Chapter 5: Parental Decision Making And Educational Opportunity

The menu of available educational options has expanded in recent decades from one or two daily specials to a variety worthy of an all-night diner. Restricted in the early twentieth century to sending their children to their neighborhood school, parents now have alternatives ranging from home schooling to publicly funded, independently operated charter schools. Magnet schools, vouchers, tax deductions, or tax credits are also available in most states. The architects of these options offer two main rationales to justify the upsurge (Viteritti, 2003). An older, market-based rationale looks to expanded options as a means of increasing academic quality for everyone by creating competition that inspires mediocre schools to improve and puts low-performing schools out of business (Friedman, 1955). The newer, opportunity-based model suggests that increasing options will foster equity by providing additional alternatives to disadvantaged parents who suffer from the most limited range of schooling choices (Coons & Sugarman, 1978).