book jacket.

The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America's Public Schools

By David C. Berliner and Bruce J. Biddle (NY: Addison Wesley, 1995).

     With this book, Berliner and Biddle take on the role of a legal defense team charged with clearing public schools of the charges that have been brought against them over the past thirty years. They dismiss some accusations as hearsay, reinterpret key evidence, and generally provide a spirited rebuttal to public education's critics. The vigorous debate they have sparked over the record of government-run schools is extremely healthy, and represents a great public service.
     Despite the authors' best efforts, however, their treatment of the data is often incomplete and misleading, and their arguments unconvincing. A careful review of the book by professor Lawrence Stedman, published in the Education Policy Analysis Archives, finds numerous flaws. In their heated reply to Stedman's review, Berliner and Biddle do little to redress those flaws, and in fact open up a Pandora's box of additional concerns.

Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools

By Jonathan Kozol (NY: HarperCollins, 1991).

     This is the single most compelling expose of inner-city schooling ever published. Kozol visited schools in impoverished urban areas all over the United States and his descriptions of the chaos, decay, and corruption that he found are deeply moving. Unfortunately, Kozol's suggested remedy--increased (and more equitable) funding for government schools--is unlikely to relieve the physical and educational suffering rampant in urban public schools.
     Though some inner-city public schools are indeed underfunded compared to the national average, most are not, and many of the highest spending urban districts are the worst performers. Based on Department of Education Statistics (see the NCES website), per-pupil spending in the nation's 300 largest urban districts is comparable to the national average. Some of the most abysmal inner city schools, moreover, are to be found in high-spending districts such as Washington, D.C. and Hartford, Connecticut, which spend roughly $9,000 per student per year--far above the national average. In such districts, the problem is not lack of funds, but poor use of the funds available. To address the plight of urban public school children, it will be necessary to bring about an educational system with an incentive structure that encourages responsiveness to parents, efficiency, and effective pedagogical decision making--all attributes of free educational markets.