School Choice

The Moral Debate

Alan Wolfe

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN:
  9780691096612
  9780691096605
• eBook ISBN:
  9781400825424
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Theory & Practice

School choice has lately risen to the top of the list of potential solutions to America's educational problems, particularly for the poor and the most disadvantaged members of society. Indeed, in the last few years several states have held referendums on the use of vouchers in private and parochial schools, and more recently, the Supreme Court reviewed the constitutionality of a scholarship program that uses vouchers issued to parents. While there has been much debate over the empirical and methodological aspects of school choice policies, discussions related to the effects such policies may have on the nation's moral economy and civil society have been few and far between. School Choice, a collection of essays by leading philosophers, historians, legal scholars, and theologians, redresses this situation by addressing the moral and normative side of school choice.


The twelve essays, commissioned for a conference on school choice that took place at Boston College in 2001, are organized into four sections that consider the relationship of school choice to equality, moral pluralism, institutional ecology, and constitutionality. Each section consists of three essays followed by a critical response. The contributors are Patrick McKinley Brennan, Charles L. Glenn, Amy Gutmann, David Hollenbach, S. J., Meira Levinson, Sanford Levinson, Stephen Macedo, John T. McGreevy, Martha Minow, Richard J. Mouw, Joseph O'Keefe, S. J., Michael J. Perry, Nancy L. Rosenblum, Rosemary C. Salomone, Joseph P. Viteritti, Paul J. Weithman, and Alan Wolfe.

Table of contents

• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• SCHOOL CHOICE AND EQUALITY
• One Defining Equity: Politics, Markets, and Public Policy
• Two The Irony of School Choice: Liberals, Conservatives, and the New Politics of Race
• Three Equity and School Choice: How Can We Bridge the Gap between Ideals and Realities?
• Response
• SCHOOL CHOICE AND PLURALISM
• Four Separating the Siamese Twins, “Pluralism” and “School Choice”
• Five “Getting Religion”: Religion, Diversity, and Community in Public and Private Schools
• Six Assessing Arguments for School Choice: Pluralism, Parental Rights, or Educational Results?
• Response
• SCHOOL CHOICE AND SOCIAL ECOLOGY
• Seven Educational Choice and Pillarization: Some Lessons for Americans from the Dutch Experiment in “Affirmative Impartiality”
• Eight Protecting and Limiting School Distinctiveness: How Much of Each?
• Nine Catholic Schools and Vouchers: How the Empirical Reality Should Ground the Debate
• Response
• SCHOOL CHOICE AND THE LAW
• Ten Parents, Partners, and Choice: Constitutional Dimensions of School Options
• Eleven What Does the Establishment Clause Forbid? Reflections on the Constitutionality of School Vouchers
• Twelve Charting a Constitutional Course between Private Values and Public Commitments: The Case of School Vouchers
• Response
• Contributors
• Notes