[Editors' Note: In the course of planning the upcoming "Conference 2000: American Schools and Public Choices" the editors developed a bibliography which we thought might be helpful to other interested parties. The bibliography is suggestive rather than exhaustive. Our special thanks to William Plank for his work in developing this list.]
Arai, A. Bruce. "Homeschooling and the Redefinition of Citizenship." Education Policy Analysis Archives 7.27 (6 Sept. 1999).
Arons, Stephen. Compelling Belief: The Culture of American Schooling. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1983. A legal scholar analyses the tension between the schools and the family, questioning the concept of the school's "neutrality."
Arons, Stephen. Short Route to Chaos: Conscience, Community, and the Re-Constitjution of American Schooling. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1997. A sharp-edged attack on Goals 2000 by a legal scholar.
Berliner, David, and Bruce J. Biddle. The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud and the Attack on American Public Schools. New York: Longman Publishers, 1997. The classic and vigorous defense of the American publicschool by attacking, among other things, the shoddy scholarship of the report, A Nation at Risk.
Chase, Bob. "Voucher System Would Hurt Schools, Not Help." <http://www.weac.org/news/dec96 neavouch.htm>. Bob Chase is the president of the National Education Association.
Coulson, Andrew. Market Education: The Unknown History. New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 1999. Coulson's analysis of the lessons of history occasionally leaves the reader dubious.
Fish, Stanley. The Trouble with Principle. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999. Fish critiques reasoning by unalterable principle, in the absence of a historical situation.
Glenn, Charles Leslie, Jr. The Myth of the Common School. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1987. Tells the story of the origin of the "common school" efforts to standardize ethnic groups in the U.S., France and Netherlands.
Gross, Martin L. The Conspiracy of Ignorance:The Failure of American Public Schools. New York: Harper Collins, 1999. Full of statistics, the subtitle makes his position clear.
Howley, Craig B., Aimee Howley, and Edwina D. Pendarvis. Out of our Minds: Anti-Intellectualism and Talent Development in American Schooling. New York and London: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1995. Highly readable, very impressive and useful bibliography.
Kuttner, Robert. Everything for Sale: The Virtues and Limits of Markets. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. Demonstrates with hard evidence that private enterprise has not prospered without the assistance and direction of government.
Lehman, Nicholas. The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1999. Lehman has been needled on the www for being envious in this unfriendly analysis of the SAT.
Murphy, Dan. Vouchers and the Accountability Dilemma. An AFT Policy Brief. American Federation of Teachers, Spring 1999.
Montana Office of Public Instruction. Montana Statewide Education Profile: K-12 Public Schools, School year 1996-97. Helena, MT: OPI, 1999.
Tancredo, Tom. "Education Vouchers: America Can't Afford to Wait." <http://i2i.org/SuptDocs/IssuPprs IPvouch.htm>.
Sowell, Thomas. Inside American Education: The Decline, The Deception, The Dogmas. New York: Free Press, 1993.
Proctor, Robert E. Defining the Humanities: How Rediscovering a Tradition Can Improve Our Schools. 2nd Edition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998. Reviewed in this issue.