This book presents the first published accounts and evaluations of the first free market in education in the U.S., Arizona charter schools.. The charter school is fast becoming one of the most significant attempts at public education reform in this country. Over 1100 charter schools operate in twenty-seven states, with several hundred more to be added in the next two years. School Choice in the Real World looks at the charter school movement through a highly focused lens: it examines chart...

This book offers a sophisticated overview of President Obama’s education agenda, exploring how and why education policy became national and ultimately presidential over the past seven decades. The authors argue that the Obama education agenda, though more ambitious, is broadly in line with those of recent presidencies, reflecting elite views that since substantial increases in spending have failed to improve equity and achievement, public schools require reforms promoting transparency such...

Educating Believers: Religion and School Choice offers theoretical essays and empirical studies from leading researchers on religion and schooling.Religious authority and emphasis on fairness and caring provide consistent rules governing the stable family and community relationships needed for individual growth and collective action. Religion is among the most important aspects of human life, likely hard-wired into human beings, and intimately intertwined with schooling. T...

There is no shortage of opinions on the legacy that George W. Bush will leave as 43rd President of the United States. Recognizing that Bush the Younger has been variously described as dimwitted, opportunistic, innovative, and bold, it would be presumptuous to draw any hard and fast conclusions about how history will view him. Nevertheless, it is well within academia's ability to begin to make preliminary judgments by weighing the evidence we do have and testing assumptions.In the w...

Education began on the most intimate levels: the family and the community. With industrialization, education became professionalized and bureaucratized, typically conducted in schools rather than homes. Over the past half century, however, schooling has increasingly returned home, both in the United States and across the globe. This reflects several trends, including greater affluence and smaller family size leading parents to focus more on child well-being; declining faith in professional...

In this book, leading experts present rigorous, readable studies of education policies and school markets in 11 European countries from Ireland to Ukraine, offering lessons for researchers, policymakers and educators. No other book fills this niche.Americans debating whether parents’ choosing their children’s schools will improve education would be wise to learn from a century of experience in Europe, where most governments have long subsidized private schools, including religious ...

COVID-19 and the Classroom: How Schools Navigated the Great Disruption presents social science research that explores how schools navigated the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic from March 2020 through the 2020-21 school year. This book also serves as a history book, documenting what this period was like for those involved in the enterprise of educating children. The book is divided into three sections, allowing for an in-depth exploration of the pandemic’s impact. The fi...

This book features contributions from leading experts who present peer reviewed research on how the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic affected U.S. teachers, students, parents, teaching practices, enrolments, and institutional innovations, offering the first empirical findings exploring educational impacts likely to last for decades.The COVID-19 pandemic presented the greatest crisis in the history of U.S. schooling, with America’s 50 states, thousands of school systems, and tens of ...

Imagine an America where politicians, governmental institutions, schools, new technologies, and interest groups work together to promote informed, engaged citizens. Civic Education in the Twenty-First Century brings together scholars from various disciplines to show how such a United States is possible today. Inspired by Alexis de Tocqueville’s analysis of American democracy in the early 1800s, this edited volume represents a multidimensional evaluation of civic education in its new and va...

Millions of Americans—including many experienced politicians—viewed Barack Obama through a prism of high expectations, based on a belief in the power of presidential persuasion. Yet many who were inspired by candidate Obama were disappointed in what he was able to accomplish once in the White House. They could not understand why he often was unable to leverage his position and political skills to move the public and Congress to support his initiatives. Predicting the Presidency ex...

An urgent case for protecting public education, from one of America's best-known education expertsIn this landmark book, Diane Ravitch - former assistant secretary of education and a leader in the drive to create a national curriculum - examines her career in education reform and repudiates positions that she once staunchly advocated. Drawing on over forty years of research and experience, Ravitch critiques today's most popular ideas for restructuring schools, incl...

Michael Savage—conservative talk radio host and #1 New York Times bestselling author—takes on President Obama's socialist agenda, his Chicago-style strong-arm tactics, and his Lenin-like complex in Trickle Up Poverty. Savage's quest is to help American's save America from economic Armageddon, and Trickle Up Poverty addresses everything from the global warming myth to the health care debacle to the Tea Party revolution, in an essential conservative manifesto that ...