Title: Excluded by Choice
Author(s): Federico R. Waitoller
Publisher: Teachers College Press, New York
ISBN: 9780807764008 Pages: 216 Year: 2020
Charter schools have always been a contentious topic since their inception in the mid 1970s, and embraced by the American Federation of Teachers a decade later. Space limitations prohibit a detailed history of charter schools here, however, it is worth sharing a few details to help orient the reader and better appreciate the nature of Excluded by Choice. Charters originated as a creative, experimental alternative to highly-bureaucratic, regulation bound, and often poorly performing state schools. They can be non-profit and for-profit, receiving public funds if their students take state mandated exams. In brief, in the beginning, charter schools were conceived of as places where dedicated educators could run their own schools, developing ideas and forging innovation. Since then, proponents believe the charter school movement has been a crucial step in closing the educational achievement gap between Black and White students (Sowell, 2020), while opponents charge that the movement has been hijacked by neo-liberal ideological forces that promote market values ahead of human ones (Ravitch, 2020).
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