Vol. 10 No. 6 (June 2000)

SCHOOL CHOICE AND SOCIAL CONTROVERSY: POLITICS, POLICY AND LAW by Stephen Sugarman and Frank Kemerer (Editors). Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1999. 378 pp.

Reviewed by Michael Giles, Department of Political Science, Emory University.

In SCHOOL CHOICE AND SOCIAL CONTROVERSY Stephen Sugarman and Frank Kemerer have designed a book not to make a case for or against school choice but rather "... to be helpful to those on all sides...as well as to those charged with designing and implementing school choice programs." They have attempted this challenging task within the format of an edited book. Although I must leave it to those actually charged with implementing school choice programs to determine whether this book has sufficient practical guidance to be helpful, it certainly provides an excellent overview of the politics and policy of school choice. While the authors of a few chapters "tip their hand" with regard to their position on school choice, the book also generally achieves its goal of pointing out the complex issues raised by the school choice rather than arguing for a position. The editors are also to be commended for recruiting a set of uniformly high quality scholars who have in turn contributed first-rate chapters. The book suffers none of the variability in quality that too often plagues edited books.

For readers seeking a quick introduction to the politics and policy of school choice the first three chapters of the book meet that need. Jeffrey Henig and Stephen Sugarman in "The Nature and Extent of School Choice," do a very good job of placing the idea of "choice" in context. They catalogue the various existing ways (e.g. residential movement) that already provide parents with a means of exercising "choice" in the selection of their children's schools. Robert Bulman and David Kirp in "The Shifting Politics of School Choice" provide a historical background for the emergence of school choice and its two main variants, voucher plans and charter schools. They do a very nice job of describing the intellectual and political history of these policy choices. They also highlight the different motivations driving voucher plans in particular. On the one hand is the market view that sees vouchers largely as a means of forcing school reform through competition. On the other hand is the equity view that sees vouchers as a means of providing students (principally minorities) trapped in low performing schools a means of achieving a better education. In all, this is a very nicely nuanced chapter. Jeffrey Henig's chapter "School Choice Outcomes" is a thorough and balanced assessment of the state of knowledge concerning school choice. He does an excellent job of framing the important policy questions and assessing the evidence addressing the questions. For example, the segregative effects of school choice are a major concern particularly for organizations that have long labored for school desegregation and remember "school choice" as a euphemism for segregation. Henig does not shy away from laying out the evidence suggesting how the choices of both

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white and black parents may result in increases in race and class segregation.

Perhaps the most challenging chapter in the book is "The Supply-Side of School Choice" by Paul T. Hill. Hill begins with the argument that choice requires schools that are coherent, distinctive and reliable. The argument is close to the well-known requirements of the "responsible party model." If parents are going to make choices then schools should present coherent programs that can be distinguished from one another, and the schools should be accountable for maintaining those programs overtime. He follows this argument to the conclusion that under current conditions the market will not supply an adequate number of such schools. He goes on to argue that choice "... programs must include overt supply-side strategies intended to increase the numbers of independent organizations capable of providing public education." Thus, his analysis suggests that pure market approaches will not work and, hence, institutional structures must be created to "help" the market on the supply side. His analysis undermines the idea that the shift to a market approach to providing choice in education will be simple and that the "hand of competition" alone can make school choice successful. Of all the chapters in the book, this one is probably best suited to foster a discussion among students.

There are two chapters that focus on broad issues of law and social choice - Robert O'Neill's, "School Choice and State Action and Jesse Choper's, "Federal Constitutional Issues." Legal scholars will find much of the content of these chapters familiar but they are both well worth reading. O'Neill does a good job of presenting what he considers the "easy" and "hard" cases for invoking "state action" in the context of school choice. Likewise, Choper lays out the complexity of existing case law surrounding what is probably the hallmark issue of school choice, use of vouchers to support religiously affiliated schools. The answer to key questions in this area he sees as depending on the uncertain position of Justice O'Connor.

There are problems with the overall structure of the book, but these problems are relatively minor and reflect its edited nature. Some of the chapters have overlapping subject matter. For example, both Robert O'Neill's chapter and the following chapter by Jesse H. Choper include discussions of the concept of state action. Similarly, Betsy Levin's chapter, "Race and School Choice," covers some of the same ground as Jeffrey Henig's chapter, "School Choice Outcomes." These overlaps, of course, are only an annoyance for someone reading the entire book. For a reader looking for a focused discussion of "state action" and school choice or race and school choice, the freestanding chapters provide efficient access.

The effort to provide broad coverage also creates some minor problems for the book. The last two chapters of the book, "Teachers, Teachers' Unions, and School Choice" by William Buss and "School Choice and Students with Disabilities" by Laura Rothstein, focus on interesting and important topics. In both chapters, however, the need to bring the reader "up to speed" in the particular area overwhelms the focus of the chapter on school choice. For example, Rothstein provides an excellent introduction to the various laws that pertain to disability and education but the implications for school choice policy are less well developed. I would really like to have seen her engage Paul Hill's argument in his chapter, "The Supply-Side of School Choice," that school choice requires schools

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that are distinctive, coherent, and reliable. How do the requirements of federal disability laws impact the ability of schools to achieve these traits? For example, can a district have a school whose "theme" is traditional discipline and, hence, rule out children with behavior disorders? Thus, while these two chapters are high quality scholarly treatments of their subjects, they could have been better framed to address an audience principally concerned with school choice.

In sum, SCHOOL CHOICE AND SOCIAL CONTROVERSY is an excellent collection of papers on the issue of school choice. It provides a good introduction to the politics and policy issues surrounding school choice.