The book explains why we desperately need an Open Education Industry. It clearly defines the term, and the confusion about what can/should be done to improve schooling outcomes, and why over 30 years of efforts to improve schooling outcomes has left all 51 US school systems far short of what is needed to engage all schoolchildren in high value instruction. Because of past education failures, especially poor basic literacy in economic systems, many influential academics and activists have asserted the presence of adequate market forces where key elements of high-performing markets are absent, and have become pre-occupied with discussion of, and development of, devastating inappropriate generalizations about findings from studies of narrowly-targeted, restriction-laden expansions of access to alternatives to traditional public schools. The book compares those to transformational school choice expansions, and describes key steps towards the inertia that threatens the future or America as a prosperous and free republic.
Foreword by Terry Moe
Preface: Still a Nation at Risk
Memorial to Seymour Sarason
Part I: Key Underlying Factors
Introduction
Elements of an Open Education Industry
Hyped Experiments in Near Irrelevance
Chartered Public Schools Mostly Chance, Not Choice
Part II: Issues in the Debate Over Parental Choice Expansion
Fallacies About School Choice
Government Regulation Issues
The Neglect of Costs
Fund Children or Institutions?
Federal, State, and Local Roles and Perspectives
Equity and Equality
Diversity Issues
Part III. Strategic and Tactical Issues
Important Policy Choices
Strategic and Tactical Mistakes
13. Teachers
14. Outlook and Political Strategy
Bibliography
Index
John Merrifield, Professor of Economics (35 years), Emeritus now heads the new think tank, the Institute for Objective Policy Assessment. He published 55 journal articles, and several books including the critically acclaimed The School Choice Wars (2001).
