Educational neoliberalization: the mediatization of ethical assertions in the voucher debate

ABSTRACT

This study focuses on the evolving ethical claims and empirical evidence being advanced within U.S. media relating to voucher-style programs. As such, the research seeks to better understand how and why these policies proliferate, despite scant evidence recommending them. Our specific media focus reflects the recognition that issues, problems, and solutions are defined and set within ‘ethical’ frameworks through the media, often in efforts to influence the polity. Framed by the concept of ‘neoliberalization’, the analysis notes dominant discourses and activities by both advocates and opponents around the issue. Specifically, the research reveals shifting ethical assertions. Media-based ‘choice for all’ advocacy, and support of generalized parent choice/empowerment via voucher reforms, have become more prominent, while advocacy related to expanding choice for the disadvantaged has receded (though with certain high-profile exceptions). Meanwhile, opponents engage in what sometimes appears as more reactionary, though still active, media participation in seeking to challenge such reforms.     

The Legality of School Vouchers

ABSTRACT

In 2002 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state-supported vouchers, which parents can redeem in private schools, do not offend the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Thus, the legality of government vouchers to fund education will be determined primarily on the basis of state law. Specifically, programs are being challenged under state constitutional provisions calling for the legislature to provide for a uniform system of education or provisions prohibiting the use of public funds in sectarian institutions. This article explores legal developments in this regard, with particular emphasis on implications of the recent state supreme court decisions striking down challenged voucher programs. Also addressed is current legislative activity, which will likely generate additional litigation pertaining to school vouchers. doi:10.1300/ J467v01n03_05     

从限制到鼓励:国外择校政策透视

20世纪80年代以来,西方发达国家义务教育阶段的入学政策出现了一个逆转:从限制择校到鼓励择校。由“大政府”向“小政府”的转变,是推动西方发达国家教育政策转向最主要、最直接的动力。择校政策的实质就是试图借用市场手段来实现改革的目标。目前,公众与研究人员对择校政策的态度褒贬不一。就我国国情而言,近年内不宜推行择校制。     

The Effect of Private School Vouchers on Political Participation: Experimental Evidence From New York City

In 1997, the New York School Choice Scholarships Foundation Program (SCSF) randomly offered three-year scholarships to attend private schools to approximately 1,000 low-income families in New York City. In this paper we leverage exogenous variation generated by the SCSF to estimate the causal effect of the private school voucher offer—and the private school attendance it induced—on later-life voter registration and turnout outcomes. Our results demonstrate that the voucher intervention had no effect on registering to vote or voting in any of several elections for either the full sample or any of several demographic subgroups. Although unique aspects of the SCSF context impose limits on the scope of our results, they have clear implications for assessing the relative effectiveness of public and private schools in preparing democratic citizens. We close the paper by discussing the implications of the results for research and policy.     

从选拔性教育到选择性教育:英国基础教育的价值取向

20世纪80年代末,英国开始在基础教育阶段实行择校政策,试图在保证教育公平的原则下促进教育的多样化,主张"有差异的平等",承认所有学生具有不同的天赋并且使每个人达到优秀和成功,在提出多样性学校选择范围的同时,提出所有学校取得成功的政策目标,强调好学校必须发挥示范和带动作用,与本地区其他学校、地方教育管理部门和企业界合作,改造薄弱学校,推动整体教育水平的提高,达到均衡发展的目标。这一政策在取得效率与公平方面迈出了一步。     

The Educational and Behavioral Impacts of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Charter School

The Kauffman School is a public charter school serving students from low-income neighborhoods in Kansas City, Missouri. This paper used a matched comparison group design to estimate the impacts of the Kauffman School on student achievement, attendance, and suspensions. We found that the Kauffman School had large positive impacts on student achievement in mathematics, reading, and science. This paper also used qualitative data to explore possible mechanisms for the school's effects. We found evidence that the Kauffman School's hallmarks are being implemented faithfully, and that stakeholders believe the school's methods are having a positive influence on students' attitudes and performance     

Rural Communities Lacking Multi-Sector Schooling Options: Indiana’s School Choice Deserts

ABSTRACT

Despite Indiana’s school choice landscape – including private school vouchers, tax-credit scholarships, inter-district and intra-district enrollment, magnet schools, and charter schools – not all Indiana communities have reasonable access to options outside of their traditional public schools. This research explores what lack-of-reasonable access differences – defined as greater than a 30-minute one-way drive time to a choice school – exist by locale, with a focus on rural communities. Geospatial analysis is used to identify “school choice deserts” lacking multi-sector schooling options in various communities. These deserts tend to exist wholly or mostly in rural areas, although Indiana students in grades K–8 exhibit greater access levels to non-traditional schools than those in high school.     

Supplying Choice: An Analysis of School Participation Decisions in Voucher Programs in Washington,DC, Indiana,and Louisiana

Since school voucher funds are public, policymakers fiercely debate how those funds should be spent. A goal of many decision-makers is to ensure that every private school option is “high-quality” through program accountability regulations. Private schools, however, decide whether to participate in a private school choice program and likely factor the amount of state regulations into that decision. This paper estimates the program participation decisions of the private schools in D.C., Indiana, and Louisiana. We specifically examine the impacts of voucher regulations on the supply-side of voucher programs. We employ a linear probability model to examine how school quality, as measured by revenue, tuition, enrollment, and Great School Review scores, is associated with program participation for schools. Results indicate that higher tuition-levels and larger cohort enrollments, conditions normally associated with high quality schools, identify schools that are less likely to participate in voucher programs. We also find a consistent negative relationship between Great Schools Review score and the school participation decision in all three locations; however, these coefficients are not statistically significant. State fixed effects reveal that private schools in D.C. and Louisiana, the two states that have higher regulatory burdens, are less likely to participate in voucher programs.     

美国小规模学校经济价值分析

小规模学校为更佳的学校业绩提供了良好的运转平台，但许多决策者与反对者认为它是昂贵的。文章将“学校产出”与“学校支付”结合起来考虑，以“毕业生生均花费”为新的评估角度，以比较大、小规模学校的运转经费为突破口，以分析大规模学校的潜在支出为佐证，以加强小规模学校的措施为补充，证明小规模学校的支出是有效的，从经济学角度论证小规模学校是学校改革的一个恰当选择。     

学校效能与学校改革：对英国最新研究成果的述评

在对英国学校效能研究与学校改革最新研究成果进行了分析与研究后，我们可以发现目前学校效能与学校改革中存在的一些问题以及有待努力的方向。     

课程评价:从学业成就评价走向学业评价

在新课程的背景下,传统课程评价以学生学业成就评价为依据具有不合理性,因此对学生的评价应从学生学业成就评价走向学生学业评价,强调学业过程、学生发展和活动表现,让学生学业真正满足社会和个人未来发展的需要。     

从管理到经营--构建学校经营理论的探索

学校在市场经济条件下出现了经营行为，但由于缺乏科学理论和新的学校管理学科理论指导，这不仅让学校管理感到困惑，同时也对理论研究提出了挑战。研究学校经营问题，重构学校管理理论，引导学校从传统行政管理向适应市场经济发展的学校经营转变，是现代教育管理学发展研究之急需。学校经营理论应研究学校经营的概念界定、学校经营的可行性和前提条件，揭示学校经营理论架构等基本问题。     

Creating Educational Destruction: A Critical Exploration of Central Neoliberal Concepts and Their Transformative Effects on Public Education

Individualism and competition are central neoliberal concepts that have profoundly altered the U.S. public education system. This article draws on poststructuralist theory and advances the argument that these concepts have produced problematic policies and deeply flawed school choice mechanisms such as charter schools and school vouchers. I also explore how educational activists contested neoliberal ideology and reshaped reality as they defeated a neoliberal education policy in North Carolina.     

从不确定走向认识自我:学校育人的魅力所在

学校育人的魅力在于转变学生,促使其从发展的不确定走向认识自我。实践中,学校有必要转变“确定性”办学思路,从学校教育的价值意义、实践逻辑、内容形式、管理评价等方面进行改革,切实构建起以促进学生对象生命潜力激发、生命能力增进、生命境界提升的自由、多元、开放的学校教育体系。     

论杨时在洛学到闽学中的作用

从洛学到闽学,是宋代中国古代文化重心南移的一个重要过渡。在这期间,杨时、游酢到河南拜洛学大师二程为师,“程门立雪”、“载道南归”,三传而至朱熹。朱熹创立闽学,集理学之大成,在闽、浙、赣之武夷山一带形成新的文化重心。杨时道南学派在洛学到闽学中的主要作用：其一是传续洛学,沟通二程与朱熹思想;其二是为朱熹思想体系的形成和成熟作了准备;其三是为朱熹的代表作《四书集注》成书提供了思想资料。杨时道南学派的思想是宋代中国文化南移再兴的源头活水。     

The Australian Education Union: A History of Opposing School Choice and School Autonomy Down-Under

In this article, I chronicle the recent history of efforts to broaden school choice in the Commonwealth of Australia and the opposition to these efforts put forth by Australia’s largest teacher union, the Australian Education Union (AEU). Evidence is presented on the positive effects that flow from the public funding of nongovernment schools and of the perception held by principals that less external regulation improves school functions. In spite of this, the Union continues to oppose choice efforts. I conclude that, at least in Australia, the influence of the AEU has placed impediments in the way of increased school choice and autonomy. Readers in other countries may draw their own conclusions from these observations in Australia.     

Historical construction and Australian Catholic education: accounting for school funding policy from the cultural politics of Australian education

This paper seeks to explain why the policy history of school funding in regard to Australian Catholic Education looks and sounds the way it does today through the production of a genealogy of the subject. The questions addressed are, first, why has the funding of Catholic schools in Australia become an occluded historical site since the 1970s, despite the controversy in which popular accounts of the funding of Australian schools is mired, and when its prevalence so completely dominated the discourses of Australian education in the prior century? Second, has funding policy discourse been defined and contained and what basis is there for contesting such discourse in light of events since that period of time? Third, which or whose policy version triumphs and becomes the accepted policy process and which other policy approaches are obliterated in this process? The theoretical perspective adopted in this paper draws from both postmodern critiques and cultural theories of historical construction, as framed within Foucauldian Studies.     

教育券：教育领域的双赢政策——美国教育券实例分析

义务教育阶段公立学校的教育质量一直是包括美国在内的许多国家的问题，美国实施教育券改革带来的外部竞争促使公立学校进行改革，同时也发展了私立学校，是教育领域的双赢政策。     

成本管理:学校管理的新视点

加强学校成本管理,提高办学经济效益,已成为学校管理的重要组成部分.但目前关注教育成本并将成本意识列为学校具体管理事项的还不多见.因此,必须建立科学的教育成本观,有效控制学校教育成本,实现教育的良性运行和发展.     

从区隔走向共生:乡村学校文化建设的选择

乡村学校的文化建设是新时期乡村学校发展的内在诉求,乡村学校的振兴离不开乡村学校的文化建设,反思乡村学校文化建设面临的问题并寻求应对措施显得尤为重要。在对学校文化的内涵整体理解和把握的基础上,探讨乡村学校文化建设过程中存在的问题,主要包括:外显文化的凸显弱化了内隐文化的意义;现代文化的"移植"遗失了传统文化的作用;教师文化的"离土"阻碍了师生关系的建构;工具性文化的强化忽视了人文性文化的价值。在分析问题的基础上,提出乡村学校的文化选择:强调内涵建设,促进内隐文化和外显文化的共生;立足地方实际,追求现代文化和传统文化的共生;尊重学生地位,呼唤学生文化和教师文化的共生;回归教育本质,寻求人文性文化和工具性文化的共生。