The Politics of School Choice
The Politics of School Choice

Author: Hubert Morken

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 9780847697212

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The Politics of School Choice is the first comprehensive examination of diverse efforts to promote tax credits, public vouchers, private scholarships, and charter schools. Morken and Formicola provide the most current national report on the burgeoning American school choice movement. They analyze the strategies and tactics being used by a wide variety of individuals and organizations to leverage change, pass laws, win court cases, and mobilize community support to build successful, winning, school choice coalitions. Based largely on extensive interviews, documentary research, and surveys, this book covers the spectrum of school choice options and shows how they are being promoted in the United States today. It explains who the players are, what types of programs they endorse, and the various rationales behind them. The authors report the views of the entrepreneurs, religious leaders, heads of think tanks and foundations, public litigators, scholars, activists, minority leaders, and politicians who are in the forefront of providing parents with resources for educational alternatives. Finally, Morken and Formicola cover the strengths and weaknesses of the school choice issue, concluding that the movement has a wide ranging membership, that is uneven in its implementation, and that it is taking different forms in various regions of the country. As the pace of change accelerates and new school choice programs proliferate, this study is a critical resource for all those concerned about the present and future staus of American education.

Mismatch
Mismatch

Author: Richard Sander

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2012-10-09

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 0465030017

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The debate over affirmative action has raged for over four decades, with little give on either side. Most agree that it began as noble effort to jump-start racial integration; many believe it devolved into a patently unfair system of quotas and concealment. Now, with the Supreme Court set to rule on a case that could sharply curtail the use of racial preferences in American universities, law professor Richard Sander and legal journalist Stuart Taylor offer a definitive account of what affirmative action has become, showing that while the objective is laudable, the effects have been anything but. Sander and Taylor have long admired affirmative action's original goals, but after many years of studying racial preferences, they have reached a controversial but undeniable conclusion: that preferences hurt underrepresented minorities far more than they help them. At the heart of affirmative action's failure is a simple phenomenon called mismatch. Using dramatic new data and numerous interviews with affected former students and university officials of color, the authors show how racial preferences often put students in competition with far better-prepared classmates, dooming many to fall so far behind that they can never catch up. Mismatch largely explains why, even though black applicants are more likely to enter college than whites with similar backgrounds, they are far less likely to finish; why there are so few black and Hispanic professionals with science and engineering degrees and doctorates; why black law graduates fail bar exams at four times the rate of whites; and why universities accept relatively affluent minorities over working class and poor people of all races. Sander and Taylor believe it is possible to achieve the goal of racial equality in higher education, but they argue that alternative policies -- such as full public disclosure of all preferential admission policies, a focused commitment to improving socioeconomic diversity on campuses, outreach to minority communities, and a renewed focus on K-12 schooling -- will go farther in achieving that goal than preferences, while also allowing applicants to make informed decisions. Bold, controversial, and deeply researched, Mismatch calls for a renewed examination of this most divisive of social programs -- and for reforms that will help realize the ultimate goal of racial equality.

Equal Opportunity in Higher Education
Equal Opportunity in Higher Education

Author: Eric Grodsky

Publisher:

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781934742723

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This timely book examines issues pertaining to equal opportunity--affirmative action, challenges to it, and alternatives for improving opportunities for underrepresented groups--in higher education today. Its starting point is California's Proposition 209, which ended race-based affirmative action in public education and the workplace in 1996. The book carefully considers how Proposition 209 reflects national trends that have changed higher education policy and practice, from administrators to student diversity to standards. With a roster of leading scholars and administrators--including Chancellor Robert Birgeneau of the University of California, Berkeley, and President Mary Sue Coleman of the University of Michigan--Equal Opportunity in Higher Education is a crucial assessment of one of the most important issues facing higher education. "With over a decade of data on which to draw, this volume brings together analysts from academic institutions, researchers in the University of California and community college systems, and policy makers to reflect on what we have learned about the impacts of removing affirmative action and of new policy directions for the future. In a time of great economic uncertainty, it is easy to lose sight of the complex questions of equal access with which many state postsecondary systems struggle." --from the introductory chapter by Christopher Edley Jr., dean, University of California, Berkeley, School of Law "A comprehensive examination of the consequences and implications of challenges to affirmative action for racial equity and diversity in public higher education. Although focused on California's Proposition 209, the volume offers useful insights for public and institutional policy makers in other states, as well as for education researchers." -- Laura W. Perna, professor, Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania "A thorough and masterful treatment of an important and complex subject. What it chronicles is the first step in the gradual asphyxiation of race-based affirmative action. The book represents an extraordinary blending of social science, legal, and policy perspectives. It illustrates a skillful use of administrative data by an impressive array of scholars and day-to-day practitioners. There are important lessons here, not only for higher education but for the broader American public." -- Thomas J. Espenshade, professor of sociology, Princeton University "The book does a nice job juxtaposing research with important perspectives on policy to give a rich, insightful examination of what happens when universities are not allowed to use race in their deliberations. Of course, the answer is complicated given the complex nature of race in America and the admissions process. This type of nuanced analysis is needed in what are sure to be future debates about affirmative action." -- Bridget Terry Long, professor of education and economics, Harvard Graduate School of Education Eric Grodsky is associate professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota. Michal Kurlaender is associate professor of education at the University of California, Davis.