A Journey of a Thousand Opinions

...In his final chapter, Cookson presents a complex plan that would literally set up an "educational trust fund" to guarantee every American child an equal share of the community's educational resources...

...School Choice focuses on a particularly divisive question concerning the education of our 40 million students: Should parents and youngsters participate in selecting a public school and, if so, in what manner...

...and among teenagers there is an alarming prevalence of single motherhood, school drop-outs, unemployment, violent crime arrests, and violent deaths...

...Of the many cases Cookson looks at, he singles out two for direct comparison: Miltona Science Magnet School in tiny rural Miltona, Minnesota, and the Urban League Street Academy in inner-city St...

...Ultimately, for all of the author's evident determination to be rigorously unbiased, he comes close to denouncing free-market ideologues not only for much of the disarray in American education, but for many of the social injustices that mar our country...

...Mill saw state-sponsored education as "a mere contrivance for molding people to be exactly like one another...

...A war of ideas is under way, and it is being waged on many fronts...

...It doesn't work...

...The differences among school systems themselves, of course, are enormous...

...Publicly sponsored "charter schools" are independent of direct government control, but accountable for reaching prescribed levels of student achievement...

...Cookson casts great doubt on the faith that the invisible hand's benign magic will benefit our children...

...Choice per se is thus shown to be largely irrelevant to student performance...

...Speaking of the entrepreneur who brought television commercials into classrooms, and is now trying to set up a chain of model private schools, he asks: "Can it be that Christopher Whittle is the John Dewey of the 21st century...

...In the world's richest nation, a quarter of the population under age six now lives in poverty—twice the rate for adults...

...The major types he sees are "intra district choice...

...On paper, the Street Academy seemed to promise a solution to its students' problems, but choice alone could not overcome the social calamities of ghetto life...

...Formidable contemporary legal thinkers like Stephen Arons of the University of Massachusetts and Charles Glenn of Boston University maintain that compulsory public education violates the First Amendment...

...controlled choice"—that is, freedom to select a school within a given area, restricted by considerations of its racial, gender and socioeconomic balance...

...It allowed the predominant power in government, he said, to establish "a despotism over the mind...

...He agrees that innovative changes are desperately needed...

...In her highly regarded 1974 book, The Great School Wars, former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch observes that from the time of the American Revolution the idea of a public school system has stirred political passions...

...The most vehement proponents of school choice today tend to be old and new conservatives...

...significantly, its members are mostly religious organizations of every stripe...

...He points out, however, that there "change preceded choice": District 4 received a great deal of outside funding that made possible innovations not feasible elsewhere...

...Indeed, it is an indispensable treatment of an issue that goes to the heart of our nation's future...

...The silver lining Cookson sees is the urgent effort—on both sides of the choice debate—to save our children from a public school system that is "failing to create a literate, numerate, socially conscious citizenry...

...Miltona's triumph stems from its having motivated, supportive parents and enjoying the complete support of the community...

...The Street Academy is "a privately organized alternative program that seeks to personalize the education of students at risk," primarily African-Americans, "and enable them to complete high school...

...Cookson's counterarguments, based on his sobering examination of a wide range of choice schools, are compelling...

...School Choice is not entirely free of academic jargon, and its structure is somewhat awkward...

...According to the latter, "the natural operations of markets will drive out bad schools and reward good schools...

...Reviewed by Edward T. Chase Writer and book editor Peter Cookson's book appears at a time when one of this country's most excruciating problems, the plight of its children, is growing worse...

...Rather, a fundamental principle that emerges repeatedly is the importance of parental involvement to the success of any school...

...The intellectual origins of the choice movement are traced by Cookson back to John Locke's notions of personal liberty and, more directly, to John Stuart Mill...

...Dedicated teacher though he is, he concedes that schools alone cannot eradicate our society's ills—but insists they can intervene and improve many young lives...

...Against this background...

...Paul...

...In fact, he concludes that there is precious little "measurable relationship between school governance and student achievement...

...He is simply warning of the consequences if reforms are "not driven by a sense of educational and social justice...

...A voucher program, in his view, is the worst of all options because it diminishes funds for the public system and permits the best students to opt out of it...

...So central is this issue to the debate over school reform that Cookson's subtitle, The Struggle for the Soul of American Education, is hardly an overstatement...

...But choice in general, if unmonitored, poses the danger of producing "further academic and social stratification," by "creaming" strong students out of the schools of working-class neighborhoods and into better ones elsewhere...

...and "magnet schools," offering specialized programs usually designed to maximize integration...

...One of the book's strengths, despite the author's clear penchant for grappling with the debate's philosophical underpinnings, is its detailed descriptions of specific situations...

...Other schemes embrace the concept of privatization...

...His objective is a public system that is concerned with the "intellectual growth, physical safety and moral development" of all students, and rewards "those schools with educational vision and social commitment...

...the birthrate is declining...

...Virtually every other indicator of young America's condition is equally dismal: Infant and child death rates are high...

...The conflict that has pitted supporters of reforming and enriching the existing public school system against advocates of choice or vouchers or privatization, suggests Cookson, mirrors a wider unresolved dispute "between those who believe in a society based on traditional community values and those who believe that individual self-interest promotes collective well-being...

...With greater equity between schools and districts, he believes a program of inter-district "managed choice" could allow each public school to become a magnet of some type, and experimental "model schools" could be fostered...

...The Landmark Legal Foundation, the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, and evangelical opponents of secular humanism find allies in the Department of Education's "Center for Choice in Education" office...

...He finds virtually no solid evidence of superior schools owing their success to choice...

...He notes that "school choice" is a broad catch phrase: "One cannot be for or against [it] in general, one can only respond to specific plans...

...An able reporter and analyst as well as an experienced educator, Cookson calls his research "a journey of at least a thousand opinions...

...Miltona, drawing from a large farming district, attracts families interested in its strong science-oriented curriculum...

...It dwells at length, for instance, on the famous Community School District 4 in East Harlem and its flagship Central Park East Secondary, whose high graduation rates have made it a favorite model for choice advocates...

...If maintaining the well-being of children is a key test of a society's character, America is flunking it...

...It works...

...Thus the ideal of the common school—which some may recall as one of America's glories—would give way to a "system of public and private schools that are divided by race and class...

...Prominent intellectuals, including Ravitch and Harvard's Nathan Glazer, also support the choice movement...

...open-enrollment interdistrict choice," sometimes covering an entire state...

...A variation would offer tuition credits against parents' income tax if their child attends a nonpublic school...

...But what it lacks in elegance it makes up for in conciseness, comprehensiveness and admirable common sense...

...Voucher plans entail government payment of a fixed amount per child and extend choice to private schools...

...Thomas Paine was one of the first to press for a voucher system...

...Vouchers that would subsidize private school choice are championed by a powerful lobbying group called the National Coalition for the Improvement and Reform of American Education...