Educational Delusions?: Why Choice Can Deepen Inequality and How to Make Schools Fair

by Erica Frankenberg, Erica Frankenberg

The first major battle over school choice came out of struggles over equalizing and integrating schools in the civil rights era, when it became apparent that choice could be either a serious barrier or a significant tool for reaching these goals. The second large and continuing movement for choice was part of the very different anti-government, individualistic, market-based movement of a more conservative period in which many of the lessons of that earlier period were forgotten, though choice was once again presented as the answer to racial inequality. This book brings civil rights back into the center of the debate and tries to move from doctrine to empirical research in exploring the many forms of choice and their very different consequences for equity in U.S. schools. Leading researchers conclude that although helping minority children remains a central justification for choice proponents, ignoring the essential civil rights dimensions of choice plans risks compounding rather than remedying racial inequality.

Genres: Education

330 pages, Hardcover

First published December 26, 2012

Reviews

[Despina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful

[Patrick Ma · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt like I was losing the forest to the trees until the conclusion, when everything came together. For most of the book, dense statistics, assumption of a highly-informed reader, and many graphs made it clear that this book was written by an academic. A quarter way through I had to stop and google 'charter schools' because I realized I had no idea what charter schools were.

The truth is complicated. Choice is not a holy grail, nor is it a poison. It must be used with the consideration of race. The data that segregation always increases unless active policy counteracts it is the strongest argument I've ever heard in favor of affirmative action, and one I've never heard before.

Often times, 'choice' means picking between a lousy charter school and a lousier public school. At the end of the day, desegregation means that minorities will enter rich suburban schools.

Educational segregation is intimately tied with housing segregation, which I hadn't thought of before. Charters and magnet schools all can work, but desegregation must occur on a district-wide level that includes affluent suburbs and poor cities.

[Daniel Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book basically gave me the research to back up a lot of my beliefs regarding charter schools, segregation and educational inequality. It has provided much of the frame work for two documentary projects I am working on and I hope to work with Dr. Orfield during the course of Phd study. There were a number of points about charter schools and their administration that I was not familiar with; the lack of transportation for a large majority, the lack of free lunch programs, etc. that actually increase segregation and exacerbate inequality in a number of different ways. This book should be required reading for anyone looking to get into teaching or education administration.