Schooling is a very emotive subject and down history, it has always been kept under a beady eye. With further globalisation, your country's schooling is now under relative examination and ranking. Given the importance of the knowledge based economy, a good productive citizen can only come out from a good schooling system!
So this book (RHETORIC versus REALITY: What We Know and
What We Need to Know About Vouchers and Charter Schools) by RAND is actually very timely as it provides a good overview of what's happening in the crucible of American Schooling. Some extracts:
Academic Achievement
• Small-scale, experimental privately funded voucher programs
targeted to low-income students suggest a possible (but as yet
uncertain) modest achievement benefit for African-American
students after one to two years in voucher schools (as compared
with local public schools).
• For children of other racial/ethnic groups, attendance at voucher
schools has not provided consistent evidence of either benefit or harm in academic achievement.
• Achievement results in charter schools are mixed, but they suggest
that charter-school performance improves after the first year of operation. None of the studies suggests that charter school
achievement outcomes are dramatically better or worse on average than those of conventional public schools.
Choice
• Parental satisfaction levels are high in virtually all voucher and
charter programs studied, indicating that parents are happy with
the school choices made available by the programs. In the experimental voucher programs that have been studied for two
successive years, levels of parental satisfaction declined slightly
in the second year but remained substantially higher than those
of public-school comparison groups.
Access
• Programs explicitly designed with income qualifications have
succeeded in placing low-income, low-achieving, and minority
students in voucher schools.
* In most choice programs (whether voucher or charter), however,
students with disabilities and students with poorly educated parents
are somewhat underrepresented.
• Education tax subsidy programs are disproportionately used by
middle- and upper-income families.
Integration
• In communities where public schools are highly stratified, targeted
voucher programs may modestly increase racial integration
in that they put minority children into voucher schools that
are less uniformly minority without reducing integration in the
public schools.
• Limited evidence suggests that, across the nation, most charter
schools have racial/ethnic distributions that probably fall within
the range of distributions of local public schools. In some states,
however, many charter schools serve racially homogeneous populations.
• Evidence from other school-choice contexts, both in the United
States and abroad, suggests that large-scale unregulated-choice
programs are likely to lead to some increase in stratification.
Civic Socialization
• Virtually nothing is yet known empirically about the civic socialization effects of voucher and charter schools.
But there is MUCH UNKNOWN and the authors talk about what people do not know.
And they provide policy options, which are indeed good enough for me to quote here.
How might policymakers maximize the likelihood that voucher/
charter schools will be academically effective?
• Include existing private and parochial schools
• Enforce requirements for testing and information dissemination
• Do not skimp on resources
How might policymakers maximize the likelihood that systemic
effects on nonchoosers will be positive rather than negative?
• Establish communication among schools
• Impose consequences on schools that do not perform at acceptable
levels
• Give public schools the autonomy to act competitively
• Require open admissions
• Require all students to choose
How can policymakers ensure that a substantial number of autonomous
schools will be available?
• Permit existing private and parochial schools to participate
• Provide generous funding
• Avoid overregulation
• Create multiple chartering authorities, including but not limited
to the local school board
How can policymakers ensure that autonomous schools will serve
low-income and special-needs students?
• Actively disseminate information about schools
• Target specific students
• Forbid tuition add-ons
• Provide generous funding
• Use a direct funding method rather than funding through the
income-tax system
• Provide supplemental funding for students with special needs
• Require open admissions
How can policymakers promote integration in programs of autonomous
schooling?
• Require open admissions
• Target communities with racially homogeneous public schools
• Include existing private and parochial schools
• Reward integration financially
How can policymakers ensure that voucher/charter schools will
effectively socialize their students to become responsible citizens of
our democracy?
• Disseminate information about mission, values, curriculum, and
outcomes
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