educational vouchers

"School choice, largely touted as a system that would ensure underprivileged youth have an equal opportunity in education, has grown in popularity in the past fifteen years. The rhetoric of school choice, however, resembles that of segregationists who closed public schools and funded private institutions to block African American students from integrating with their white peers in the wake of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court decision. In Overturning Brown, Steve Suitts examines the parallels between de facto segregationist policies and the modern school choice movement. He exposes the dangers lying behind the smoke and mirrors of the so-called civil rights policies of Betsy DeVos and the education privatization lobbies. Economic and educational disparities have expanded rather than contracted in the years following Brown, and post-Jim Crow discriminatory policies drive inequality and poverty today. Suitts deftly reveals the risk that America's underprivileged youth face as school voucher programs funnel public education funds into charter schools and predominantly white and wealthy private schools"--.

"In an attempt to correct the perceived failures of public schools came the notion of school choice. One solution is charter schools: independent, privately run but publicly funded schools that now enroll more than three million students across forty-three states. Another is vouchers, which allow parents to use state dollars at their school of choice. But evidence of vouchers' success is scant, and many argue that they violate the First Amendment. What happens to public school systems when tax dollars go instead to alternative choices? The viewpoints in this anthology examine the debates surrounding education for our future generations"--Provided by publisher.

Presents a transcript of the debate between Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and Clint Bolick of the Institute of Justice over the issue of school vouchers, and features an audio recording of the debate from National Public Radio's "Justice Talking" on CD-ROM. Includes a summary of arguments and a selection of primary source documents.