A volume in The National Education Policy Center Series Series Editors: Kevin G. Welner, University of Colorado-Boulder Exploring the School Choice Universe: Evidence and Recommendations gives readers a comprehensive, complete picture of choice policies and issues. In doing so, it offers cross-cutting insights that are obscured when one looks only at single issue or a single approach to choice. The book examines choice in its various forms: charter schools, home schooling, online schooling, voucher plans that allow students to use taxpayer funds to attend private schools, tuition tax credit plans that provide a public subsidy for private school tuition, and magnet schools and other forms of public school intra- and interdistrict choice. It brings together some of the top researchers in the field, presenting a comprehensive overview of the best current knowledge of these important policies. The questions addressed in Exploring the School Choice Universe are of most importance to researchers and policy makers. What do choice programs actually do? What forms do they take? Who participates, and why? What are the funding implications? What are the results of different forms of school choice on outcomes that matter, like student performance, segregation, and competition effects? Do they affect teachers' working conditions? Do they drive innovation? The contents of this book offer reason to believe that choice policies can further some educational goals. But they also suggest many reasons for caution. If choice policies are to be evidence-based, a re-examination is in order. The information, insights and recommendations facilitate a more nuanced understanding of school choice and provide the basis for designing sensible school choice reforms that can pursue a range of desirable outcomes. Endorsements: "By far, the richest source of information on the most controversial issue in education." - Henry M. Levin, Teachers College, Columbia University. "This book is one of the few contributions to the school choice debate that recognizes the range and complexity of the issues involved and acknowledges that political judgements about the costs and benefits of choice initiatives are not straightforward. It will be of interest not only to American readers but also to those in other countries considering the adoption of similar choice policies. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who does not have a closed mind on the subject." - Geoff Whitty, Director Emeritus, Institute of Education, University of London

Endorsements: At a time when private think-tanks seek to advance their ideological agendas through what is often shoddy research, this book is both a welcome corrective to and a reminder of the dangers of the mis-use of data in significant educational policy debates. - Michael W. Apple, University of Wisconsin, Madison Democracy thrives when a nation insures itself of a well-informed populace. The Think Tank Review Project helps our nation meet that goal by debunking bad social science, much of which emanates from the many highly partisan and well-funded think tanks that have developed over the last few decades. This book presents the best of the Project's reviews in a compelling indictment of think tank reports and their influence. - David Berliner, Arizona State University Education policy over the past thirty years has been powerfully influenced by well-funded and slickly produced research reports produced by advocacy think tanks. The quality of think tank reports and the value of the policies they support have been sharply debated. To help policymakers, the media, and the public assess these quality issues, the Think Tank Review Project provides expert third party reviews. The Project has, since 2006, published 59 reviews of reports from 26 different institutions. This book brings together 21 of those reviews, focusing on examining the arguments and evidence used by think tanks to promote reforms such as vouchers, charter schools and alternative routes to teacher certification. The reviews are written using clear, non-academic language, with each review illustrating how readers can approach, understand and critique policy studies and reports. The book will be of interest to practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and anyone concerned with the current debates about educational reform.

The Graduate Grind looks closely at the culture of graduate school in an effort to uncover why graduate students routinely experience extreme depression, illness, divorce and sometimes even suicide and murder. What elements provoke the sense of powerlessness and hopelessness that produces such extreme reactions in students? Unlike others who consider student suffering and failure an integral part of a system based appropriately on survival of the fittest, Hinchey and Kimmel argue instead that too much student suffering comes from rampant and sanctioned abuse of power. Examining common assumptions and routines through the lens of critical theory, the authors question several aspects of graduate education, including the conception of graduate students as institutional capital; institutionalized prejudice based on age, gender, sexual orientation, race and class; and competing power and value systems. Throughout the book, the authors allow students to tell their own stories, putting a human face on the results of abuses generated by unchecked power and privilege.

The Graduate Grind looks closely at the culture of graduate school in an effort to uncover why graduate students routinely experience extreme depression, illness, divorce and sometimes even suicide and murder. What elements provoke the sense of powerlessness and hopelessness that produces such extreme reactions in students? Unlike others who consider student suffering and failure an integral part of a system based appropriately on "survival of the fittest," Hinchey and Kimmel argue instead that too much student suffering comes from rampant and sanctioned abuse of power. Examining common assumptions and routines through the lens of critical theory, the authors question several aspects of graduate education, including the conception of graduate students as institutional capital; institutionalized prejudice based on age, gender, sexual orientation, race and class; and competing power and value systems. Throughout the book, the authors allow students to tell their own stories, putting a human face on the results of abuses generated by unchecked power and privilege. Finding current exploitation of students unconscionable, Hinchey and Kimmel call for a new vision of graduate education, one in which institutions abandon the conception of graduate students as renewable institutional resources and begin instead to value and serve them as unique and vibrant human beings.

Exploring the School Choice Universe: Evidence and Recommendations gives readers a comprehensive, complete picture of choice policies and issues. In doing so, it offers cross-cutting insights that are obscured when one looks only at single issue or a single approach to choice. The book examines choice in its various forms: charter schools, home schooling, online schooling, voucher plans that allow students to use taxpayer funds to attend private schools, tuition tax credit plans that provide a public subsidy for private school tuition, and magnet schools and other forms of public school intra- and interdistrict choice. It brings together some of the top researchers in the field, presenting a comprehensive overview of the best current knowledge of these important policies. The questions addressed in Exploring the School Choice Universe are of most importance to researchers and policy makers. What do choice programs actually do? What forms do they take? Who participates, and why? What are the funding implications? What are the results of different forms of school choice on outcomes that matter, like student performance, segregation, and competition effects? Do they affect teachers' working conditions? Do they drive innovation? The contents of this book offer reason to believe that choice policies can further some educational goals. But they also suggest many reasons for caution. If choice policies are to be evidence-based, a re-examination is in order. The information, insights and recommendations facilitate a more nuanced understanding of school choice and provide the basis for designing sensible school choice reforms that can pursue a range of desirable outcomes.

Endorsements: At a time when private think-tanks seek to advance their ideological agendas through what is often shoddy research, this book is both a welcome corrective to and a reminder of the dangers of the mis-use of data in significant educational policy debates. - Michael W. Apple, University of Wisconsin, Madison Democracy thrives when a nation insures itself of a well-informed populace. The Think Tank Review Project helps our nation meet that goal by debunking bad social science, much of which emanates from the many highly partisan and well-funded think tanks that have developed over the last few decades. This book presents the best of the Project's reviews in a compelling indictment of think tank reports and their influence. - David Berliner, Arizona State University Education policy over the past thirty years has been powerfully influenced by well-funded and slickly produced research reports produced by advocacy think tanks. The quality of think tank reports and the value of the policies they support have been sharply debated. To help policymakers, the media, and the public assess these quality issues, the Think Tank Review Project provides expert third party reviews. The Project has, since 2006, published 59 reviews of reports from 26 different institutions. This book brings together 21 of those reviews, focusing on examining the arguments and evidence used by think tanks to promote reforms such as vouchers, charter schools and alternative routes to teacher certification. The reviews are written using clear, non-academic language, with each review illustrating how readers can approach, understand and critique policy studies and reports. The book will be of interest to practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and anyone concerned with the current debates about educational reform.