School Choice or Best Systems_ What Improves Education_ - Margaret C. Wang [0]
Title Page
Copyright Page
Acknowledgements
Introduction
2. Charter School Effects
Charter School Popularity
Academic Achievement of Charter Schools
Charter School Effects on Traditional Public Schools
Knowledge and Opinion about Charter Schools
Overregulation and Underfunding
Conclusion
3. Education Voucher Effects
Education Vouchers in the United States
Controversies over Vouchers
Voucher Effects on Academic Achievement
Parents’ Experiences with Vouchers
Effects of Education Vouchers on Student Achievement in Public Schools
Effects of Education Vouchers on Special Needs Students
Effects of Education Vouchers on Racial Integration
Parent Satisfaction
Effects of Education Vouchers in Other Countries
Conclusion
Appendix: Features of Voucher Programs in Various Nations
4. Private School Effects
Private Schools in the United States
Private Schools in Other Countries
Conclusion
5. Geopolitical Area Choice Effects
Literature Reviews
Competition in 39 Countries
Competition in the 50 States
Competition among School Districts
Organization Size and Bureaucracy
State versus Local Funding
Conclusion
6. Customer Satisfaction
Why Parental Satisfaction Matters
Parents’ School Choice Preferences
Public Dissatisfaction with Traditional Public Schools
Satisfaction with Charter Schools
Homeschooling as an Indicator of Opinion
Public Educators’ Opinions
Conclusion
7. Major Findings and Conclusions
Major Findings
Conclusions
Notes
About the Author
Cato Institute
Copyright © 2007 by Cato Institute. All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Walberg, Herbert J., 1937-
School choice : the findings / Herbert J. Walberg. p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-933995-05-2 (hardback : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-1-933995-04-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)
eISBN : 97-8-193-39953-8
1. School choice—United States—Evaluation. 2. Academic achievement—United States—Evaluation. I. Title.
LB1027.9.W34 2007 379.1’110973—dc22 2007025454
Cover design by Jon Meyers.
Printed in the United States of America.
CATO INSTITUTE
1000 Massachusetts Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20001
www.cato.org
Acknowledgments
I am fortunate to have been stimulated and supported by colleagues and organizations starting in graduate school at the University of Chicago, where I completed doctoral studies in 1964. The university supported interdisciplinary study, emphasized quantitative analysis, and encouraged doubt about conventional views—all of which were useful in completing the present book.
My present academic appointment at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution enabled me, as a member of the Koret Task Force on K-12 Education, to meet twice a year and collaborate with its distinguished members—John Chubb, Williamson Evers, Chester Finn, Eric Hanushek, Paul Hill, E. D. Hirsch, Caroline Hoxby, Terry Moe, Paul Peterson, and Diane Ravitch. The members of this group hardly agree on all points about choice and other matters, but we probably would agree that our group discussions are among the most stimulating of our careers. They have led to the founding of the journal Education Next, the publication of a number of books, and evaluations of school policy in Florida, Texas, and Arkansas. I also acknowledge and thank Hoover director John Raisian, who sponsored work on one of my previous books on choice, Education and Capitalism, coauthored with Joseph Bast and published by Hoover Institution Press.
The National Center on School Choice at Vanderbilt University, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, has stimulated my thinking and writing about choice. My work there, including that on the Handbook of Research on School Choice and Charter School Outcomes , both coedited with the center’s director Mark Berends and associates Dale Ballou and Matthew Springer as the beginning of a new series of books on school choice, has informed and motivated me in writing the present book.
I am honored to be a trustee, and to be stimulated by