Kevin G. Welner - Böcker

While the achievement gap has dominated policy discussions over the past two decades, relatively little attention has been paid to a gap that is even more at odds with American ideals: the opportunity gap. Opportunity and achievement, while inextricably connected, are very different goals. Every American will not go to college, but every American should be given fair opportunities to be prepared for college. By obsessively focusing on measuring achievement, the nation's policymakers have made little progress in measuring or addressing inequitable opportunities. Policy therefore fails to engage with the challenges, supports, and resources that lead to improvements in student learning. The achievement gap has not arisen by coincidence; children learn when they have opportunities to learn, and gaps in opportunities have led to gaps in achievement. Moreover, students' learning experiences and outcomes are deeply affected by many factors outside of the immediate control of schools.Closing the Opportunity Gap brings together top experts who offer evidence-based essays that paint a powerful picture of denied opportunities. They also describe sensible, research-based policy approaches to enhance opportunities. They highlight the discrepancies that exist in our society and in our public schools, focusing on how policy decisions and broader circumstances conspire to create the opportunity gap that leads inexorably to the outcome differences that have become so stark. The volume makes a compelling case that American educational policy must move beyond the conventional focus on achievement and opens a discussion about the common sense ways schools can and should give all American children more equitable opportunities to thrive.

While the achievement gap has dominated policy discussions over the past two decades, relatively little attention has been paid to a gap that is even more at odds with American ideals: the opportunity gap. Opportunity and achievement, while inextricably connected, are very different goals. Every American will not go to college, but every American should be given fair opportunities to be prepared for college. By obsessively focusing on measuring achievement, the nation's policymakers have made little progress in measuring or addressing inequitable opportunities. Policy therefore fails to engage with the challenges, supports, and resources that lead to improvements in student learning. The achievement gap has not arisen by coincidence; children learn when they have opportunities to learn, and gaps in opportunities have led to gaps in achievement. Moreover, students' learning experiences and outcomes are deeply affected by many factors outside of the immediate control of schools.Closing the Opportunity Gap brings together top experts who offer evidence-based essays that paint a powerful picture of denied opportunities. They also describe sensible, research-based policy approaches to enhance opportunities. They highlight the discrepancies that exist in our society and in our public schools, focusing on how policy decisions and broader circumstances conspire to create the opportunity gap that leads inexorably to the outcome differences that have become so stark. The volume makes a compelling case that American educational policy must move beyond the conventional focus on achievement and opens a discussion about the common sense ways schools can and should give all American children more equitable opportunities to thrive.

While school vouchers have captured the headlines, a different policy has captured the students. Tuition tax credit laws are now entrenched in Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Iowa, and Georgia, and they affect far more students. Yet few people understand the nature of these policies or the political and legal issues surrounding them.This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the structure, legality, and policy implications of tuition tax credits, which have garnered only scant attention even while expanding to cover more students than the voucher policies they're designed to emulate. At a time when tax credit policies are becoming a major form of American school choice, this book offers insights into both the strengths and weakness of the approach.

While school vouchers have captured the headlines, a different policy has captured the students. Tuition tax credit laws are now entrenched in Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Iowa, and Georgia, and they affect far more students. Yet few people understand the nature of these policies or the political and legal issues surrounding them.This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the structure, legality, and policy implications of tuition tax credits, which have garnered only scant attention even while expanding to cover more students than the voucher policies they're designed to emulate. At a time when tax credit policies are becoming a major form of American school choice, this book offers insights into both the strengths and weakness of the approach.

Shows how education reforms take place within cauldrons of political interests and conflicting values and beliefs.Based on an examination of four school districts facing the prospect of court-ordered detracking, Legal Rights, Local Wrongs challenges fundamental assumptions about the opportunities for equity-minded educational reform. Welner studied districts across the country in San Jose, California; Wilmington, Delaware; Woodland Hills, Pennsylvania; and Rockford, Illinois. These case studies show how white upper middle class parents exercised a disproportionate amount of power in local school policy making, and how that power was wielded to hinder reform opportunities intended to benefit low-income students of color. He shows how many school reforms must arise and develop within cauldrons of political interests and conflicting values and beliefs. This reform context is very different from the politically neutral environments presupposed by conventional school change literature. The book's political and normative focus accordingly examines the least often addressed-and yet most daunting-obstacles standing between America and the just, equitable schools portrayed in American rhetoric.

Educational policy controversies in the United States invariably implicate legal issues. Policy debates about testing and school choice, for example, cannot be disentangled from legal rights and mandates. The same is true for issues such as funding, campus safety, speech and religion rights, as well as the teaching of immigrant students. Written for a general audience, this new twelve-chapter book explores these compelling educational policy issues through that legal lens, building an understanding of both law and policy.

Educational policy controversies in the United States invariably implicate legal issues. Policy debates about testing and school choice, for example, cannot be disentangled from legal rights and mandates. The same is true for issues such as funding, campus safety, speech and religion rights, as well as the teaching of immigrant students. Written for a general audience, this new twelve-chapter book explores these compelling educational policy issues through that legal lens, building an understanding of both law and policy.

Education policy over the past thirty years has been powerfully influenced by well-funded and slickly produced research reports produced by advocacy think tanks. The quality of think tank reports and the value of the policies they support have been sharply debated. To help policymakers, the media, and the public assess these quality issues, the Think Tank Review Project provides expert third party reviews. The Project has, since 2006, published 59 reviews of reports from 26 different institutions. This book brings together 21 of those reviews, focusing on examining the arguments and evidence used by think tanks to promote reforms such as vouchers, charter schools and alternative routes to teacher certification. The reviews are written using clear, non-academic language, with each review illustrating how readers can approach, understand and critique policy studies and reports. The book will be of interest to practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and anyone concerned with the current debates about educational reform.

Education policy over the past thirty years has been powerfully influenced by well-funded and slickly produced research reports produced by advocacy think tanks. The quality of think tank reports and the value of the policies they support have been sharply debated. To help policymakers, the media, and the public assess these quality issues, the Think Tank Review Project provides expert third party reviews. The Project has, since 2006, published 59 reviews of reports from 26 different institutions. This book brings together 21 of those reviews, focusing on examining the arguments and evidence used by think tanks to promote reforms such as vouchers, charter schools and alternative routes to teacher certification. The reviews are written using clear, non-academic language, with each review illustrating how readers can approach, understand and critique policy studies and reports. The book will be of interest to practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and anyone concerned with the current debates about educational reform.

In March 2010, the Obama administration released A Blueprint for Reform, setting forth its proposed revisions of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. If enacted, the Blueprint will shape the curriculum, standards, assessments, and accountability systems of schools throughout the nation. It will also determine how and where federal education funds will be targeted, further increase federal control over K-12 education, and increase the private-sector role in the operation of public schools.In advancing this agenda, President Obama and education secretary Arne Duncan have maintained that their Blueprint recommendations are grounded in research, and in May the U.S. Department of Education issued a set of six documents presented as summaries of the research supporting their plan.As an extension of the ongoing Think Tank Review Project, the staff and Fellows of the National Education Policy Center examine these research summaries and assess how well they represent the full body of knowledge in each of the reform areas. In The Obama Education Blueprint, prominent education policy experts from across the nation offer a comprehensive analysis of the research support for the U.S. Department of Education’s plan for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.This volume is designed to provide policymakers, the media, and interested citizens with what the research actually says about the administration’s proposals.

In March 2010, the Obama administration released A Blueprint for Reform, setting forth its proposed revisions of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. If enacted, the Blueprint will shape the curriculum, standards, assessments, and accountability systems of schools throughout the nation. It will also determine how and where federal education funds will be targeted, further increase federal control over K-12 education, and increase the private-sector role in the operation of public schools.In advancing this agenda, President Obama and education secretary Arne Duncan have maintained that their Blueprint recommendations are grounded in research, and in May the U.S. Department of Education issued a set of six documents presented as summaries of the research supporting their plan.As an extension of the ongoing Think Tank Review Project, the staff and Fellows of the National Education Policy Center examine these research summaries and assess how well they represent the full body of knowledge in each of the reform areas. In The Obama Education Blueprint, prominent education policy experts from across the nation offer a comprehensive analysis of the research support for the U.S. Department of Education’s plan for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.This volume is designed to provide policymakers, the media, and interested citizens with what the research actually says about the administration’s proposals.

Exploring the School Choice Universe: Evidence and Recommendations gives readers a comprehensive, complete picture of choice policies and issues. In doing so, it offers cross-cutting insights that are obscured when one looks only at single issue or a single approach to choice. The book examines choice in its various forms: charter schools, home schooling, online schooling, voucher plans that allow students to use taxpayer funds to attend private schools, tuition tax credit plans that provide a public subsidy for private school tuition, and magnet schools and other forms of public school intra- and interdistrict choice. It brings together some of the top researchers in the field, presenting a comprehensive overview of the best current knowledge of these important policies.The questions addressed in Exploring the School Choice Universe are of most importance to researchers and policy makers. What do choice programs actually do? What forms do they take? Who participates, and why? What are the funding implications? What are the results of different forms of school choice on outcomes that matter, like student performance, segregation, and competition effects? Do they affect teachers’ working conditions? Do they drive innovation?The contents of this book offer reason to believe that choice policies can further some educational goals. But they also suggest many reasons for caution. If choice policies are to be evidence-based, a re-examination is in order. The information, insights and recommendations facilitate a more nuanced understanding of school choice and provide the basis for designing sensible school choice reforms that can pursue a range of desirable outcomes.

Exploring the School Choice Universe: Evidence and Recommendations gives readers a comprehensive, complete picture of choice policies and issues. In doing so, it offers cross-cutting insights that are obscured when one looks only at single issue or a single approach to choice. The book examines choice in its various forms: charter schools, home schooling, online schooling, voucher plans that allow students to use taxpayer funds to attend private schools, tuition tax credit plans that provide a public subsidy for private school tuition, and magnet schools and other forms of public school intra- and interdistrict choice. It brings together some of the top researchers in the field, presenting a comprehensive overview of the best current knowledge of these important policies.The questions addressed in Exploring the School Choice Universe are of most importance to researchers and policy makers. What do choice programs actually do? What forms do they take? Who participates, and why? What are the funding implications? What are the results of different forms of school choice on outcomes that matter, like student performance, segregation, and competition effects? Do they affect teachers’ working conditions? Do they drive innovation?The contents of this book offer reason to believe that choice policies can further some educational goals. But they also suggest many reasons for caution. If choice policies are to be evidence-based, a re-examination is in order. The information, insights and recommendations facilitate a more nuanced understanding of school choice and provide the basis for designing sensible school choice reforms that can pursue a range of desirable outcomes.

If all humor does indeed come from pain, then American educational policymaking has been a petri dish brimming with hilarity. Even before Betsy DeVos ascended to her perch atop the U.S. Department of Education, her predecessors had offered up an excruciating decade of fodder for satire. Ably assisted by a bevy of billionaires, foundations, and advocacy think tanks, these policymakers unleashed a torrent of rhetorical gibberish and evidence-free “innovations” on the nation’s children and their schools.Potential Grizzlies: Making the Nonsense Bearable is one researcher’s attempt to laugh instead of cry. The book will bring back memories of policymakers from more innocent times, from Michelle Rhee to Arne Duncan to Chris Christie. Sit back and relax with fond thoughts of your favorite policies, from testing to school choice to “parent trigger.” Or maybe just smile and imagine a day when policymakers turn to research evidence and knowledgeable educators to build a sound future for our children.