Learning as We Go: Why School Choice Is Worth the Wait
Hoover Institution Press
February 2010
Paul Hill
Why haven't schools of choice yet achieved a broader appeal? Publicly funded school choice programs—charter schools in forty-three states and vouchers in a few localities—have for the most part been qualified successes. Yet the rhetoric of choice supporters promised much more effective schools and an era of innovation that has not come to pass. In Learning as We Go: Why School Choice Is Worth the Wait, Paul T. Hill examines the real-world factors that can complicate, delay, and in some instances interfere with the positive cause-and-effect relationships identified by the theories behind school choice.
Hill explains why schools of choice haven't yet achieved a broader appeal and details the key factors—including politics, policy, and regulation—that explain the delay. The author then suggests changes in public policy along with philanthropic investment that could overcome barriers and increase the rate of progress toward full operation of what he calls the "virtuous cycle" stimulated by school choice.
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For over twenty years, scholars Paul Hill and Paul Peterson have been at the forefront of the effort to bring greater educational options to America’s neediest students. On May 5th, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Hoover Institution hosted an event to examine the respective books of these two authors (Hill's Learning as We Go: Why School Choice Is Worth the Wait, and Peterson's Saving Schools: From Horace Mann to Virtual Learning). Together, they take a fresh look at the history and future of school choice.
