Chapter 4: Radically Rethinking School Choice With Youths

The market reforms of education are prompting rising concerns about their insensitivity to issues of educational inequality and inequity across the globe (Lubienski & Lubienski, 2014; Musset, 2012). These concerns are not without merit; the market-driven restructuring efforts, many of which have downsized the public education sector to the bare essentials while expanding the private sector, have indeed worsened inequality between schools (Ball, 2012; Carpenter, Diem, & Young, 2014; OECD, 2017). In addition, reliance on private actors and private sources of funding has grown alongside depleting government resources in public education systems (Poole & Fallon, 2015; Winton, 2018), and scholars have noted higher rates of public school closures, mostly in low-income areas (Lipman, 2011). In contrast, private/independent school options, supported by increased public subsidies, have been on the rise in wealthier neighborhoods (Yoon, Lubienski, & Lee, 2018). In particular, school choice policies that allow parents to choose programs and/or schools for their children other than their assigned public schools (i.e., based on where students live) are providing more options for a select group of students, especially those whose parents can and are willing to make choices. Meanwhile, students whose families are not choosing alternate schools may receive fewer resources and be further marginalized (Butler, Hamnett, Ramsden, & Webber, 2007; Gaztambide-Fernández & Parekh, 2017; Lipman, 2011; Lucey & Reay, 2002a).