Abstract
Parents are the linchpins in any school choice initiative—whether vouchers, intra- or interdistrict public school choice, voluntary desegregation plans, or the choice and supplemental services provisions of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). What parents know about and want for their child’s education critically defines the level of interest in school choice, and hence sets in motion (or not) all of the possibilities for competitive pressures and systemic change that reform-minded advocates espouse. If parents are basically satisfied with their child’s teacher and school, or if they have insufficient information about alternative schooling options, or if they express little desire to disrupt their child’s current education, then choice initiatives will not get off the ground.
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Notes
Mark Schneider, Paul Teske, and Melissa Marschall, Choosing Schools: Consumer Choice and the Quality of American Schools (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000). See also,
Terry M. Moe, Schools, Vouchers, and the American Public (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2001).
Phillip Converse, “The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics,” in Ideology and Discontent, ed. D. Apter (New York: Free Press, 1964).
Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000).
William Howell, “Dynamic Selection Effects in Urban, Means-Tested School Voucher Programs.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 2004. 22(3): 225–250.
John Hibbing and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse, Congress as Public Enemy: Public Attitudes toward American Political Institutions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
Jennifer Hochschild and Nathan Scovronick, The American Dream and the Public Schools (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).
Bruce Fuller, Richard Elmore, and Gary Orfield, Who Chooses? Who Loses? Culture, Institutions, and the Unequal Effects of School Choice (New York: Teachers College Press, 1996).
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© 2004 Frederick M. Hess and Chester E. Finn, Jr.
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Howell, W. (2004). Fumbling for an Exit Key: Parents, Choice, and the Future of NCLB. In: Hess, F.M., Finn, C.E. (eds) Leaving No Child Behind?. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403980373_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403980373_8
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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