Customer Reviews

Choosing Schools: Consumer Choice and the Quality of American Schools

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In the 1990s school choice has been a highly contentious and passionately debated topic of discussion in schools, government and the popular press. There are, I am sure, more reams devoted to this subject than to violence in schoolyards. Yet, much of what is claimed to be evidence for or against school choice is colored by ideology and/or politics - not careful analysis of the causes and consequences of choice programs. And therein lies the distinction between Choosing Schools: Consumer Choice and the Quality of American Schools and the myriad other texts on the market today.

Utilizing information culled from hundreds of residents in four school districts (two each in New York and New Jersey) the authors of Choosing Schools furnish empirical answers to long-standing questions in the school choice debate: What do parents value in education and do parents choose schools based upon these valuations?; How much do parents really know about their children's schools?, and; Does choice increase parental involvement in the schools? Devoid of hyperbole (a downfall of many self-styled policy pundits) and underwritten by careful theorizing and analyses, the bottom-line is clear: While school choice is not the sole panacea for all that ails the educational enterprise in this day and age, it is a powerful antidote to the sluggish, generally moribund public education system in America.

Choosing Schools is, in a nutshell, exemplary social science and this well-reasoned book deserves a close read, especially by those who matter most in the school choice debate - parents, educators and politicians looking forward to the November polls.