LIBERAL EQUITY IN EDUCATION - A COMPARISON OF CHOICE OPTIONS

The authors examine how various school choice policies make tradeoffs among three liberal goals: equality of educational opportunity, social diversity, and parental rights. We first review the research concerni ng school choice and student outcomes and identify those factors that influence academic outcomes for different sets of students. Following this review, we discuss the appropriate role of the state in education by analyzing competing concepts of liberalism, comprehensive and poli tical. These different perspectives have important implications for th e role of the state, the type of diversity that society will seek, and the level of control parents will have over their child's curriculum. We conclude the paper with a proposal for a voucher program that the authors believe improves the likelihood that education will advance im portant liberal values.