forum

When Schools Compete
Does school choice push public schools to improve?

The Work Ahead
What if Michael Dell, CEO of Dell Computer, and Michael Armstrong, CEO of AT&T, operated in a market where revenues depended hardly at all on attracting or losing customers?
By Frederick M. Hess

A Work in Progress
After five years, school choice is beginning to have visible effects in Michigan’s education system.
By David Arsen, David N. Plank and Gary Sykes

Finishing Touches
If school vouchers bettered the educational opportunities only of children who use the vouchers to attend private schools or schools in another district, many reformers would be left holding cups half empty.
By Robert Maranto

Round and Round They Go
Can new management save urban school districts?

Old Wine, New Bottles
In Baltimore, the mayor’s lack of success at school reform led to a state takeover of the city’s schools. In Washington, D.C., mayoral control has begun to stabilize the system. So what does this tell us about the ability of city hall to run a school system?
By James Cibulka

Can’t Let Go
Just a few years back, school-based management was the rage in Cleveland. Except that the central office wasn’t all that interested in relinquishing control
By Patrick J. Ryan

Hero Worship
Cities look for a savior to transform their school systems, lasting reform takes a sustained, community-wide effort
By Paul T. Hill

features

School @ Home
Fearing conformity, violence, secularism, or simply bad teaching, more and more parents are taking their children’s education into their own hands. And more and more of their children are entering the nation’s finest institutions of higher education. Can home schoolers handle college life?
By Christopher W. Hammons

A Steeper, Better Road to Graduation
It’s time for America to adopt European-style exit exams
By John H. Bishop

Fixing Federal Research
Education demands a first-rate R&D shop. The Department of Education isn’t it—yet
By Maris A. Vinovskis

research

Rising Tide
New evidence on competition and the public schools
By Caroline M. Hoxby

The Looming Shadow
Florida gets its “F” schools to shape up
By Jay P. Greene

from the editors

The New Education Market
Examining the early responses of public schools to competition

correspondence

Vouchers versus class size; phonics versus whole language
Vouchers versus class size; phonics versus whole language

book review

Choice Words
The Ambiguous Embrace: Government and Faith-Based Schools and Social Agencies by Charles L. Glenn Schools, Vouchers, and the American Public by Terry M. Moe Choosing Schools: Consumer Choice and the Quality of American Schools by Mark Schneider, Paul Teske, and Melissa Marschall
By Sally Kilgore and Michael Mintrom

education matters to me

Putting Parents First
A cause worth fighting for
By Tom Ridge