Kevin Welner - Böcker

Access issues are pivotal to almost all charter school tensions and debates. How well are these schools performing? Are they segregating and stratifying? Are they public and democratic? Are they fairly funded? Can apparent successes be scaled up? Answers to all these core questions hinge on how access to charter schools is shaped. This book describes the incentives and pressures on charter schools to restrict access and examines how charters navigate those pressures, explaining access-restricting practices in relation to the ecosystem within which charter schools are created. It also explains how charters have sometimes responded by resisting the pressures and sometimes by surrendering to them. The text presents analyses of 13 different types of practices around access, each of which shapes the school's enrollment. The authors conclude by offering recommendations for how states and authorizers can address access-related inequities that arise in the charter sector. School's Choice provides timely information on critical academic and policy issues that will come into play as charter school policy continues to evolve.Book Features: Examines how charter schools control who gains and retains access.Explores policies and practices that undermine equitable admission and encourage opportunity hoarding.Offers a set of policy recommendations at the state and federal level to address access-related issues.

This authoritative book examines the long-standing campaign that resulted in today's school voucher policies. Advocates of private school vouchers promulgated a vision of service to low-income families, students of color, and other marginalized student populations. Vouchers were sold as a way to advance civil rights. But as voucher policies grew in size and became an element of Republican orthodoxy, they evolved into subsidies for a broad swath of advantaged families, with minimal antidiscrimination protections. The approach also transmuted into forms like education savings account programs and vouchers funded through tax-credited donations. In this book, scholars and national experts untangle this complex story to show how law and policy have aligned to dramatically alter the likely future of American schooling. They offer recommendations for modifying current policies with the goal of capturing more of the originally stated vision of voucher programs—equitable access to quality schooling, protection of all students' civil rights, and advancement of the wider societal goals of a democratic educational system.Book Features:Shows how a fast-growing policy is transforming education in the United States in ways that are very different from how that policy was sold to the public. Sets the stage with a discussion of the history and legal dimensions of voucher battles, as well as the politics of policy change. Examines the basic structure of contemporary private schooling, the Southern history of vouchers, and the key federal court decisions that have opened the door to an explosion of state legislation. Offers profiles of voucher policies in two states that have made the largest efforts to support vouchers, as well as the only nationally funded program in the nation's capital. Edited by three scholars with extensive experience in the study of school choice, with chapters by national experts who have produced seminal work in the field.

This authoritative book examines the long-standing campaign that resulted in today's school voucher policies. Advocates of private school vouchers promulgated a vision of service to low-income families, students of color, and other marginalized student populations. Vouchers were sold as a way to advance civil rights. But as voucher policies grew in size and became an element of Republican orthodoxy, they evolved into subsidies for a broad swath of advantaged families, with minimal antidiscrimination protections. The approach also transmuted into forms like education savings account programs and vouchers funded through tax-credited donations. In this book, scholars and national experts untangle this complex story to show how law and policy have aligned to dramatically alter the likely future of American schooling. They offer recommendations for modifying current policies with the goal of capturing more of the originally stated vision of voucher programs—equitable access to quality schooling, protection of all students' civil rights, and advancement of the wider societal goals of a democratic educational system.Book Features:Shows how a fast-growing policy is transforming education in the United States in ways that are very different from how that policy was sold to the public. Sets the stage with a discussion of the history and legal dimensions of voucher battles, as well as the politics of policy change. Examines the basic structure of contemporary private schooling, the Southern history of vouchers, and the key federal court decisions that have opened the door to an explosion of state legislation. Offers profiles of voucher policies in two states that have made the largest efforts to support vouchers, as well as the only nationally funded program in the nation's capital. Edited by three scholars with extensive experience in the study of school choice, with chapters by national experts who have produced seminal work in the field.

Schools of Opportunity builds an argument for shifting the way that excellent schools are recognized and built. The National Education Policy Center's Schools of Opportunity project was designed to highlight public high schools that are using research-based practices for closing opportunity gaps in student learning. The project recognizes schools working to address the needs of all students, whether or not those schools have high average test scores. This approach thus embraces a shift away from the nation's myopic focus on outcomes. This follows from research findings that schools alone cannot fix the problems created by the stark inequalities in our society. Instead, schools should be expected to do their part by responding to inequities with research-based practices. With these shifts in mind, this book provides case studies of schools that demonstrate key criteria that other schools can emulate, such as an inclusive school climate, support for language-minority students, performance-based assessment, teacher professionalism, a commitment to detracking, and supports for students in need. Book Features:Provides accounts of school reform, jointly told by researcher–practitioner teams, connecting current research with successful efforts of educators to create outstanding learning environments.Brings together the voices of principals and school leaders who share stories of how their work has unfolded in their school, district, and state contexts. Identifies the school leadership and teacher practices that close opportunity gaps for student learning, and what it takes to implement them.