Engaging the Public in Public Schools Through School Choice

While the possible decline in the level of social capital in the United States has received considerable attention by scholars such as Putnam and Fukuyama, less attention has been paid to the local activities of citizens that help define a nation's stock of social capital. Scholars have paid even less attention to how institutional arrangements affect levels of social capital. We argue that giving parents greater choice over the public schools their children attend creates incentives for parents as “citizen/consumers” to engage in activities that build social capital. Our empirical analysis employs a quasi-experimental approach comparing parental behavior in two pairs of demographically similar school districts that vary on the degree of parental choice over the schools their children attend. Our data show that, controlling for many other factors, parents who choose when given the opportunity are higher on all the indicators of social capital analyzed. Fukuyama has argued that it is easier for governments to decrease social capital than to increase it. We argue, however, that the design of government institutions can create incentives for individuals to engage in activities that increase social capital.

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A Historical and Political Look at the Modern School Choice Movement

International Journal of Educational Reform ◽

10.1177/105678791802700101 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 27 (1) ◽

pp. 2-21

Author(s):

Stephanie R. Logan

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Public Schools ◽

School Choice ◽

Religious Tradition ◽

The United States ◽

Access To Education ◽

The Public ◽

Common Schools ◽

Modern School ◽

Brown Decision

School choice in the United States can be traced back to the start of civil society when wealthy families selected a school based on educational philosophy, location, or religious tradition. As common schools emerged, larger portions of the population were able to gain access to education. However, many discovered that quality public schools were not a reality for all students. In response, some looked to school choices within and outside of the public school sector. This literature review chronicles school choice efforts to emerge following the 1954 Brown decision and highlights liberal and conservative political heritages of school choice in the United States.

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Introduction

10.1093/oso/9780190644574.003.0001 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Robert N. Gross

Keyword(s):

Public Schools ◽

Public Education ◽

School Choice ◽

Strong Support ◽

Public Officials ◽

The Public ◽

Mass Public ◽

Central Argument ◽

Late Nineteenth ◽

Catholic Schooling

The introduction sets up the problem public officials faced in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. How should they, and the public schools they administered, respond to rapidly increasing attendance in private, Catholic schools? How, in a nation seemingly committed to mass public education, did private, Catholic schooling expand? In the broader economic language popular both at the time and today, how did educational competition and markets emerge in the twentieth century given the strong support for a public school monopoly a century earlier? The book’s central argument is that the structures that enable school choice to flourish today owe their origins—over a century ago—as much to public policy as to private initiative.

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My Kids, Your Kids, Our Kids: What Parents and the Public Want from Schools

Teachers College Record ◽

10.1177/016146811711901105 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 119 (11) ◽

pp. 1-34

Author(s):

Jon Valant ◽

Daniel Newark

Keyword(s):

Public Schools ◽

School Choice ◽

Online Survey ◽

Intervention Program ◽

Basic Structure ◽

National Sample ◽

Community Schools ◽

Randomized Experiments ◽

The Public ◽

Nationally Representative

Background/Context School choice reforms could strengthen parents’ influence on school behaviors, since schools must appeal to parents in order to operate. If parents’ desires for schools differ from the broader public's desires for schools, then schools might pursue different goals and activities in systems emphasizing school choice. One popular hypothesis is that school-choosing parents, more than the public, want schools to prioritize their own students’ private interests over more collective social, economic, and political interests. Purpose/Objective We compare parents’ desires for their own children's schools with the U.S. public's desires for public schools. We make these comparisons with respect to the abstract goals that schools pursue, as well as schools’ more tangible behaviors. Population/Participants/Subjects We administered an online survey to nationally representative samples of parents and adults. We administered a second online survey to a national sample of adults. Intervention/Program/Practice The article consists of two studies. Study 1 compares parents’ and the public's beliefs about which abstract goals schools should prioritize. Respondents were randomly assigned to consider either schools in their community, schools around the country, or, if they had children, their own children's schools. They chose from goals that prioritized their students’ professional achievement (“Private Success”), the economy's needs (“Shared Economic Health”), and more collective social and political needs (“Democratic Character”). Study 2 compares parents’ and the public's beliefs about how schools should actually behave. Respondents were randomly assigned to consider either schools in their community, schools around the country, or their own children's schools. We asked about the basic structure and content of the school day, how schools should teach, and how to evaluate school performance. Research Design The studies consist of randomized experiments and related statistical analysis. Findings/Results We find remarkably little difference between parents’ desires for their children's schools and the public's desires for public schools. This is true both for the abstract goals that schools pursue and for schools’ more tangible behaviors. Conclusions/Recommendations Our findings suggest that the hypothesis that parents want schools to focus on their students’ private success at the expense of more collective goals is over-simplified. It may be, for example, that parents want their children to be well rounded in ways that also serve more collective social, political, and economic interests. We observe divisions in Americans’ views of the goals that schools should pursue, but these divisions are more connected to their political affiliation than parent status (with Republicans more focused than Democrats on Private Success).

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Accountability without Angst? Public Opinion and No Child Left Behind

Harvard Educational Review ◽

10.17763/haer.76.4.p245w24572592m62 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 76 (4) ◽

pp. 587-610 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

FREDERICK HESS

Keyword(s):

Public Opinion ◽

Public Schools ◽

No Child Left Behind ◽

School Choice ◽

Large Scale ◽

Public Support ◽

Achievement Gaps ◽

The Public ◽

Left Behind ◽

Using Data

In this article, Frederick Hess discusses public opinion trends related to educational issues from the enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in 2002 through 2006. Using data from three separate public opinion polls, Hess analyzes the general public's and parents' opinions on several issues, including the proper use of large-scale assessments, the appropriateness of punitive action for failing schools, the place of school choice, and the responsibility for closing achievement gaps across groups. Among many important findings, the author determines that NCLB has had little effect on the public's general opinion of public schools; that there is little public support for the sanctioning of struggling schools; and that while the public feels that schools should not be blamed for existing achievement gaps, schools should be responsible for closing them. He concludes with a discussion of implications for policymakers and practitioners.

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Parental Choice and the Future of Faith-based Schools

The Oxford Handbook of U.S. Education Law ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190697402.013.38 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Nicole Stelle Garnett

Keyword(s):

Public Schools ◽

School Choice ◽

Urban Communities ◽

Private School ◽

Participation Rates ◽

The Public ◽

Disadvantaged Children ◽

Faith Based ◽

To Come ◽

Faith Based Schools

In the thirty years since Wisconsin enacted the nation’s first private school choice program, the footprint of private school choice has expanded to cover over half of states and the District of Columbia. During the same time, the closure of faith-based schools serving disadvantaged children has continued apace. These schools likely will continue to disappear, especially from our urban communities, unless the scope of, and participation in, private school choice increases rather dramatically in years to come. The effects of increasing the public funds available to attend private and faith-based schools likely will be shaped by myriad factors, including the mechanisms employed to distribute the funds, amount of money distributed, the programmatic and regulatory details, the preferences of parents, and the participation rates of different kinds of schools. That said, choice mechanisms and program regulations also will shape participation rates in private school choice and other alternatives to public schools, such as homeschooling. Not all support such an expansion, but those who do—and who value the pluralism provided by faith-based schools—must come to terms with the issues discussed in this chapter.

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A Look Back

Phi Delta Kappan ◽

10.1177/0031721718808256 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 100 (3) ◽

pp. 5-7

Author(s):

Teresa Preston

Keyword(s):

Public Schools ◽

School Choice ◽

Charter Schools ◽

Democratic Society ◽

Religious Schools ◽

Public Funds ◽

The Public ◽

Look Back

This exploration of Phi Delta Kappan’s archives shows how the magazine has covered questions related to the purposes, governance, and funding of the public schools. Articles have discussed the role of schools in a democratic society, how schools should relate to the public, whether public funds should be diverted to private and religious schools, and whether charter schools and other vehicles for school choice are beneficial to families and schools.

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Two Models of Teacher Accountability: Toward an Explanation for the Disappointing Results of Some Market-Based School Reforms

Administration & Society ◽

10.1177/0095399715602732 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 50 (10) ◽

pp. 1365-1395

Author(s):

Lenahan O’Connell ◽

Juita-Elena (Wie) Yusuf

Keyword(s):

Public Schools ◽

School Choice ◽

School Reform ◽

School Reforms ◽

The Public ◽

The Social ◽

Full Explanation ◽

Teacher Work ◽

Applied Social Science ◽

And Performance

Accountability is a pivotal concern of applied social science. This article asserts that in many situations a full explanation of the sources of accountability requires the application of concepts from sociology and management science, in addition to those from the market-based approaches inspired by economics. The article describes the market-based approach to accountability exemplified by agency theory, applies it to school reform and derives several predictions about the likely success of market-based approaches to school reform, and documents the lack of evidence supporting the contention that programs for school choice will markedly improve teacher work effort and performance (as measured by student test scores). The social actor approach, rooted in sociological and management theories, is introduced and used to describe the pressures and norms operating in the public schools that foster accountability even in the absence of competition between schools for students. The article concludes with some implications for practice and research on public sector accountability.

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Are evangelical Christians abandoning public schools?

Phi Delta Kappan ◽

10.1177/00317217211043621 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 103 (1) ◽

pp. 25-29

Author(s):

Marilyn Anderson Rhames

Keyword(s):

Public Schools ◽

Racial Identity ◽

School Choice ◽

Evangelical Christians ◽

The Public ◽

Local Schools ◽

Transgender Students ◽

Parental Opinion ◽

Religious Bias ◽

Using Data

Conventional wisdom suggests that evangelical Christians, often among the most vocal advocates of school choice efforts in the U.S., are promoting choice out of a sense of frustration with public schools and perceived bias against religion. Research by Marilyn Anderson Rhames, however, suggests that evangelicals are no more concerned about religious bias in their local schools than other Americans. Using data from the 2019 PDK poll into the public’s attitudes toward the public schools, Rhames analyzed responses to questions about pressure to “fit in” or conform; religious bias; bias against gay, lesbian and/or transgender students; and the perceived risks of improper civics, Bible, and comparative religion instruction. In most cases, evangelical responses were not significantly different from those of other parents. In some case, racial identity and ideology were stronger drivers of parental opinion.

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A Rural County Speech and Language Program

Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools ◽

10.1044/0161-1461.0804.250 ◽

1977 ◽

Vol 8 (4) ◽

pp. 250-255 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Hildegarde Traywick

Keyword(s):

Public Schools ◽

Speech And Language ◽

Rural County ◽

Language Program ◽

The Public ◽

Madison County

This paper describes the organization and implementation of an effective speech and language program in the public schools of Madison County, Alabama, a rural, sparsely settled area.

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