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The Gardner's 1980s Report

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School choice is at the forefront of educational policy as Mrs. Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education, continues to present a case for breaking up the monopoly American public schools have on educating children. The aims of the policy are to increase competition and innovation in all schools, provide parents more autonomy in choosing the most fitting educational setting, and higher levels of student achievement. Economic and budgetary policy as well as politics play a large role in influencing school choice policy.
The Gardner’s 1980s report "A Nation at Risk,” commissioned by Secretary of Education Terrell Bell, provided a bleak outlook on American education. The detailing of a failing education system was accompanied by several suggestions …show more content…

This mode of operation has continued with our current Secretary of Education seemingly, "opposed to the very values and mission of the agency she leads and has once again served up Bennett’s discredited tax credit and voucher programs, while pulling the rug out from under her own department’s civil rights enforcement efforts" (Strauss, 2018). In February, she presented a budget proposal that would put more than $1 billion into private school vouchers and other school choice plans while also slashing the budget of the Education Department (Strauss, Douglas-Gabriel & Balingit, …show more content…

Furthermore, "the overall pattern of [their] choices may make schools more segregated. It also concentrates the effects of poverty at zoned schools, the schools to which children are assigned based on where they live" (Harris and Katz, 2018). Those that are choosing a school outside of their regularly zoned public school are doing so to flee poor and low-achieving schools, as a result creating more segregated schools and creating a group of poor and low-achieving students not able to escape being served by their own resource-starved public

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