![]() | The Market Approach to Education: An Analysis of America''s First Voucher Program Subjects: Educational vouchers -- Wisconsin -- Milwaukee Case studies; School choice -- Wisconsin -- Milwaukee Case studies; Education Urban -- Wisconsin -- Milwaukee Case studies; Milwaukee, one of the nation's most segregated metropolitan areas, implemented in 1990 a school choice program aimed at improving the education of inner-city children by enabling them to attend a selection of private schools. The results of this experiment, however, have been overshadowed by the explosion of emotional debate it provoked nationwide. In this book, John Witte provides a broad yet detailed framework for understanding the Milwaukee experiment and its implications for the market approach to American education. In a society supposedly devoted to equality of opportunity, the concept of school choice or voucher programs raises deep issues about liberty versus equality, government versus market, and about our commitment to free and universal education. Witte brings a balanced perspective to the picture by demonstrating why it is wrongheaded to be pro- or anti-school choice in the abstract. He explains why the voucher program seems to be working in the specific case of Milwaukee, but warns that such programs would not necessarily promote equal education--and most likely harm the poor--if applied universally, across the socioeconomic spectrum. John F. Witte is Professor of Political Science and Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His books include Democracy, Authority, and Alienation in Work ; Choice and Control in American Education , co-edited with William Clune; and The Politics and Development of the Federal Income Tax . |
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