🔖 A volume in Critical Constructions: Studies on Education and SocietySeries Editor: Curry Stephenson MalottEducation has rarely been absent from local and national public discourse. Throughout thehistory of modern education spanning more than a century, we have as a culture lamented thefailures of public schooling, often making such claims based on assumptions instead of anynuanced consideration of the many influences on teaching and learning in any child's life-notablythe socioeconomic status of a student's family.School reform, then, has also been a frequent topic in political discourse and public debate.Since the mid-twentieth century, a rising call for market forces to replace government-run schooling has pushed to the front of thosedebates. Since A Nation at Risk in the early 1980s and the implementation of No Child Left Behind at the turn of the twenty-firstcentury, a subtle shift has occurred in the traditional support of public education-fueled by the misconception that private schools outperform public schools along with a naive faith in competition and the promise of the free market. Political and ideological claims thatall parents deserve school choice has proven to be a compelling slogan.This book unmasks calls for parental and school choice with a postformal and critical view of both the traditional bureaucraticpublic school system and the current patterns found the body of research on all aspects of school choice and private schooling. Theexamination of t...