Parents’ and teachers’ agency when practising school choice

Educational campaigning has received little attention in the literature. This study investigates long-term and organised urban campaigns that are collectively lobbying the Victorian State Government in Australia, for a new public high school to be constructed in their suburb. A public high school is also known as a state school, government school, or an ordinary comprehensive school. It receives the majority of its funding from the State and Federal Australian Government, and is generally regarded as ‘free’ education, in comparison to a private school. Whilst the campaigners frame their requests as for a ‘public school’, their primary appeal is for a local school in their community. This study questions how collective campaigning for a locale-specific public school is influenced by geography, class and identity. In order to explore these campaigns, I draw on formative studies of middle-class school choice from an Australian and United Kingdom perspective (Campbell, Proctor, & Sherington, 2009; Reay, Crozier, & James, 2011). To think about the role of geography and space in these processes of choice, I look to apply Harvey’s (1973) theory of absolute, relational and relative space. I use Bourdieu (1999b) as a sociological lens that is attentive to “site effects” and it is through this lens that I think about class as a “collection of properties” (Bourdieu, 1984, p. 106), actualised via mechanisms of identity and representation (Hall, 1996; Rose, 1996a, 1996b). This study redresses three distinct gaps in the literature: first, I focus attention on a contemporary middle-class choice strategy—that is, collective campaigning for a public school. Research within this field is significantly under-developed, despite this choice strategy being on the rise. Second, previous research argues that certain middle-class choosers regard the local public school as “inferior” in some way (Reay, et al., 2011, p. 111), merely acting as a “safety net” (Campbell, et al., 2009, p. 5) and connected to the working-class chooser (Reay & Ball, 1997). The campaigners are characteristic of the middle-class school chooser, but they are purposefully and strategically seeking out the local public school. Therefore, this study looks to build on work by Reay, et al. (2011) in thinking about “against-the-grain school choice”, specifically within the Australian context. Third, this study uses visual and graphic methods in order to examine the influence of geography in the education market (Taylor, 2001). I see the visualisation of space and schooling that I offer in this dissertation as a key theoretical contribution of this study. I draw on a number of data sets, both qualitative and quantitative, to explore the research questions. I interviewed campaigners and attended campaign meetings as participant observer; I collected statistical data from fifteen different suburbs and schools, and conducted comparative analyses of each. These analyses are displayed by using visual graphs. This study uses maps created by a professional graphic designer and photographs by a professional photographer; I draw on publications by the campaigners themselves, such as surveys, reports and social media; but also, interviews with campaigners that are published in local or state newspapers. The multiple data sets enable an immersive and rich graphic ethnography. This study contributes by building on understandings of how particular sociological cohorts of choosers are engaging with, and choosing, the urban public school in Australia. It is relevant for policy making, in that it comes at a time of increasing privatisation and a move toward independent public schools. This study identifies cohorts of choosers that are employing individual and collective political strategies to obtain a specific school, and it identifies this cohort via explicit class-based characteristics and their school choice behaviours. I look to use fresh theoretical and methodological approaches that emphasise space and geography, theorising geo-identity and the pseudo-private school.

What impact have Minnesota's public school choice options had on the state's education system overall? Mr. Nathan and Mr. Boyd report on some unanticipated positive results, some negative predictions that did not come to pass, and a few unfortunate instances that underscore the need for careful monitoring of the programs and the schools participating in them. THE SUPREME Court's voucher decision in July 2002 adds to the importance of understanding the promise and challenges of school choice within the public school system.1 An analysis of Minnesota's experience with school choice programs between 1985 and 2002, conducted by researchers at Penn State University and the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute, shows that school choice programs can be valuable and can help to stimulate improvement in the broader system. But the research we conducted also makes clear that any school choice plan needs to be carefully monitored and that participating schools should be reviewed regularly.2 Data for this project were gathered in several ways. More than 2,000 students were surveyed, including students who took advantage of the state's Post-Secondary Enrollment Options law and students at six representative alternative schools in rural, urban, and suburban areas. More than 50 individuals, including representatives of key state education, community, and business organizations, were also interviewed. An extensive research and literature review was carried out, and, in cooperation with Minnesota's Department of Children, Families, and Learning (the state education department), information was gathered and analyzed from previously unpublished state records. A Brief Overview of Minnesota's School Choice Laws Minnesota began passing public school choice legislation in 1985 and has enacted four major programs. * Postsecondary options (1985). This program allows high school juniors and seniors to attend a college or university full or part time, with state funds following the students to pay tuition and lab and book fees. Any student admitted by a college or university is eligible, and the decision to apply is left to the student. * Second-chance options (1987). This program allows 12- to 21-year-old students who have not succeeded in traditional schools, according to a variety of measures, to attend smaller alternative schools created by a district, a group of districts, or a private organization that can convince a district to give it a contract. * Open (1988). This program allows K-12 students to move across district lines as long as the receiving district has room and the movement does not harm desegregation efforts. * Charter schools (1991). This program allows educators to create new schools or convert existing public or private nonsectarian schools into public charter schools with no admissions tests. The schools are responsible for improving achievement, or they are closed. These schools must be authorized or sponsored by one of several groups, including local districts, postsecondary institutions, or nonprofit organizations with at least $1 million in assets. Who Participates in School Choice? A great deal of discussion has taken place about enrollment and charter schools. But our research demonstrated that the largest school choice programs in Minnesota -- by far -- were those authorized by the 1987 law allowing students who had not succeeded in traditional school settings to attend a different, often much smaller, alternative school. This program is also the fastest growing. According to state figures, the number of students participating in second-chance programs grew from 4,050 in 1988-89 to more than 100,000 in 2000-01. Meanwhile, participation in the open program grew from 140 in 1988 to just over 28,000 in 2000-01. From 1988 to 2000, overall K-12 grew 17%, but the number of students participating in one of the four statewide choice programs grew more than 1,300%. …

Soulevant le paradoxe de l'obligation de l'education civique des enfants et de l'apprentissage des valeurs fondamentales du liberalisme telle que l'autonomie de l'individu, l'A. montre que la permissibilite de l'education civique pose probleme, tant du point de vue de l'autorite de l'ecole en matiere d'enseignement et de l'autorite des parents en matiere d'education, que du point de vue de la legitimite de l'etat liberal au regard du consentement hypothetique des citoyens. Examinant les arguments en faveur de l'education civique developpes par W. Galston et A. Gutmann, ainsi que l'argument instrumental en faveur de l'education falicitant l'autonomie, l'A. montre que le debat souleve la question de la place de la famille religieuse de l'enfant et la question des programmes scolaires dans le cadre limite de la doctrine liberale

Background Over recent decades, school choice (the process by which parents select a school of their choosing for the child/children) has become a key component of education policy pursued in many countries, and a critical decision for many parents. While global scholarship has broadened understanding of how families engage with and experience school choice, less is known about how this choice operates in reciprocity with institutional practices, namely school admissions and selectivity procedures, particularly in non-Western contexts. Purpose This paper examines parents’ school choices in Iran – not in isolation, but in a reciprocal relationship with schools’ student choices. In this context, both parents and schools actively assess one another to decide whether the other is the right ‘fit’. The study posed two research questions: 1) How do parents think about and enact school choice in relation to schools’ selectivity? and 2) How do school personnel perceive and respond to parent’s affections, expectations, and preferences during the school choice process? Method Twenty-five in-depth interviews with parents and school personnel were conducted in Tehran, the capital of Iran, during autumn 2019. The data were analysed thematically, using the concepts of school cultural orders (instrumental and expressive), habitus, and distinction. Findings Parents’ school choice, as a complex social process, reciprocally influenced, and was influenced by, schools’ student choice. Through this reciprocity, parents and schools weighed one another up, expressed concerns and preferences, negotiated expectations, and sought an optimal ‘fit’; a dynamic that shaped the enrolment of the ‘right’ students, the composition of a particular student body, and the ongoing reproduction of both familial privileges and institutional culture. Conclusion These reciprocal mechanisms of school choice reveal that school choice is not merely about accessing educational resources but about securing boundary-making and distinction. Through practices of inclusion and exclusion, the interplay between parental and institutional decision making can contribute to the persistence of inequalities and the perpetuation of social reproduction and division.

This paper examines the political economy of school choice and focuses in particular on the role of suburbanites. This group, which we contend is the most important and powerful stakeholder in choice debates, has yet to receive much attention in the commentary. It turns out that suburbanites, by and large, are not wild about school choice, either public or private. Suburbanites are largely satisfied with the schools in their neighborhoods and want to protect the physical and financial independence of those schools (as well as their property values, which are tied to the perceived quality of local schools). School choice threatens the independence of suburban schools by creating both the possibility that outsiders - particularly urban students - will be able to attend suburban schools and the possibility that some locally-raised revenues will exit local schools as students leave to attend either private schools or public schools outside of their residential districts. When suburbanites perceive a threat to their schools, they fight back, and they usually win. As the paper documents, school desegregation and school finance litigation, despite some successes, largely left suburban districts undisturbed in their ability to control attendance and the expenditure of local resources. A similar pattern is emerging in school choice plans, almost of all which work to protect the physical and financial autonomy of suburban schools and residents. If this pattern continues, school choice plans will be geographically constrained, will tend to be intradistrict, and will exist primarily in urban districts. So constrained, we argue, school choice will neither be a panacea for public school students (as its proponents claim) nor will it be much of a threat to the continued existence of traditional public schools (as its opponents claim). Instead, as we endeavor to show, such plans hold the promise of limited academic improvement, little to no gain in racial and socioeconomic integration, and limited gains in efficiency among public schools. To achieve the theoretical benefits of school choice, such plans must be expanded, especially in ways that will increase socioeconomic integration. The final part of the paper is devoted to considering ways to do so, which include supporting the drive for increased access to government-funded (though not necessarily government-operated) preschools, the theory being that the more parents experience (a form of) school choice, the more their perceptions and preferences regarding choice might change.

This paper examines the political economy of school choice and focuses in particular on the role of suburbanites. This group, which we contend is the most important and powerful stakeholder in choice debates, has yet to receive much attention in the commentary. It turns out that suburbanites, by and large, are not wild about school choice, either public or private. Suburbanites are largely satisfied with the schools in their neighborhoods and want to protect the physical and financial independence of those schools (as well as their property values, which are tied to the perceived quality of local schools). School choice threatens the independence of suburban schools by creating both the possibility that outsiders - particularly urban students - will be able to attend suburban schools and the possibility that some locally-raised revenues will exit local schools as students leave to attend either private schools or public schools outside of their residential districts. When suburbanites perceive a threat to their schools, they fight back, and they usually win. As the paper documents, school desegregation and school finance litigation, despite some successes, largely left suburban districts undisturbed in their ability to control attendance and the expenditure of local resources. A similar pattern is emerging in school choice plans, almost of all which work to protect the physical and financial autonomy of suburban schools and residents. If this pattern continues, school choice plans will be geographically constrained, will tend to be intradistrict, and will exist primarily in urban districts. So constrained, we argue, school choice will neither be a panacea for public school students (as its proponents claim) nor will it be much of a threat to the continued existence of traditional public schools (as its opponents claim). Instead, as we endeavor to show, such plans hold the promise of limited academic improvement, little to no gain in racial and socioeconomic integration, and limited gains in efficiency among public schools. To achieve the theoretical benefits of school choice, such plans must be expanded, especially in ways that will increase socioeconomic integration. The final part of the paper is devoted to considering ways to do so, which include supporting the drive for increased access to government-funded (though not necessarily government-operated) preschools, the theory being that the more parents experience (a form of) school choice, the more their perceptions and preferences regarding choice might change.

This is a story of a national school reform unfolding in a single school district, Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland. It is a story of school choice as formulated by Congress, as understood by district officials, and as exercised by parents. Telling this story requires that we understand several dimensions of educational decision making: the decisions of district officials confronted with a perhaps unwanted, but important and serious, task; the decisions of parents (and children) at the schools where choice is now available, who must decide whether to leave or to stay; and finally the actions and decisions of children and parents at the receiving schools, whose own characteristics and demographics affect both the policymakers' decisions and the decisions of the parents and students offered school choice. It is a story told here through the re-creation of the decision-making processes of these individuals, as informed by the information they had at their disposal. The story does not pretend to depict any individual's actual conduct but is drawn from an in-depth quantitative and geographic analysis of the effects of their decisions over the past two years. The reconstruction of their logic is drawn exclusively from the aggregate data produced by the completion of those tasks and their decisions about schooling choices.KeywordsAfrican American StudentLimited English ProficiencySchool ChoiceHispanic StudentChoice OptionThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

How can civic education in a liberal democracy give social diversity its due? Two complementary concerns have informed a lot of liberal thinking on this subject. Liberals like John Stuart Mill worry that "the plea of liberty" by parents not block "the fulfillment by the State of its duties" to children. They also worry that civic education not be conceived or conducted in such a way as to stifle "diversity in opinions and modes of conduct."' Some prominent contemporary theorists add a new and interesting twist to these common--concerns. They criticize liberals like Mill and Kant for contributing to one of the central problems, the stifling of social diversity, that they are trying to resolve.2 The comprehensive liberal aim of educating children not only for citizenship but also for individuality or autonomy, these political liberals argue, does not leave enough room for social diversity. Would a civic educational program consistent with political liberalism accommodate significantly more social diversity than one guided by comprehensive liberalism?3 Political liberals claim that it would, and some recommend political liberalism to us largely on this basis. This article shows that political liberalism need not, and often does not, accommodate more social diversity through its civic educational program than comprehensive liberalism. Section I examines the defining difference between political and comprehensive liberalism and suggests why we might expect to find a significant difference in the accommodation of social diversity by political and comprehensive liberalism through civic education.

Since the pre-independence era, the Malaysian schooling system has remained ethnicized by two cultural boundaries: language and religion. To explain this situation, this article focuses on how these ethnic boundaries work within Malay and Chinese parents’ decisions for National and National Type of Schools, respectively. Thirty Malaysian Malays and 25 Chinese students born between the 1970s and the 1990s were interviewed in this research. The data showed that the majority of them had been enrolled in a primary and secondary school which could be associated with their ethnic identity. Analysis of the findings also suggested that despite the importance of future career planning, regionality and family socioeconomic background in the choice of schooling, it was the language and religious factors which had determined their parents’ final decision. It also suggested that a schooling pattern based on the factors of language and religion has been sustainably maintained for three decades. The parental decision was not a simple action as it is also related to the ‘everyday’ understanding of what kind of school is appropriate to a particular ethnic group. The results of this study offer a theoretical explanation of ethnicity in everyday life from the constructivist perspective. This study also highlights how ethnic boundaries are the end-product of a social process rather than a taken-for-granted, natural and primordial fact of life ascribed through birth. Keywords : boundaries, cultural boundaries, ethnicity, primary school, schooling decision, secondary school

School choice is often identified with right-leaning, voucher-happy, market-oriented public school systems like those found in the United States. Thus, the proposition that a social democratic state such as South Africa will offer many primary and secondary school learners far greater choice strikes many as counter-intuitive and implausible. The authors demonstrate that the three major pieces of education framework legislation—National Education Policy Act (NEPA), South Africa Schools Act (SASA) and Employment of Educators Act (EEA)—conspire with recent historical events and deep political and constitutional commitments to create South Africa's unintended experiment in school choice. The authors emphasize that the legal framework created by legislation and regulation are necessary but not sufficient conditions—they prefer to call them enabling conditions—for the creation of quasi-markets in schools. The generation of quasi-markets in schools depends on several other factors required for all markets. The absence of many of these features in much of South Africa explains why the majority of South African learners do not have access to quasi-markets in schools. The absence of such features is largely a function of apartheid's legacy of deeply entrenched patterns of inequality in primary and secondary schooling. Having demonstrated that historical, political, legal and economic conditions had the unintended consequence of producing school choice—and that school choice was not the result of the state's adoption of a conscious and deliberate policy—the authors examine the state's response to this de facto policy. The authors remain agnostic as to the desirability of the de facto policy and conclude with an exploration of some of the primary critiques of choice in South Africa. While they dismiss the 'political' critiques as largely facile, the available empirical evidence suggests the limited systemic benefits and the potentially deleterious consequences for the poorest of the poor who reside in areas where quasi-markets exist. The state's current 'conscious' attempts to re-engineer a modest mixed model, that emphasizes access to existing quasi-markets—and thus exploits superior existing school stock for the benefit of learners from historically disadvantaged communities—and that shifts public resources to those schools in the greatest need, accords with what little we know about the advantages and disadvantages of choice. Notes 1. The politics and the policy imperatives in the Western capitalist democracies and post-apartheid South Africa could not have been more different. As one of the authors has written: On the wave of the election of a series of right wing governments in the 1970s and 1980s, school choice and the education market were increasingly promoted as 'the answer' to the problems of public education. Drawing on the private school model in which individual institutions were forced to be accountable to consumers, governments proposed various strategies to create quasi-markets or competition within the public system or between the public and private sectors. (Fleisch, Citation2002, p. 87). The emphasis on transformation meant that language of privatization had little purchase in South Africa—even at the level of rhetoric. Despite the international prevalence of this policy approach, it made little in-roads in the South African policy discourse. Few policy analysts advocated competition as the high road to the transformation of education (Fleisch, Citation2002, p. 87) But that did not stop a market in schools from being created: While few argued that market forces would improve the system, the legislative framework, as well as key aspects of the new constitution, inadvertently created the environment for quasi-markets or, more accurately, niche markets to flourish. The South African system would come to take on the certain characteristics of a market system with policies of open enrolment, parent choice, per capita spending, devolved budgets, and compulsory school fees. Open enrolment as a policy was the outcome of the new constitution's prohibition against unfair discrimination on the basis of race, class, religions, sexual orientation, and language. Given the historical legacies of apartheid which required certain people to live in specified geographic areas compulsory zoning regulations would constitute a form of 'unfair' discrimination as children from historically African areas would be prevented from gaining access to historically white schools. (Fleisch, Citation2002, p. 87) 2. SGB autonomy has its roots in the very history of South African liberation movements. Many of the state's early education initiatives were predicated on the assumption that sustained school improvements must develop organically out of community participation and that community participation is contingent upon stronger (read autonomous) school governance structures (see GDE, Citation1994). See also GDE, Citation1995a ('The key to successful school development lies in the capacity of communities at all levels to guide and manage their own development. … In the short term, a priority is on the revitalization of participatory structure [sic] at the school governance level, and creating the space for their development and empowerment'); GDPW, Citation1997, pp. 10–11 ('It was envisaged that community participation would prompt greater civil society participation in school governance, and stimulate emerging builders … It was believed that the toilet project would help to transfer power from the state to school governing bodies'). See, generally, ANC, 1994 ('[T]he people affected must participate in decision-making … Democracy is not confined to periodic elections. It is, rather, an active process enabling everyone to contribute to reconstruction and development'); ANC, 1992 ('Calls for dual structures of power: the state, on the one hand, community stakeholders on the other'). It is, among other things, a testament to the ANC's commitment to democracy that a party without a real opposition would divest itself of decision-making power based upon its belief that local schools and local communities would be best served by local political structures—in this case the SGB. However, the ANC's belief in the need for a strong central government to effect transformation may have militated against giving too much power to the community. See Sayed (1999, p. 143). (Sayed notes that community representatives—unlike parents—do not having voting status on SGBs in terms of SASA. However, it seems reasonable to ask why community representatives, who have no direct tie to the school, should have such status.) As we shall see in Part 2, the drafting history discloses how the multiple constituencies with whom the state had to contend and the conflicting imperatives within the state's own agenda led to greater decentralization of decision-making. Three points need to be made about this commitment to decentralization. First, the partial decentralization of decision-making may have had less to do with a belief that local is always better, and more to do with the state's need to ensure that no one interest group would be able to use the law as a means of organizing in opposition to the state. Secondly, the partial decentralization of decision-making flows from the inevitable conflicts between deontological, utilitarian and communitarian commitments manifest in the ANC's political agenda (as it would in any well-developed, non-reductionist political theory). Thirdly, while the de facto policy of choice that arose out of this conscious attempt to dismantle the old bureaucracy and to distribute power throughout the new educational system was not actually anticipated by the ANC, the new government did realize that this particular aspect of its agenda might have such unintended consequences. The drafting history is, as a result, replete with references to the provisional nature of the structures being created by the state and the state's commitment to revisiting and to revamping those structures as it consolidated its power and it shifted its policy imperatives. 3. Choice—from the perspective of learners and parents—is not simply about access to better institutions (cf. Sekete, Citation2000, p. 38). Indeed, the tendency to discuss choice in terms of student movement from township to suburb obscures the more interesting dynamics of choice (cf. Makhararamedza, Citation1998, p. 11). Current patterns of student migration in South Africa are a function of a disparate array of factors (see Maile, Citation2000, p. 97). The end of apartheid meant the end of restrictions on freedom and movement. Student migration occurs, in part, because families can move: in search of better work, better service delivery, greater proximity to family (see Vandeyar, Citation2001, p. 92, noting confluence of job availability in industrial areas and ability of such areas to sustain better schools through higher fees). Some families move because of concerns about security. Indeed, school security—or lack thereof—is one of the primary reasons for learner movement (see Nzimande, Citation1994, p. 241). 4. Although data on choice is limited, the 2001 Census shows that 'although the vast majority of schoolgoers (82, 3%) walked to school, this varied by province' (Statistics South Africa, Citation2005, p. 104). That variation is significant: 'In Limpopo, 93, 9% of schoolgoers walked to school, compared with 59,1% in Gauteng' (Statistics South Africa, Citation2005, p. 104). But what is particularly interesting is the large numbers of learners who took buses, taxis and trains to school. Almost 1.2 million out of 12 million learners used these forms of transport. Even assuming that many learners had to travel large distances to get to the primary or secondary school in their feeder zone, this statistic suggests that a large number travelled through feeder zones to a school of preference. This choice plus travel option appears to have been exercised primarily in Gauteng and the Western Cape. This correlates with both the higher incidence of better schools in more privileged communities and better systems of transport in and about the major urban centres. Furthermore, transport statistics do not account for those parents and learners who exercise choice through movement of residence or movement of employment. 5. This tension between liberation and reconciliation dominated the early documents produced by the Department of Education (Citation1995, p. 5): 'The Review Committee proposes that the new structure of school organisation should create the conditions for developing a coherent, integrated, flexible national system which advances redress, the equitable use of public resources, an improvement in educational quality across the system, and democratic governance. The new structure must be brought about through a well-managed process of negotiated change, based on the understanding that each public school should embody a partnership between the state and a local community.' See also Sayed (1999, p. 142): 'Both the previous ruling National Party and the opposition anti-apartheid movement shared a commitment to some form of educational decentralization albeit for very different political and ideological reasons.' 6. Take the related subject matter of school fees (Fleisch & Woolman, Citation2004, p. 111). Shortly after ascending to power in 1994, the ANC promulgated several statutes—and a host of regulations—that permitted school fees. Although it ceded authority to SGBs to make significant decisions about such things as fees, policy makers underestimated the ability of parents to organize. Many policy makers believed that few SGBs would secure the statutorily required 50% approval rate of parents for fees if they attempted to charge excessive amounts. This initial miscalculation meant that the state did not anticipate the lengths to which the poor would go to fund the education of their children in fee-expensive schools and the concomitant interest some schools would have in excluding learners who would not or could not pay fees. It also underestimated the extent to which information asymmetries would skew the distribution of educational goods. Ten years later, the state has a much better conception of the interests that shape and distort the market in education. The national DoE has announced amendments to the South African Schools Act designed to correct various market distortions. See ELA Bill 2005. It plans to divest SGBs of some of their current authority to hire teachers. It seeks to eliminate fees for the poorest 40% of schools and to push for tighter enforcement of exemptions. It intends to reissue circulars that inform learners and their parents of their rights with regard to such exemptions. All of these initiatives are designed to minimize information asymmetries and to promote greater access to existing educational resources. The fragile state that governed from the mid-1990s through the fin de siècle did not possess the requisite power to effect such changes. An ever-strengthening state has announced its intention to reshape the environment in a manner that moves beyond reconciliation to redress. 7. (1986) 478 US 675, 681, 683. See, e.g., Dewey (Citation1944); Guttmann (Citation1987). For example, civics classes with community service components remain accepted features of the secondary school education landscape and often constitute a condition for graduation. These programmes are justified on the grounds that they promote awareness and acceptance of the responsibilities of citizenship. See Rutter and Newman (Citation1989, p. 371). 8. FC s9, Equality, reads, in relevant part: '(1) Everyone is equal before the law and has the right to equal protection and benefit of the law … (3) The state may not unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone on one or more grounds, including race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth.' See Albertyn and Goldblatt (Citation2006). 9. FC s21, Freedom of movement and residence, reads, in relevant part: '(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement. (2) Everyone has the right to leave the Republic. (3) Every citizen has the right to enter, to remain in and to reside anywhere in, the Republic.' See Klaaren (Citation2006). 10. The picture of student movement is, of course, more complicated. Learners from African, Indian and Coloured communities seek access not only to the better resourced schools in predominantly white and privileged communities, but to better resourced schools in African, Indian and Coloured communities. In this respect race is a synecdoche for class. 11. Harksen v. Lane (Citation1998); National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality v. Minister of Justice (Citation1999); Satchwell v. President of the Republic of South Africa (Citation2003); Bhe v. Magistrate, Khayelitsha & Others (Citation2005). Our assumption is borne out by the comments of school officials simultaneously concerned with the rational and orderly management of schools and the twin imperatives of redress and transformation. See Affidavit of Margaret Webber, Sunward Park High v. MEC, Education, Province of Gauteng (Citation2005). 12. Once again it is important to emphasize the extent to which SGBs were not simply tools of the privileged, but were understood to serve the interests of the majority of South Africans. As one of the authors pointedly puts it: 'As an inclusive body of parents, teachers and learners at secondary schools, the election of SGBs did more than any other reform to stabilize schools' (Fleisch, Citation2002, p. 101). 13. IC s 247, Special provisions regarding existing educational institutions, reads, in relevant part: '(1) The national government and the provincial governments as provided for in this Constitution shall not alter the rights, powers and functions of the governing bodies, management councils or similar authorities of departmental, community-managed or state-aided primary or secondary schools under laws existing immediately before the commencement of this Constitution unless an agreement resulting from bona fide negotiation has been reached with such bodies and reasonable notice of any proposed alteration has been given. … (3) Should agreement not be reached in terms of subsection (1) or (2), the national government and the provincial governments shall, subject to the other provisions of this Constitution, not be precluded from altering the rights, powers and functions of the governing bodies, management councils or similar authorities of departmental, community-managed or state-aided primary or secondary schools, as well as the controlling bodies of universities and technikons, provided that interested persons and bodies shall be entitled to challenge the validity of any such alteration in terms of this Constitution.' 14. DoE (Citation1994, p. 21): 'Parents or guardians have the primary responsibility for the education of their children, and have the right to be consulted by the state authorities with respect to the form that education should take and to take part in its governance. Parents have the inalienable right to choose the form of education which is best for their children, particularly in the early years of schooling, whether provided by the state or not, subject to reasonable safeguards which may be required by law. The parents' right to choose includes choice of the language, cultural or religious basis of the child's with regard to the rights of and the rights of choice of the The of power and the of that led to conditions are choice is in the state's of what the legal framework for the SGBs was designed to structure and governance must be and coherent, but flexible to take account the of school the significant in the conditions of South African schools, the availability or absence of management parents' or in school governance, and the of many parents from their schools. (1) ensure both national and the of a of national in the public school system, while and … (3) of the stakeholders of the school to take responsibility for school governance, within a framework of regulation and by the provincial education ensure that the of government authorities in school governance is at the required for legal and is based on school governing bodies to the and or of their schools, within the framework of provisions schools, and national and provincial school ensure that the decision-making authority to school governing bodies is with the of an equitable of public resources, and the right to resources, for them to … ensure both and redress in from public resources, in to a a distribution of public and the of by pp. emphasis The on fees in South Africa a about the extent to which concerns about white and the of makers from the system led to the current of school fees. It is that at one international such concerns as part of an in of school fees. seems is that a school fees would the existing stock of schools, ensure some access to schools by of historically disadvantaged communities the state to from schools in communities to schools in the greatest need without a major political with and and entitled School in relevant part: of after with of governing bodies, may feeder zones for public schools, in to the learner numbers of schools and feeder zones need not be to the school or each a feeder is created must be to a learner who in the feeder of a school or who with or parents at an in the feeder a learner who the feeder is not precluded from at school or However, access to a school be a learner who within the feeder of a school must be to the school if school is school is an school within a reasonable must be found by the of that is not school must the the of learners parents live in the feeder zone, in their own or their learners is in the feeder or other come See p. feeder zones had been by any provincial as of of Employment Act is who in the of or and a a by a as of a and a who of children, the the the or the See also to this have been made in various education These circulars to the provincial of education the power to a school the school has been as the school has an to take children on the a provincial Department of Education such power has been the subject of recent See of that the SGB the authority to the language policy of a public school and that the provincial of education has no power to its regarding the language policy for that of the See and in relevant part: 6. The of Department is for the of the of learners to a public school. The of Department may the responsibility for the of to a school to officials of the 7. The policy of a public school is by the governing body of the school in terms of of the South African Schools the policy must be with the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, … the South African Schools Act … and provincial law. The governing body of a public school must make a of the policy available to the of 8. The of Department must the of schools and the of of learners to public schools with governing bodies to ensure that all learners are in terms of the South African Schools Act 9. to this it is particularly important that all learners of compulsory school are in public schools. The policy of a public school and the of by an education must not unfairly discriminate in any against an for For example, in public school policies are subject to the Gauteng School Education Act of the South African Schools Act of the Gauteng Education Policy Act 12 of the of Equality and of Act of all regulations under the and all relevant provisions of the of that the for See out by far the framework for of See means or including a condition or which directly or indirectly or or or advantages any on one or more of the gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and and out the for in the case of discrimination on a the party that in discrimination to that such discrimination was That is not The of the under the Constitution a similar See FC and Harksen v. Lane at See also (1) public school must learners and serve their educational without unfairly in any See the regulations under the and the Gauteng Education Policy Act 12 of Citation1998, entitled of Learners to of 2001 of (1) policies for schools must not unfairly discriminate against any learner in any a governing body of a school may not any related to the of a learner to a school, or direct or the or any other to such and no learner may be to a school or against in any on the grounds that or is to pay or has not the school fees, … not to the of the school and of of the See of that FC s right to education in an language at a public educational if not the right to such education at each and public educational It the the SGB the authority to the language policy of a public school and that the provincial of education has no power to its regarding the language policy for that of the See also Sunward Park High that public school, at must attempt to by to take on who have not been access and p. p. and that the for decentralization is to create the of to the will of the people in their own community. The state, itself as being one with the See Sayed (1999, p. 143). Even if one is about the state's is always to be an tension between government sufficient power to what it to be necessary in policy and the government sufficient to local stakeholders to government to be to the and the of different communities. See Gauteng School Education Bill power of the central government to national and that upon individual and group the of these interests is for any account of how the open create such unintended consequences as the de facto policy of school choice. p. that the SGB and the The evidence of years of this suggests that SGBs and do in the United that and teachers this in where can and where of or schools such See FC includes at all excluding The of that policy be at the level of See p. p. Many would prefer that the state less The less variation the it may be to policy and

ABSTRACTThis article explores the importance of considering transportation mode when calculating commute time for a child’s school choice options. While proponents of school choice argue that students can attend any school that will provide them the best education, several have argued that commute time is as important for families as a school’s characteristics. However, research to date models commute time using either distance as a proxy or minutes driving. In Philadelphia, a context where most people use public transportation to work and school, the authors argue that commute time to school must be calculated using this mode of transit. Using geospatial network analyses, the authors create choice sets for each neighborhood public high school. They first calculate the commute time between each zoned public high school and each public high school choice in the city by driving and by using public transportation. These two sets of commute times are then evaluated for the differences. The authors then calculate choice sets based on the average commute time in the city based on both modes of transportation. Finally, they compare the choice sets for each service area for spatial equity of public school quality. Findings indicate that the commute times between driving and public transportation are statistically different. Furthermore, public school choice sets within Philadelphia are spatially equitable, although the overall school quality needs improvement. The article concludes with policy implications and recommendations for future research.

[연구목적] 이 연구는 어떻게 하여 핀란드는 1990년대 이후 글로벌 교육개혁 흐름과 별도로 자신만의 독특한 경로를 밟았는가에 대해 알아보기 위한 것이다. 이를 위해 이 연구는 핀란드 교육의 역사적, 정치적, 문화적, 우연적 요인을 종합적 으로 알아 본 뒤, 핀란드의 주요 교육정책 형성과정에서 이러한 맥락적 요인이 어떤 식으로 작용하였는가를 파악해 보고자 하였다. [연구방법] 이 연구는 주로 문헌 조사방법을 활용하였다. 그리고 핀란드의 질보증 평가와 학교선택제를 문헌조사의 주 대상으로 하였다. 이 두 정책은 1990년대 이후 글로벌 교육개혁이 핀란드에도 영향을 준 대표적인 정책이지만 논쟁에 비해 실제 그 영향력은 매우 미미하였다. [연구결과] 주요 연구결과는 첫째, 핀란드는 역사적으로 볼 때, 중앙정부의 권위 주의적 리더십을 중시하는 전통에서 시장형 책무성평가를 도입하지 않았다. 둘째, 정치적으로, 사회민주당을 중심으로 한 연정으로 종합학교, 즉 뻬루스꼬울루 정신이 강해 매우 제한적인 학교선택제만을 실시하였다. 셋째, 우연적 요소로서, PISA에서의 높은 성취도와 교육전반에 걸쳐 나타난 모범적인 성과는 기존의 경로 의존성을 강화시켰다. [결론] 핀란드는 글로벌 거버넌스의 영향을 받았으나 국내 요인과 상호작용하면 ‘핀란드식’ 정책을 조형했다고 볼 수 있다. 이는 정책차용에서 로컬의 맥락적 요소가 간과되어져서는 안 되며, 글로벌 교육정책이 일방향으로 전파된다기 보다 일국의 역사, 정치, 문화적 요인과 상호작용하면서 변형되어 나타난다는 정책차용론과 관련이 있다.[Purpose] This study examines the way Finland has formed its own unique way with little influences from global education reform movement in 1990s. This research uses the framework with historical, cultural, and contingent components to investigate how these contextual elements have an affect on the formation of major educational policies. [Methods] Literature review method was used to identify relevant studies and materials that author targeted on two major educational policies: quality assurance assessment and school choice. These policies are thought of as crucial parts of global educational reform movement influencing on the Finnish education in 1990s. [Results] First, Finnish education did not actively introduced the market-based accountability tests because the Finnish are likely to respect the leadership of central government and the authority of National Board of Education. Second, only ‘soft’ school choice was implemented under the political environment in which the spirit of ‘Peruskoulu’ in comprehensive school reform has long been rooted partly by grand coalition around Social Democratic Party. Third, as a part of contingent elements, the Finnish PISA success in both students achievement and other overall positive outcomes has reinforced the path dependency of Finnish education. [Conclusion] Finland has also been influenced by global governance but has formed the applicable educational policies on its own way, so called ‘in the Finnish way’, by interacting with historical condition, political environment and factors of contingency such as PISA success. The research findings imply that complex phenomena of local context in policy borrowing should not be overlooked in that global educational policies are transformed and diversely implemented when they come to local particularities of history, politics, and culture of a nation-state rather than globally spreading in one direction.

From the Editorial Board Virtual Charter Schools:Where Did All The Children Go? Sarah Byrne Bausell Over the last decade, parents and students seeking a more flexible and individualized educational experience have increasingly turned to virtual public charter schools, the newest trend in an age old U.S. debate about school choice (O’Hanlon, 2012). Though the school choice movement emanates from what Alan Wolfe (2009) noted as “the right end of the political spectrum” (p. 34), school choice (and all of its more recent mutations) has enjoyed bipartisan nurturance, rooted in a collective commitment to a consumer choice ideology and supported by a steady stream of model bills manufactured by assertive school choice lobbyists. Most notably, the Virtual Public Schools Act (2011), a model bill introduced by the conservative free market collective called the American Legislative Exchange Council, ensured that cyber public schools in Tennessee would be “provided equitable treatment and resources as any other public school” (Underwood & Mead, 2012). The model bill has since been passed in numerous states. As a result virtual charter schools typically receive the same spending per pupil as a brick and mortar charter, despite not having any expenditure for food service, facilities, or transportation (Saul, 2011). It would be a mistake to chalk virtual charter schools up as just another public education fad. According to a 2014 National Educational Policy Center report, the United States is host to over 400 virtual charter schools (Molnar et al., 2014). Though still a relatively small number of schools, the rate of this ten-year growth is extraordinary. For an estimated 300,000 students seeking an alternative pathway, these schools afford an opportunity to earn accreditation from the comfort (or confines) of home (Samuelsohn, 2013). With guaranteed and ample public funding, virtual charter schools are staged to become ubiquitous features in our public school landscape. Virtual public charter schools stem from a politically charged and economically motivated ideology- one that has inextricably tied pupils to purse strings. The two most prominent corporations running virtual charters, K12 and Connections Academy (recently acquired by Pearson Inc.), reported happy news in last year’s annual stock reports. K12 earned 948 million dollars in revenue (K12, 2015, p. 3), while the share price for Pearson, which owns Connections Academy, rose over 32% (Moreno, 2014). Connections Academy and K12 are not merely virtual schools benefiting from increased enrollment numbers; they are also wheelhouses for the rampant outsourcing of educational auxiliary services, providing curriculum packages and online courseware for brick and mortar schools. Like all lucrative business models, they help shape a need and then they fill that need. Despite recent media attention, which questions “aggressive student recruitment” (Rabin-Havt, 2015) and implies the misuse of tax dollars for marketing purposes (Smith, 2013), for K12, the $26.5 million spent on advertising in 2010 served their corporate mission well (Saul, 2011). However, what’s good for investors is not necessarily so for the most immediate stakeholders: students. Promotional materials herald this service as highly individualized [End Page 109] and “expert vetted,” but recent empirical evidence paints a much grimmer portrait: dysfunctional schools, huge student attrition rates, dismal test scores, overworked teachers, and reports of an abounding cheating culture (Barbour & Reeves, 2009). An analysis of school performance revealed that only 27% of the nation’s virtual public charters met Adequate Yearly Growth in the 2013–2014 school year (Molnar et al., 2014). For example, Hubbard and Mitchell (2011) found that over half of the Colorado students enrolled in virtual charters either transferred to a different school or stopped attending school entirely within a one-year time frame. Attrition rates are not only a Colorado concern; despite receiving over 4.1 million dollars for student tuition in 2014, the Massachusetts Virtual Academy at Greenfied (owned by K12), ranked amongst the lowest performing schools in the state (Allen, 2013). A 2013 Politico investigation revealed that cyber charter schools in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York precipitated student attrition rates sometimes three times the number of their equivalent brick and mortar counterparts (Samuelsohn, 2013). Within this messy intersection between profit and schooling there are huge consequences for students and their families, which warrant our careful consideration. Virtual charter...

Major political changes since 1994 have initiated the pace of change in the South African education system. Parents’ values, traditions and practices that served in the past were no longer relevant in the new dynamic educational environment. Parental school choice and “the right to choose” movement has subsequently come to the fore. The purpose of this article elucidates findings regarding the demographics of active school choice engagement among middle class parents in Western Gauteng, South Africa. The study, situated in the Gauteng province, South Africa, followed a conclusive research design with a post positivist paradigm. Parent questionnaires were distributed to different types of urban schools to establish the perceptions of parents regarding the factors, anxieties, aspirations and strategies influencing school choice decision-making. Findings reveal that language, income and education not only have a definitive influence on active school choice engagement but also affect the level of importance attached to specific school choice factors. Education in South Africa can thus be viewed as a unique complex system embedded in a political, cultural and economic context.

We apply propensity score matching to the estimation of the disparity in school effectiveness between the privately owned, privately funded school sector and the public one in a sample of 25 countries in Europe, America and Asia. This technique allows us to distinguish between school choice and school effectiveness processes and thus, to account for selectivity induced variation in school effectiveness. We find two broad patterns of private independent school choice: the choice as a social class reproduction choice; and the choice of an outsider’s for a good-equipped school. As regards school effectiveness, our results show that, after controlling for selectivity and school choice processes, the initial higher reading scores of students in private-independent schools become comparable to those public schools students in a majority of countries. However, in a few countries average reading scores remain higher in the private independent sector even after introducing controls for school choice induced selectivity. The opposite pattern, namely of higher average reading scores in the public sector has also been found in four countries.