What America Can Learn from School Choice in Other Countries

by David Salisbury (Editor), James Tooley (Editor)

Parents in many other countries have more choice among schools than American parents do. In other countries parents can choose private, even religious, schools without financial penalty. This book draws out the critical lessons for U.S. policymakers and shows how freedom to choose schools and healthy competition among schools can create strong academic success and, at the same time, promote social integration and religious tolerance.

Public funding of school choice in Canada: a case study / Claudia R. Hepburn --
School choice in Sweden: is there danger of a counterrevolution? / F. Mikael Sandström --
The Chilean education voucher system / Claudio Sapelli --
The special education scare: fact vs. fiction / Lewis M. Andrews --
What the United States can learn from other countries / Charles L. Glenn --
Private education for the poor: lessons for America? / James Tooley --
School choice: lessons from New Zealand / Norman LaRocque --
Evidence on the effects of choice and accountability from international student achievement tests / Ludger Woessmann --
Market education and its critics: testing school choice criticisms against the international evidence / Andrew Coulson --
Choice as an education reform catalyst: lessons from Chile, Milwaukee, Florida, Cleveland, Edgewood, New Zealand, and Sweden / John Merrifield

252 pages, Hardcover

First published April 27, 2005

Reviews

[April Helms · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is actually a collection of essays written by others, on the advantages and disadvantages of charter schools and private schools versus public schools. I tried reading this with an open mind, but the most glaring problem is the book is heavy on hypothesis and speculation, and light of actual, raw data. The charts that were there were either useless or confusing. The last two essays were the best. Another problem is it's pretty dated at this point; many of the "oh, this probably won't happen" speculations actually have happened (example, charter schools pulling money from public schools). I'm sure there are ways education can be improved in America (and needs to be improved). But this book is not exactly the source for this type of inspiration.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a collection of articles/essays by supporters of school choice programs around the world. Most of the articles take a critical look at the "choice" programs in countries where they exist and discuss what separates them from true free education markets. With the exception of the article on Chile's system, there was a widespread lack of school performance data cited, which made the essays somewhat less than impactful. This book provides interesting background information on the education policies in a handful of countries (Sweden, New Zealand, Chile...), but the lasting impression that the book leaves is that America can learn very little from school choice programs in other countries because none of them go nearly far enough. The final article by John Merrifield was the most interesting of the collection.