Search

Over the past few decades, school choice has been a widely debated issue around the globe, following the development of pluralism, liberty, and democracy. In many countries, school choice systems were preceded by residence-based school assignment systems, creating a strong connection between a neighborhood and its schools’ demographic compositions. However, schools often remain highly segregated. School segregation is thus seen as a major problem and is supposedly driven by three main factors: residential segregation, parental school choice, and schools’ selection of pupils. This paper aims to shed light on what research should be focusing on as regards school choice and residential segregation with the following two research questions: What are the links between neighborhood and school choice in the literature? How are neighborhood and school choice connected to school segregation in the literature? Two main findings emerged: (1) the neighborhood-based social networks that parents developed had limited their school choices and (2) neighborhood segregation is one of the most important factors that contributes to school segregation and is related to multi-ethnic and socioeconomic contexts.

Charter schools are positioned by proponents as a key component of reform efforts striving to expand school choice. Proponents argue that charter schools have the flexibility to experiment with novel curricular and instructional models outside the constraints of the traditional public education system, and therefore have the potential to transform students’ experiences. Influential reports over the last three decades have highlighted the need to improve students’ preparation in STEM, and charter schools have emerged as a reform with the potential to do so. This work uses methods from social network analysis and logistic regression to investigate how course-taking patterns in Texas charter and non-charter schools either promote or constrain student engagement within the STEM disciplines by: 1) exploring STEM course offerings in Texas charter and non-charter public secondary schools; and 2) identifying students’ STEM course-taking patterns in these schools. Findings suggest charter schools are less likely than non-charter public schools to offer STEM courses tailored for special education students and that charter school students’ course-taking patterns tend to be either slightly more advanced or more basic than the course-taking patterns of students in non-charter schools. In addition, students in charter schools tend to be more mobile (e.g., transfer between schools) than students in non-charter public schools.

This article analyzes the case of school choice in the United States and its implications for the Brazilian context. This discussion is important to Brazil, given the fact that key actors are starting to advocate in favor of introducing charter schools and vouchers in the country. Evidence from countries that introduced this model can help shed some light on this debate. In this article, we will analyze the overall performance of school choice in the United States, especially charter schools, focusing on its implications on educational equity. The Brazilian educational system is highly unequal. Thus, if charter schools are not helping to enhance the overall quality and equity in the United States, it may not be a policy to be pursued in Brazil. In this scenario, focusing on the idea that school choice is the answer may divert the attention from systemic policies that can contribute to improve education such as high-quality early childhood education, increased education funding, after-school programs, and teacher professional development.

This article outlines different forms of education privatization operating globally, examines their prevalence within the United States, and analyzes whether student marginalization and segregation occurs at the local level. We analyze six U.S. districts with higher saturation levels of charter schools, the most predominant type of privatization (Camden, NJ, Washington DC, Flint, MI, Detroit, MI, Natomas, CA, and Oakland, CA). We find education privatization increasing in the US, but unevenly dispersed, with charter schools concentrated primarily in urban areas serving students of color. Furthermore, segregation in education remains a major issue for all types of schools, with students of color in urban contexts often attending intensely segregated schools (over 90% students of color). Instead of mitigating the segregation problem, student selection by charter school appears to exacerbate it, specifically for special education students.

Few studies have explored how schools respond to competition in socially embedded education quasi-markets. This study focuses on how state-subsidized privately-run low-fee schools (S-LFPSs) compete with free public schools in some of the poorest neighborhoods of the City of Buenos Aires. In particular, we explore how S-LFPSs follow different logics of action to attract (and shape) enrollment profiting from their extended autonomy and some regulatory gaps. We applied discourse analysis on data from eight months of ethnographic case study research in nine S-LFPSs. Student selection and operational changes (e.g., increasing the student/teacher ratio) prevail over academic and curricular changes. Selection is operated by means of aptitude tests and screening interviews, and other symbolic artifacts aimed at signaling differences with state-run schools and the potential fit between schools and families. We present a heuristic typology of the different logics of action systematizing the schools’ responses as their leading orientations toward the competitive environment. We suggest that policy inconsistencies and deficient governmental oversight tilt the field against state-run schools. Rather than ensuring equality of educational opportunity, the policy contributes to shape and deepen a highly segregated and inequitable educational landscape.

In this study, we seek to contribute to the literature on traditional charter school (TCS) closure by examining the potential relationships among racial and socioeconomic enrollment characteristics, TCS age and early adopter status, student achievement and the likelihood of closure within Ohio’s “Big 8” Urban Counties (OBEUC). Using life tables and binary logistic regression, we examined 3,204 TCS school years (424 TCS) in OBEUC from the arrival of TCS in 1998 through 2015 to assess these relationships. While the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) reports that poor academic performance is the second most cited reason for TCS closure, we find no evidence that student performance predicts TCS closure in OBEUC. However, we find that compared to TCS with integrated enrollments, TCS with predominantly White or Black enrollments face higher risks of closure in OBEUC, even when controlling for other factors. This lack of a connection between student performance and TCS closure calls into question the argument that TCS closure is evidence that the accountability function of school choice policy is working.

School choice has the potential to be a tool for desegregation, but research suggests that choice more often exacerbates segregation than remedies it. In the past several years, hundreds of ‘intentionally diverse’ charter schools have opened across the country, potentially countering the link between charter schools and segregation. Yet, these schools raise important questions about choice, segregation, and equity. For instance: how do leaders of diverse charter schools prioritize diversity in decisions about location, marketing, and recruitment? What are the implications of these diversity efforts for equity, especially within competitive and marketized educational contexts? We explore the concrete recruiting and marketing strategies schools used to build and retain their diverse communities, drawing on qualitative data from New Orleans, LA, and Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN. We identify key strategies used by school leaders, but also note that many strategies were ad-hoc and experimental. Furthermore, we noted that school goals around “how much” diversity was sufficient were often unarticulated, making schools susceptible to external pressures that might refocus attention away from equity and diversity, or allow groups with more power to shape agendas within the school. Finally, we find that contexts of gentrification and widening economic inequities threatened schools’ efforts to recruit and maintain a diverse student body. We discuss implications for leaders of diverse charter schools and other leaders seeking to diversify their student bodies, as well as policymakers and charter authorizers.

I estimate achievement effects of education public-private partnerships (PPPs) in 17 countries on the 2009 PISA assessment. Enrollment in PPP schools is tied to student wealth and prior academic ability. PPP students outperform their public peers on half of all outcomes. After accounting for selection, the PPP performance advantage remains on one-quarter of outcomes. However, nearly all of these performance differences are accounted for by school-level peer group effects. PPP schools are outperforming their public counterparts not through any advantages in productive efficiency but through sorting of more capable students.

Race and class segregation have long governed patterns of residential sorting in the American metropolis. However, as urban neighborhoods across the country experience an influx of white and middle-class residents, they could alleviate the stark economic and racial segregation that is ubiquitous to urban neighborhoods and school systems. This paper argues that gentrification is a growing phenomenon with great potential to influence neighborhoods as well as cities and the schools within them. Key steps are discussed that policymakers can take to foster neighborhood and school change that is both inclusive and equitable.

There is no national study examining the rate of enrollment of students with disabilities in charter schools. We examined whether students with disabilities were significantly less likely to enroll in charter schools as compared to non-charter public schools accounting for state level variation using data for the entire national population. We utilized data from the Civil Rights Data Collection under the U.S. Department of Education for the 2011-2012 and 2013-2014 academic years. These nationwide and contemporary data provided school-level numbers of students with disabilities receiving special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and charter school status. We performed hierarchical linear modeling to examine for differences in the percentages of students with disabilities under IDEA between charter and non-charter schools, which revealed significantly less students with disabilities enrolled in charter schools at the national and state level. Additionally, we identified and ranked states according to the degree of discrepancy in the percentages of students with disabilities under IDEA between charter and non-charter schools.

In 1975, a court-ordered busing program was launched to desegregate the schools of New Castle County, Delaware. It was by many accounts one of the most significant and successful desegregation programs in the nation (Armor Rossell, 2002; Orfield, 2014; Raffel, 1980). In 1995, the districts of the county were declared “unitary” and the court order was lifted. Shortly thereafter, new policies were enacted allowing school choice, charter schools, and neighborhood attendance zoning. This study draws on primary and secondary data, including geographic, census, and enrollment data, and provides an account of the policy changes and a 26-year longitudinal analysis of changing enrollment trends and patterns. Segregation by race and income among schools accelerated after the policy changes. While the policy changes created greater segregation, enrollment trends varied by district and over time; segregation growth was moderate in two of the districts, small in the others. Our study illuminates the complexity of explaining segregation patterns and disentangling the contributing role of choice, charters, attendance zones, and residential demographics in explaining segregation patterns in school systems.

This study provides a census of full-time virtual schools and blended schools from 35 states. Specifically, it utilizes data visualization and exploratory data analysis to examine student demographics and school performance measures of virtual schools and blended schools operating in the 2014-15 school year. The school achievement measures for both virtual and blended schools indicate these schools are performing poorly. Nevertheless, the evidence suggests that their enrollment growth continues. Large virtual schools operated by for-profit education management organizations (EMOs) dominate this sector and are increasing their market share. While more districts are opening their own virtual and blended schools, the schools are typically small, and with limited enrollment. The proportion of Black and Hispanic students in virtual schools is lower than the national average, while students enrolled in blended schools more closely resemble the race and ethnic characteristics of students enrolled in brick-and-mortar public schools nationwide. Virtual and blended schools, while serving students in kindergarten through grade 12, have higher concentrations at the elementary and secondary levels. The empirical work in this area is in its infancy; hence, this study seeks to contribute to both the conceptual and empirical implications of virtual and blended schools by embracing a balance between their public and private benefits.

School choice exists in American public schooling, even where official school choice policy is absent. Parents with means can elect to live in neighborhoods zoned for desirable schools, whereas parents without means are locked out of that opportunity. In their ideal, charter schools have the ability to expand access to desirable schools to families who previously had little choice in their children’s schools. However, issues of equity and access often limit options for the very families who are seeking them. This paper examines four such issues in charter schools—school diversity, access to transportation, application processes, and access to quality teachers as equity and access. The issues are problematized and case studies that have worked towards resolving these issues are examined.

The normalization of school choice in the education system is purported to provide more schooling options for all families, particularly those who do not have the means to move into affluent areas with ‘better’ schools. Nonetheless, it is still unclear to what extent the policy of school choice has been effective in achieving the goal of providing more choices for marginalized families. This paper aims to fill this gap by examining the K-12 school choice practices and patterns of marginalized urban families, with a focus on their spatial positions and dispositions, in what is arguably one of the most rapidly diversifying and polarizing cities in the world, Vancouver, Canada. An innovative mixed-methods critical geographic approach is used to better understand the families’ school choice participation and related mobility patterns geo-spatially, while exploring their choices phenomenologically.

Located in one of the most diverse cities in the world, the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) offers several programs catering to a variety of student interests. Specialty Arts Programs (SAPs) have gained particular attention in part because of their reputation as excellent schools providing a unique opportunity for training in the arts. However, recently such programs have also raised concerns about who can access and who ultimately benefits from specialized programming in the arts. While the TDSB is committed to equal access for all families, the student populations at these programs do not mirror the broader school population, serving mostly affluent families and students with access to high levels of social and cultural capital. Employing data from the TDSB’s Parent and Student Census and the School Information Systems, the article first demonstrates the demographic homogeneity of specialized arts programs and then examines whether this homogeneity is a particular outcome of specialized arts programs or a manifestation of a de facto streaming mechanism that begins earlier in the schooling process. To do this, the authors explore the relationship between feeder schools and programs that guide students towards SAPs. Results demonstrate that the bulk of SAP students are drawn from a select few elementary schools across the board. Largely, the demographics of elementary feeder schools reflect similar characteristics of the SAP population and this relationship is amplified as the number of students drawn from feeder schools increases. In addition, students in SAPs experience a high level of belonging in school as compared to students across the system. While this outcome is often attributed to the immersion in arts-based curriculum, the authors query how the role of creating homogenous spaces through selective programming contributes to students’ experience of belonging while at the same time reproducing structural inequality.

In this article, we introduce the special issue that illuminates issues in school choice and education marketization in contemporary Canada. We begin with a discussion of the proliferation of market models across the globe and the kind of questions that have arisen as public policymakers, philanthropists, and other private interests have embraced and advanced market-oriented reforms. Then we turn to Canada, and briefly discuss the scholarly literature on education privatization and school choice in the past two decades. After that, we present the five articles, highlighting how each piece contributes to a deeper understanding of the changing landscape of choice and competition, as well as how these changes impact schools and communities in a diverse, multicultural country. We conclude by discussing the importance of continuing empirical research in order to inform important debates about how to best meet the needs of the students in a democratic society.

This paper provides a descriptive account of the growing landscape of school choice in Canada through a comparative analysis of funding and student enrolment in the public, independent and home-based education sectors in each province. Given that the provinces have responsibility for K-12 education, the mixture of public, independent and home school education varies rather widely by province, as does the level of funding and regulation. Delivery and funding of public education in Canada has long prioritized limited linguistic and religious pluralism, providing various options for English or French, and Catholic or Protestant alternatives to qualified parents. More recently growing numbers of parents have been seeking more options for their children’s education. This has fueled slow but steady growth in independent schools and home schooling.

Los diversos sistemas educativos en el mundo persiguen objetivos tanto públicos como privados. Específicamente, deben intentar conciliar el permitir mayor libertad para que las escuelas puedan responder a los objetivos privados de las familias con preservar un modelo educacional que entregue una experiencia educacional colectiva para mantener una sociedad cohesionada. Usando datos de PISA 2009, este trabajo examina de forma exploratoria las posibles implicancias que tendría el tipo de financiamiento y tipo de provisión (pública o privada) en el logro de los siguientes cuatro objetivos que han sido planteados para la educación: (a) libertad de elección, (b) eficiencia productiva, (c) equidad, y (d) cohesión social. En términos generales, se encuentra que existen tensiones en el logro de objetivos privados y públicos de forma simultánea. Sin embargo, existen algunas políticas públicas que logran reducir estas tensiones, mientras que otras tienden a incrementarla.Educational systems around the world pursue both public and private objectives. They are able to balance both objectives by allowing greater freedom for schools to meet the families’ private objectives with an educational model that delivers a collective experience that maintains a cohesive society. Using data from PISA 2009, this study explores the possible implications that public and private funding and provision have on the following four objectives of education: (a) freedom of choice, (b) productive efficiency, (c) equity, and (d) social cohesion. We find that there are tensions in achieving some of these objectives simultaneously. However, there are some policies that reduce some of these tensions, while others tend to exacerbate them.

Usualmente, políticas que buscam estimular a liberdade de escolha de escolas por parte dos pais visam declaradamente promover melhoria educacional por meio de mecanismos competitivos e/ou de accountability. Há discussão acumulada na sociologia sobre os quase-mercados formados em políticas de escolha escolar. O artigo investiga os processos de escolha e de acesso escolar em um contexto que denominamos "quase-mercado oculto". No caso brasileiro, a ausência de regulação permite que severos mecanismos de segmentação se manifestem em meio à complexa hierarquia escolar existente nas redes compostas por escolas públicas "comuns". O artigo apresenta a elaboração conceitual presente na literatura internacional e nossas reflexões para o caso brasileiro, além de resultados de uma pesquisa, especialmente de sua fase qualitativa, referente às entrevistas realizadas com professores(as), diretores(as) e com pais de alunos do Ensino Fundamental da rede municipal na cidade do Rio de Janeiro.Frequently, policies that seek to encourage parents´ school choice aim to promote educational improvement by means of competitive and/or accountability mechanisms. There is a growing discussion within sociology around the quasi-markets formed with school choice policies. The paper investigates the processes of school choice and access in a context called "hidden quasi-market". In the Brazilian context, the absence of regulation allows the emergence of severe mechanisms of segmentation that take place within a complex school hierarchy existing among "ordinary" school systems. The article presents a conceptual elaboration present in the international literature and our considerations regarding the Brazilian context. It also brings some results, especially those concerning the qualitative phase of the research, including interviews with teachers, principals and students’ parents from municipal elementary schools in the city of Rio de Janeiro.

This article highlights a narrative study of African American women educational advocates in Detroit and the political resistance they enact to combat the inequities of structural educational failure and disempowering neoliberal dynamics. The Detroit advocates have challenged the traditional public educational system as volunteers, family members, community activists, elected officials, and/or professional educators. The author discusses the advocates’ perspectives, experiences, and improvement strategies in light of Detroit’s complex, market-based educational landscape. Findings pertain to the advocates’ efforts to respond to educational and communal loss, family engagement barriers, insufficient school choice options, and concerns about privatization. Their narratives comprise counter-stories that illustrate theoretical notions of critical care and traditions of Black women’s political resistance used to combat the politics of disposability that hinder many urban communities. The author concludes the article by indicating how the Detroit advocates’ work can inform broader efforts to improve urban education.

This article examines a process, school choice, from a specific perspective, that is the reflexivity of social actors. Based on the analysis of 170 interviews with upper and lower-middle class parents in France and after exploring the consequences of taking into account parents’ capacity to proceed to critical examination of their actions and the distinctive features in that respect of middle-class parents, the author focus on three dimensions of the practical application of this reflexivity. The first concerns parents’ social research on schools for which they use tools and methods similar to those of social researchers but with different goals and a different level of access to information. The second concerns parents’ analysis of the problems of state local schools for which they use criteria similar to those put forward by research studies but interpreted according to their individual interests. The third dimension concerns the analysis of the consequences of school choice. Parents’ use scientific and political arguments to show the tension between individual responsibility and the search for the common good. The conclusion insists on the importance of taking into account parents’ reasoning capacity both to construct more comprehensive interpretative models and to develop a more deliberative democratic society.

This paper examines the discursive strategies employed by advocates of Parent Trigger laws in the United States which allow parents of children in “failing” schools, in some states, to call for interventions in the operation of the schools via petition. The paper reviews the genesis of Parent Trigger laws, the network of conservative political organizations supporting Parent Trigger legislation, and the ways in which Parent Trigger advocates have promoted the concept through the deployment of both material and symbolic resources. The paper argues that Parent Trigger laws promote a “thin” form of democratic participation that equates democracy with consumer choice through the strategic representation of public schools as broken institutions and parent trigger laws as empowering parents to choose. Support for this position is developed through an empirical qualitative analysis of a sample of media texts produced by various organizations within the Parent Trigger policy network including the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), American Enterprise Institute, Heartland Institute, Parent Revolution, and others. By identifying frequently used framing devices such as metaphors, exemplars, catch-phrases, and depictions as well as reasoning devices such as root causes, consequences, and appeals to principle, the study reveals the dominant frames employed by Parent Trigger advocates and contributes to the development of a more critical perspective concerning the media produced by various interest groups.

For-profit charter schools represent a controversial new market-based education reform (Garcia, Barber, Molnar, 2009; Conn, 2002). This essay explores how schools operated by for-profit corporations differ from those operated by non-profit organizations. Specifically, do for-profit charter schools locate in demographically distinct areas and serve different student populations than similar schools operated by non-profit providers? Research suggests that charter school operators in some districts appear to strategically locate their schools in an effort to exclude certain student populations (Lubienski, Gulosino, Weitzel, 2009). If charter schools seek to exclude certain students, as these schools proliferate in a district or region there may be an intensifying stratification effect detrimental to the most disadvantaged students (Bifulco, Ladd, Ross, 2009). This essay undertakes a broad comparative analysis of the neighborhood demographic and student population characteristics of charter schools operated by for-profit corporations and nonprofit organizations, using multilevel modeling and geographic information systems, to compare the two school types across dissimilar state contexts. In so doing, the study seeks to isolate the impact of a school being operated by a for-profit corporation and illuminate what impact the proliferation of for-profit schools might have on the distribution of student populations across regions.

In this paper we explore the relationship between students’ residential location and participation in Milwaukee’s large, widely available private school voucher program. We are interested in one overarching question: do voucher schools disproportionately draw students from better public schools and city neighborhoods, or do they draw students most in need of alternative options? We consider whether the public schools attended by students in neighborhoods contributing large numbers of students to the voucher program are more or less effective than those attended by students in neighborhoods with fewer voucher students. We also consider whether voucher students are located in city neighborhoods that directly contribute more or less to student outcomes. We find consistent evidence that neighborhoods whose students attend less effective public schools and neighborhoods with lower academic outcomes contribute disproportionately to the voucher program. This evidence is quite consistent with patterns apparent on Census-based observational measures of neighborhood socioeconomic characteristics: higher rates of voucher use are found in the least advantaged neighborhoods. We also find, however, that disadvantaged students in general are those most likely to leave the voucher program after enrolling.

Public schools in some areas of the U.S. are as segregated as they were prior to court-ordered busing, in part due to school choice policies that appear to exacerbate extant segregation. In particular, Latina/o students are increasingly isolated in schools characterized as being in cycles of decline. Our case study of one such school is based on a reanalysis of interview, focus group, and survey data from three research and evaluation projects. We constructed accounts of parents’ decisions to leave and remain at Martinez Elementary, a segregated dual language school experiencing increases in Latina/o and low socio-economic student enrollment and decreasing statewide standardized test scores. Interpreting Latina/o and White parents’ accounts through LatCrit theory, we sought to understand their choices to attend this school as counterstories that illustrate conflicting forces influencing Martinez, including high parent satisfaction and interest convergence between White and Latina/o parents. These stories depict a more hopeful account of a school resisting decline, yet only the adoption of managed school choice policies may be powerful enough to counter the school’s segregation.

Changes to Title IX allowing the growth of single-sex schools have garnered media attention promoting the benefits of separating boys and girls. Alternately, civil rights groups such as the ACLU continue to oppose any type of school segregation. Within this context, a private philanthropy, the Foundation for the Education of Young Women (FEYW) has established public-private partnerships with six Texas school districts to open all-girls’ public college prep magnet schools with plans to expand. This multi-year ethno-historical case study explores the meaning making of one community in the FEYW network as it attempts to make sense of federal policy at the local level. The topic is important to the field of education because it is timely: changes to Title IX and the growth in single-sex arrangements pose interesting legal and sociological questions about equity and justice since it links Title IX (an equity-driven policy) with the choice provisions in NCLB (a market-driven policy). The significance of this study lies in the unique use of ethnography as interpretive policy analysis to show how local communities (re)interpret federal policy to better align with their personal values and more adequately address contextual complexities in their attempts to do what they believe is best for students.

El presente artículo analiza la valoración que realizan las familias de clase media sobre el orden expresivo de distintos centros educativos. La composición social del alumnado, el proyecto educativo, la titularidad y el ambiente general son aspectos valorados por los padres durante el proceso de escolarización de sus hijos. Buscarán centros con «prestigio social», sean éstos públicos o privados, donde acudan otras familias con similares características socioculturales, con las que compartan valores y ambiciones. Concluimos que el proceso de elección de centro forma parte de aquellas dinámicas de cierre social destinadas a posicionar a los hijos en una situación privilegiada y ventajosa frente a otros. Palabras clave: elección de centro; orden expresivo; clase social; clases medias; cierre social. Abstract. The evaluation process of schools by middle-class families. The role of the expressive order in the search for distinction This article analyses the evaluation made by middle-class families regarding the expressive order of different schools. The social composition of the pupils, the educational project, their public or private character and the general atmosphere are highly valued aspects by those parents during the schooling process of their children. They look for schools with «social prestige», either public or private, where other families with similar socio-cultural characteristics, values and ambitions are also sending their children. We conclude that the school choice process is part of wider social closure dynamics destined to situate their children in a more privileged and advantageous position. Key words: school choice; expressive order; social class; middle classes; social closure.

Much of the literature related to the skimming or cropping of students by charter schools has ignored special education students. This article examines the relationship between the severity of student disabilities and their likelihood of having attended an Arizona charter school in the 2002-2003 school year. After adjusting for student traits, local education agency characteristics, and the mix of available special education services, a multilevel logistic regression analysis suggests that students who had more severe and thus more expensive disabilities were less likely to attend an Arizona charter school. Findings from an ancillary set of hierarchical linear models suggested that special education students enrolled in charter schools were less expensive on average than similar traditional public-school special education students.

The political popularity of charter schools is unmistakable. This article explores the relationship between charter schools and segregation across the country, in 40 states, the District of Columbia, and several dozen metropolitan areas with large enrollments of charter school students in 2007-08. The descriptive analysis of the charter school enrollment is aimed at understanding the enrollment and characteristics of charter school students and the extent to which charter school students are segregated, including how charter school segregation compare to students in traditional public schools. This article examines these questions at different levels, aggregating school-level enrollment to explore patterns among metropolitan areas, states, and the nation using three national datasets. Our findings suggest that charters currently isolate students by race and class.This analysis of recent data finds that charter schools are more racially isolated than traditional public schools in virtually every state and large metropolitan area in the nation. In some regions, white students are over-represented in charter schools while in other charter schools, minority students have little exposure to white students. Data about the extent to which charter schools serve low-income and English learner students is incomplete, but suggest that a substantial share of charter schools may not enroll such students. As charters represent an increasing share of our public schools, they influence the level of segregation experienced by all of our nations school children. After two decades, the promise of charter schools to use choice to foster integration and equality in American education has not yet been realized.

Research over the last twenty years on school choice and local markets in education has been contradictory or inconclusive: some supports the movement to give parents more freedom in choosing schools; other findings support the view that greater choice further disadvantages the already disadvantaged. Irrespective of philosophical position, it can be said that school choice is driven by political economy in that its benefits and shortcomings are as a consequence of engagement with political or socio-economic imperatives. This paper juxtaposes some findings from the UK, the US and Europe in a socio-political context and discusses their theoretical implications.

Current educational research often incorporates an unconscious cultural or national bias that starts from the questions which are asked and concludes with the implications which are drawn. We describe a three-month in situ study of ethos in Irish National Primary Schools and attempt to identify how US and Irish professional teaching practices reflect the political and educational ethoi (customs) of their respective homes. In this paper, we focus on what is revealed about teacher practices and professional life: teacher views of school choice, the teachers’ role in the operation of schools, the national curriculum, and student assessment.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationships between school choice as an instrument or as an objective of the educational reforms and their success in the creation of diversity in the educational system. The diversity is the most important factor in the school choice. In order to analyze these relationships, the cases of Canada, Chile and New Zealand, and its implications in the structure, autonomy, and management of their educative systems, will be studied. This international approach tries to be representative enough of the different contexts that have lead to promote the school choice in education with very different objectives and methodologies.

This paper is part of a broader research project that aims to study and give some theoretical explanation to the inclusion/exclusion dynamics produced by the application of neoliberal policies in education. It focuses on those policies that promote school choice and family involvement. The goal was to contextualize the role of the State over these issues, analyzing the legislative framework in which families act and take decisions in relation to their children's education process. Far from trying to give a mere description of the contents of those policies, this article tries to understand and point out their possible effects in comparison with other contexts that have already developed similar dynamics. The article suggests that the trajectory of the Spanish educational policy over school choice and participation has redefined the role of families in relation to their children's schooling process. The result has been the transition from an active role in the daily organization and management of the schools to another one more specific and restricted where the families could be defined as consumers of education focusing on the control through choice of those schools that are considered as the "best and more appropriate" in order to fulfil present and future aspirations and expectations. Este artículo se enmarca dentro de un trabajo de investigación más amplio que parte con el objetivo de entender y explicar las distintas dinámicas de inclusión y exclusión social producidas a causa del desarrollo y la aplicación de políticas neoliberales en el campo educativo. Nos centraremos en las políticas de elección y participación de las familias en los centros educativos con la intención de contextualizar el papel del Estado a este respecto, analizando el marco legislativo en el que las familias actúan y toman decisiones con respecto a distintos aspectos relacionados con la escolarización de sus hijos. Nuestro objetivo no es tanto hacer una mera presentación del contenido de dichas políticas sino tratar de comprender y señalar los posibles efectos de las mismas en comparación con otros contextos en los que se han puesto en prácticas otras dinámicas similares. Se pondrá de manifiesto cómo el devenir de las políticas españolas de elección y participación en los centros ha redefinido el rol de las familias en relación con dicho proceso de escolarización, cediendo, en algunos casos, a presiones provenientes desde el seno de algunas agrupaciones de las mismas. El resultado ha sido el paso de un papel activo en la gestión y organización diaria de los centros educativos a otro, mucho más puntual y restringido, en el que las familias podrían definirse como meras consumidoras de educación, centrado en el control mediante la elección de aquellas escuelas que son consideradas como las "mejores y más adecuadas" en la consecución de sus aspiraciones y expectativas tanto presentes como futuras.

Currently, charter schools represent one of the fastest growing movements of educational reform. The first charter school opened in 1992 and there are now over 3,400 charter schools nationwide. Despite this growth, we are only beginning to learn about the performance and operation of these schools. This article adds to our knowledge of charter schools both by examining the finances of charter schools in California, which has more charter students than any other state, and by highlighting their fiscal challenges. Using survey data of California charter and conventional public schools, the results suggest that the degree charter schools are struggling with resources and facilities depends upon charter school type.

Among the two most prominent school reform measures currently being implemented in The United States are school choice and test-based accountability. Until recently, the two policy initiatives remained relatively distinct from one another. With the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), a mutualism between choice and accountability emerged whereby school choice complements test-based accountability. In the first portion of this study we present a conceptual overview of school choice and test-based accountability and explicate connections between the two that are explicit in reform implementations like NCLB or implicit within the market-based reform literature in which school choice and test-based accountability reside. In the second portion we scrutinize the connections, in particular, between school choice and test-based accountability using a large western school district with a popular choice system in place. Data from three sources are combined to explore the ways in which school choice and test-based accountability draw on each other: state assessment data of children in the district, school choice data for every participating student in the district choice program, and a parental survey of both participants and non-participants of choice asking their attitudes concerning the use of school report cards in the district. Results suggest that choice is of benefit academically to only the lowest achieving students, choice participation is not uniform across different ethnic groups in the district, and parents' primary motivations as reported on a survey for participation in choice are not due to test scores, though this is not consistent with choice preferences among parents in the district. As such, our results generally confirm the hypotheses of choice critics more so than advocates. Keywords: school choice; accountability; student testing.