| Description |
xxiv, 264 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm. |
| Series |
Praeger series on American political culture |
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Praeger series on American political culture.
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| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Contents |
List of tables -- List of figures -- List of maps -- Series foreword -- Preface -- Chapter 1: Freedom: -- Setting the parameters -- Freedom to choose -- Federalist state -- Welfare state contradiction -- Conservatism -- Color of American politics -- Plan of the book -- Chapter 2: Tuition Grants: -- Legislative backlash to Brown -- 1960 school crisis -- Ninth ward elementary school -- Spread of tuition grants -- Legal defense of tuition grants -- From tuition grants to segregated academies -- Chapter 3: Detour: -- Right turn at the Office of Economic Opportunity -- Friedmanite voucher -- New Hampshire context -- Yankee democracy -- Aftermath of New Hampshire vouchers -- Chapter 4: Urban School Crisis: -- Reverend Virgil Blum's vouchers crusade -- Public and private education in Milwaukee -- Responses to school desegregation -- Independent community schools -- Black political power in Milwaukee -- Governor Tommy Thompson -- Bradley Foundation -- Vouchers come to Milwaukee -- Polly Williams and the parental choice debate -- Chapter 5: Church In The City: -- Depression-era vouchers -- Cleveland's urban school crisis -- School desegregation and resegregation -- Statehouse and city hall politics -- Cleveland voucher supporters -- Church in the city -- Governor and the entrepreneur -- Cleveland scholarship and tutoring program -- Chapter 6: Fixing School Vouchers: -- Legal challenges -- School vouchers in perspective -- Prospects for school vouchers -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index. |
| Summary |
Overview: Inserting much-needed historical context into the voucher debates, Freedom of Choice: Vouchers in American Education treats school vouchers as a series of social movements set within the context of evolving American conservatism. The study ranges from the use of tuition grants in the 1950s and early 1960s in the interest of fostering segregation to the wider acceptance of vouchers in the 1990s as a means of counteracting real and perceived shortcomings of urban public schools. The rise of school vouchers, author Jim Carl suggests, is best explained as a mechanism championed by four distinct groups-white supremacists in the South, supporters of parochial school in the North, minority advocates of community schools in the nation's big cities, and political conservatives of both major parties. Though freedom was the rallying cry, this book shows that voucher supporters had more specific goals: continued racial segregation of public education, tax support for parochial schools, aid to urban community schools, and opening up the public school sector to educational entrepreneurs. |
| Subject |
Educational vouchers -- United States.
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|
School choice -- United States.
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Federal aid to education -- United States.
|
| ISBN |
9780313393273 hardcopy alkaline paper |
|
0313393273 hardcopy alkaline paper |
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