Abstract: Preface 1. Policy Entrepreneurs and School Choice 2. Explanations of Policy Change 3. Entrepreneurs of Policy Change 4. Aspects of Entrepreneurship 5. Policy Entrepreneurs and the Policy Making Process 6. Empirical Studies of Policy Entrepreneurship 7. Policy Entrepreneurs and State Adoption of School Choice 8. Policy Networks and the Diffusion of School Choice 9. Policy Argumentation, Coalition Building, and School Choice 10. Policy Demonstration Projects and School Choice 11. Policy Entrepreneurs and Policy Change Appendix Bibliography Index

Abstract: The authors contend that, to be effective, professional development should address three dimensions of school capacity ' teachers' knowledge, skills, and dispositions; the strength of the schoolwide professional community; and the coherence of the school program. REFORMERS HAVE implemented tighter accountability, curriculum standards, organizational restructuring, school choice, professional development, and a variety of other strategies to improve schooling. Since teachers have the most direct, sustained contact with students and considerable control over what is taught and the climate for learning, improving teachers' knowledge, skills, and dispositions through professional development is a critical step in improving student achievement. According to critics, however, professional development has not substantially improved teaching, because conventional professional development violates a number of key conditions for teacher learning. ' Teacher learning is most likely to occur when teachers can concentrate on instruction and student outcomes in the specific contexts in which they teach. Yet because professional development often presents information that teachers see as irrelevant to student learning in their specific school settings, teachers often don't learn and apply what professional development programs offer. ' Teacher learning is most likely when teachers have sustained opportunities to study, to experiment with, and to receive helpful feedback on specific innovations. Yet most professional development activities entail brief workshops, conferences, or courses that make no provision for follow-up and long-term feedback. =95 Teacher learning is most likely when teachers collaborate with professional peers, both within and outside of their schools, and when they gain further expertise through access to external researchers and program developers. Yet traditional professional development relies almost exclusively on outside experts and materials, without integrating these resources into existing systems of peer collaboration. ' Teacher learning is most likely when teachers have influence over the substance and process of professional development. Influence over the course of professional development increases teachers' opportunity to connect it to specific conditions of their schools and facilitates a sense of ownership. Yet conventional professional development is often dictated by school, district, or state authorities without significant input from teachers. Researchers, practitioners, and policy makers express substantial agreement that professional development should change in these ways, but the actual conduct of professional development has been slow to respond.1 We agree that learning by individual teachers would be enhanced if professional development were more consistent with these principles, but an approach to professional development that focuses only on the learning of individual teachers would still be insufficient to advance student achievement across a substantial proportion of schools. Teacher success in boosting student achievement depends on the teacher's ability to implement knowledge and skills within a particular school. But each school contains a unique mix of teachers and students with varying competencies and attitudes and a unique set of social, cultural, and political conditions ' all of which influence what teachers do with students.2 While individual teacher learning is the foundation of improved classroom practice, teachers must also learn to exercise their individual knowledge, skills, and dispositions to advance the collective work of the school under a set of unique conditions. To the extent that professional development focuses only on the individual learning of teachers, we should not expect substantial achievement gains in the student body as a whole. Moreover, since student outcomes and how teachers teach are profoundly influenced by the schools in which the students and teachers work, the design of professional development itself should be grounded not only in a conception of how individual teachers learn, but also in a conception of how schools as organizations affect teachers' learning, teachers' practice, and student achievement. …

Abstract: Previous research indicates that minority and low-SES households have different preferences for schools than Anglo and high-SES households. Some fear that in a system of school choice, these differences will result in segregation by race and class. Methods. This research analyzes new data generated by 1,100 interviews of choosing parents. Results. While there are differences between racial/ ethnic and income groups in terms of their preferences regarding their children's schools, the differences do not extend to the parents' common concern for academic excellence. Where value sets do differ, they seem to do so because of differences in the real-world circumstances faced by these two groups rather than due to a failure to value school quality, as previous research sometimes implies. Conclusions. These data do not support the argument that the central educational preferences of households differ by race and/or class, nor the implication that school choice programs will promote racial and class segregation

Abstract: School districts in the U.S. typically have multiple schools, centralized finance, and student assignment determined by neighborhood of residence. In many states, centralization is extending beyond the district level as states assume an increasing role in the finance of education. At the same time, movement toward increased public school choice, particularly in large urban districts, is growing rapidly. Models that focus on community-level differences in tax and expenditure policy as the driving force in determination of residential choice, school peer groups, and political outcomes are inadequate for analysis of multi-school districts and, hence, for understanding changing education policies. This paper develops a model of neighborhood formation and tax-expenditure policies in neighborhood school systems with centralized finance. Stratification across neighborhoods and their schools is likely to arise in equilibrium. Consequences of intra-district choice with and without frictions are characterized, including effects on the allocation of students across schools, tax and expenditure levels, student achievement, and household welfare.

Abstract: Aristotle regarded law and education as the two fundamental and deeply interdependent tools of political art, making the use of education by the statesman a topic of the first importance in his practical philosophy. The present work develops the first comprehensive treatment of this neglected topic, and assesses the importance of Aristotle's defense of public education for current debates about school choice and privatization, and educational equality.

Abstract: This review assesses the potential impact of large-scale voucher programs, drawing on empirical literature in economics, education, and sociology. The discussion is guided by three research questions, grounded within an economic framework. First, are private schools more efficient than public schools? Second, does the increasingly competitive schooling market promoted by vouchers cause public schools to become more efficient? And third, do vouchers result in increased student sorting across public and private schools–perhaps increasing segregation by socioeconomic status–and what does sorting portend for student outcomes? For some questions, there is a paucity of credible evidence. For others, evidence from non-voucher systems is used inappropriately to forecast the impact of vouchers. The review concludes that empirical evidence is not sufficiently compelling to justify, either strong advocacy or opposition to large-scale voucher programs.

Abstract: Tracking programs have been criticized on the grounds that they harm disadvantaged children. The bulk of empirical research supports this view. These studies are conducted by comparing outcomes for across students placed in different tracks. Track placement, however, is likely to be endogenous with respect to outcomes. We use a new strategy for overcoming the endogeneity of track placement and find no evidence that tracking hurts low-ability children. We also demonstrate that tracking programs help schools attract more affluent students. Previous studies have been based on the assumption that students' enrollment decisions are unrelated to whether or not the school tracks. When we take school choice into account, we find evidence that low-ability children may be helped by tracking programs.

Abstract: "Race," Class and Gender in Exclusion from School, by Cecile Wright, Debbie Weekes, and Alex McGlaughlin. London: Falmer Press, 2000. 160 pp. $90.00, cloth. $29.95, paper. This book examines the confluent impact of race, class, and gender on school exclusion in the British educational system. The study on which this book is based took place in the wake of zero tolerance policies both in Britain and in the United States. Zero tolerance policies have led to growing numbers of student expulsions-in Britain these are now referred to as "exclusions"-in particular, the expulsion of Black students. The Black students in Britain are of African and African Caribbean descent. The authors study five schools in the same county educational authority and found that Black students were disproportionately (to their numbers in the school population) excluded for disciplinary infractions. These results are similar to the findings in recent studies of zero tolerance policies in American schools (Barton, Coley, & Wenlinksy, 1998; Burke & Herbert, 1996; National Coalition of Advocates for Students, 1998; Noguera, 1995). In previous years the authors had conducted research in the same education authority which showed alarming disparities between the exclusion rates of Black and White students. However, the strength of this study is the explication of the elements that undergird these results. This study is critical in light of the high expulsion rates of Black students, and, Black males in particular. Why are minority students expelled? The authors state clearly that "disobedience is the main reason leading to exclusion" (p. 126). However, the constructs of students' "disobedience" and their subsequent exclusion are interrogated through several empirical lenses. These lens include: (a) the Headmasters' beliefs about student exclusions in relation to school management and marketing (which I will discuss in more detail later); (b) racial and cultural incongruence underlying teacher-student relationships, which, in turn, leads to the exclusion of more students who are from different races and cultures than the teacher; (c) student resistance reified as disobedience due to the powerlessness of students' positionality within the educational structure; and, (d) racialized masculine identities that disallow Black males from taking advantage of the intrinsic rewards attributed to masculine identity within the educational sphere. In effect, this work demonstrates why exclusions are not simply a matter of students' inability to obey school rules. The authors analyze these lenses within a framework of each school's organizational ethos, which, they assert, is "created under a range of complex influences. On the one hand, internal policies, structures and attitudes of senior staff are involved. On the other, there is also a range of external pressures and factors" (p. 125). In effect, the authors critically examine each school's organizational culture-the shared meanings and beliefs about the ways that the schools operate-and the nuances of myriad school processes that contribute to student exclusion. In terms of external pressures, the authors connect student exclusion to changes in demands on schools to become more marketable in the new world of educational choice. Similar to the school choice polices implemented in the United States in recent years, the British educational system has also begun to place greater emphasis on competitiveness. Polices of open enrollment for example, allow parents to have more choice in which schools their children attend. However, these authors argue that such policies have given rise to new perceptions of students and managing schools as learning environments. Within a competitive school climate, the authors found that minority and low-income students were more frequently perceived as "undesirable" and thus, more frequently excluded. They note that within an educational system that is influenced by market system rhetoric, "exclusion has been implemented as a form of regulation and selection" [emphasis added] (p. …

Abstract: School districts in the U.S. typically have multiple schools, centralized finance, and student assignment determined by neighborhood of residence. In many states, centralization is extending beyond the district level as states assume an increasing role in the finance of education. At the same time, movement toward increased public school choice, particularly in large urban districts, is growing rapidly. Models that focus on community-level differences in tax and expenditure policy as the driving force in determination of residential choice, school peer groups, and political outcomes are inadequate for analysis of multi-school districts and, hence, for understanding changing education policies. This paper develops a model of neighborhood formation and tax-expenditure policies in neighborhood school systems with centralized finance. Stratification across neighborhoods and their schools is likely to arise in equilibrium. Consequences of intra-district choice with and without frictions are characterized, including effects on the allocation of students across schools, tax and expenditure levels, student achievement, and household welfare.

Abstract: Since 1992, the quality daily national press in England has published the examination results of secondary schools. In this paper, we discuss the policy context, the results that are published, how they are used by parents making preferences for secondary schools and the consequences of their publication. Overall, the publication of examination results has created a range of incentives for those in the education market place. These incentives serve to strengthen the position of certain categories of pupils on the one hand and certain types of schools on the other. The findings are discussed in the context of the Labour Government's focus on those at risk of social exclusion. Modified and additional indicators are proposed to mitigate the effects of the newly created quasi-market in education. 'League tables' are here to stay, for once information is in the public domain it cannot easily be suppressed.

Abstract: Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Educational Privatization and the Assault on Public Schools Chapter 3 Nothing Left to Choose: Education, Democracy, and School Choice Chapter 4 Coca Cola and the Commercialization of Public Schools Chapter 5 Collateral Damage Chapter 6 Pedagogues, Pedophiles, and Other Lovers: The Constructed Crises of the Predatory Teacher Chapter 7 Conclusion

Abstract: This paper investigates whether schools that face stronger choice-based incentives have greater demand for certain teacher characteristics and (if so) which teacher characteristics. Schools that face choice-based incentives should demand teachers who raise a schools' ability to attract students. Thus, in the long term, school choice would affect who became (and remained) a teacher if it affected schools' demand for certain teacher characteristics. Using data on traditional forms of choice (Tiebout choice, choice of private schools) and a new survey of charter school teachers, this paper finds evidence that suggests that school choice would change the teaching profession by demanding teachers with higher quality college education, more math and science skills, and a greater degree of effort and independence.

Abstract: Preface Acknowledgments 1. Introduction 2. Market Ideology 3. Democratic Education 4. School Choice 5. Educational Technology 6. School Restructuring 7. Curriculum 8. Civic Education 9. Conclusion Index

Abstract: Although parental choice of secondary schools is a subject of considerable public and academic interest, there has been relatively little research on the extent to which choice is undermining the traditional role of geographically defined school catchments. This paper, therefore, uses data provided by a case-study local education authority to examine the nature and scale of pupil flows across catchment boundaries. It does so by adopting a form of Geographic Information System as the principal research tool. The results show over a third of Year 7 pupils moving to schools other than their catchment comprehensive. Interestingly, the inner-city catchments were the most permeable: by contrast, children in middle class and rural areas were the least likely to enter a school outside their local area.

Abstract: an Goldhaber's interesting article on school choice ("School Choice: An Examination of the Empirical Evidence on Achievement, Parental Decision Making, and Equity," December 1999 Educational Researcher) inadvertently poses the arguments for and against choice in a way that may obscure rather than illuminate policy. It is all well and good to define school choice as "any policy that is designed to reduce the constraints that current school configurations place on schools and students" (p. 16), but, as Goldhaber himself recognizes by the end of his article, "the bounds of the debate have shifted rather dramatically from whether to enhance choice within the public system to the question of public funding for vouchers that could be used at private schools" (p. 22). Given that fact, he should have considered whether the school choice arguments, including those that support charter schools, were ever about anything but increasing the role of publicly funded, privately delivered education. When choice is about privatization, we need to know much more about how such an educa-

Abstract: This article attempts to address the potential advantages and disadvantages of school choice. The author describes why school choice is attractive to parents, but raises concerns among educators. The extent to which choice programmes in the UK and the US attempt to allay these concerns is addressed. The author asserts that there is a dearth of research material adequately testing the effects of choice on academic achievement. He further claims that the nationwide data sets used by researchers probably fail to test whether school choice really enhances the academic achievement of the participants. While the author has doubts about how widespread an effect school choice can have, he believes further research is necessary before one can objectively evaluate the potential benefits that school choice can produce.

Abstract: This paper considers the notion of schools in a spiral of decline, in which less popular schools within a market system lose numbers and increase their proportion of socially disadvantaged pupils over time. In an era of raw-score performance indicators such a decline could quickly become a spiral, with disadvantage leading to poorer aggregated results, leading to less popularity and so on. Using data derived all secondary schools in England from 1989 to 1999, we find little evidence for any increase in the existence of such schools. Whether we consider falling rolls, closing schools, or special measures we find only one school, among 30 LEAs considered in detail, that has both consistently falling rolls and increased social disadvantage. This one example may be due to market pressure, but we also present the suggestion that such irregular events happened prior to 1998 anyway. It is the case that the greatest increase in relative disadvantage in this school was from 1998 to 1999 (i.e. ten years after the Education Reform Act 1988), while its level of disadvantage as late as 1992 was only marginally higher than in 1989. Whatever potential arguments there are against the notion of allowing families to state their preferences for schools, the evidence here suggests that an increased danger of sending schools into spirals of decline is not one of them.

Abstract: In this water-shed volume, Youniss and Convey call for an immediate reexamination of Catholic schools -- one focused closely on the problems endemic to the schools themselves instead of how they have impacted political issues, such as vouchers and school choice. This seminal volume will interest educators and anyone concerned with the development and well-being of parochial schools.

Abstract: Amongst the factors, which have motivated market-based reforms of state schooling was a desire to increase choice and diversity. It has been claimed, on the basis of conventional economic analysis, that increasing competitive pressures on schools would promote greater curriculum innovation and diversity. We critically assess both the economic rationale and empirical support for this proposition, concentrating largely upon UK experience. Our analysis suggests that market-based reforms can initially create pressures which increase curriculum conformity in local schooling markets. Over time there are likely to be greater incentives to innovate and diversify, but these are greatest for schools who are least able to resource them.

Abstract: This paper examines the differences in an index of standardized test performance of urban private/public school seniors by race, using a sample of 4172 students from the 1992 US National Education Longitudinal Survey. In addition to using 257 exogenous variables to control for individual traits, family background, etc., we treat both student performance and school choice as jointly endogenous in the context of a simultaneous equations model with a latent variable: school choice. We find that while White students perform marginally better in private relative to public schools, a performance gain for private school minority students was not realized. Given the additional finding that school characteristics/quality do not affect minority student performance, we conclude that 'school choice' is mostly taken advantage of by White urban residents.

Abstract: Current education reform proposals involve improving educational outcomes through forms of market-based competition and expanded parental choice. In this paper, we explore the impact of choice through open enrollment within the Chicago Public Schools (CPS). Roughly half of the students within CPS opt out of their assigned high school to attend other neighborhood schools or special career academies and magnet schools. Access to school choice dramatically increases student sorting by ability relative to neighborhood assignment. Students who opt out are more likely to graduate than observationally similar students who remain at their assigned schools. However, with the exception of those attending career academies, the gains appear to be largely spurious driven by the fact that more motivated students are disproportionately likely to opt out. Students with easy geographical access to a range of schools other than career academies (who presumably have a greater degree of school choice) are no more likely to graduate on average than students in more isolated areas. We find no evidence that this finding can be explained by negative spillovers to those who remain that mask gains to those who travel. Open enrollment apparently benefits those students who take advantage of having access to vocational programs without harming those who do not.

Abstract: This new two-year study of low-income New York City students in grades 3 to 6 who received vouchers to attend private schools shows no significant difference in test scores between the scholarship group and the control group. It also finds that students performed about the same on standardized reading and mathematics tests in the two groups. The only strong and significant impact registered in reading and mathematics for African American students in grade six—the oldest of the students studied.

Abstract: This evaluation examines the impact of the first 6 to 7 months of the Washington Scholarship Fund (WSF) programs on students in grades 2-8 who had previously been attending public school, but had changed to private ones. More than 6,000 students had applied by lottery to a WSF school voucher program. The evaluation estimates the program's impact on student test scores in reading and mathematics as well as other educational and social outcomes. Private-school African-American students in.grades 2-5 outperformed their public-school peers by three national percentile points in reading and seven points in mathematics, but trailed their public-school peers in reading by eight points. No significant differences between the test score performance of non-African-American students in private schools were observed in either reading or mathematics. An appendix contains three parts: (1) a discussion of the procedures for adjusting weights; (2) tables of characteristics for those who did and did not attend the follow-up testing sessions and results of logit models used to estimate weights; and (3) full results from equations estimating impacts on test scores. (DFR) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. School Choice in Washington, D. C.: An Evaluation After One Year by Patrick J. Wolf William G. Howell Paul E. Peterson

Abstract: Part 1: Setting the Scene: What is the problem? What is the Government's response to the problem? Part 2: Looking at Particulars: Target setting, inspection and assessment Curriculum initiatives The revised National Curriculum Early Years education Special educational needs and inclusion 14-19 and lifelong learning The teaching profession The role of local education authorities Choice, diversity and partnerships Disengagement, truancy and exclusion.