Description
Book SynopsisSchool choice seeks to create a competitive arena in which public schools will attain academic excellence, encourage student performance, and achieve social balance. This book analyses what parents value in education, how much they know about schools, and how well they can match what they say they want in schools with what their children get.
Trade ReviewWinner of the Aaron Wildavsky Best Book Award "[A] very comprehensive volume... The reader will be stimulated by the depth of analyses and the originality of the interpretations... Clearly, this book will be the standard departure point for further study on informing school choice."--Henry M. Levin, Urban Affairs Review "This timely, thoughtful, and useful guide, which clearly favors educational choice as a solution to the many challenges facing American schools today, should be read by those on both sides of the debate."--Library Journal "A rich ... interesting book... Choosing Schools is relentlessly fair in its efforts to stay true to the data."--Jeffrey R. Henig, Journal of Politics
Table of ContentsList of Figures vii List of Tables ix Acknowlegments xiii Introduction School Choice, Parent Incentives, and the Use of Information 3 PART ONE Chapter 1 Reinventing the Governance Structure of Education: School Choice as Educational Reform 21 Chapter 2 Parent Behavior and the Demand Side of School Choice 39 Chapter 3 Studying Choice: The Research Design 59 PART TWO Chapter 4 The Distribution of Preferences: What Do Parents Want from Schools? 87 Chapter 5 How Do Parents Search for Information? 108 Chapter 6 Building Social Networks to Search for Information about Schools 126 PART THREE Chapter 7 The Distribution of Knowledge: How Much Do Parents Know about the Schools? 149 Chapter 8 Allocational Efficiency: You Can't Always Get What You Want -- But Some Do 164 Chapter 9 Productive Efficiency: Does School Choice Affect Academic Performance? 185 Chapter 10 Does Choice Increase Segregation and Stratification? 204 Chapter 11 Choosing Together Is Better than Bowling Alone: School Choice and the Creation of Social Capital 223 Chapter 12 Opting Out of Public Schools: Can Choice Affect the Relationship between Private and Public Schools? 238 CONCLUSION Chapter 13 Myths and Markets: Choice Is No Panacea, But It Does Work 261 Notes 275 References 285 Index 307
