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Title: When Schools Compete: A Cautionary Tale by Edward B. Fiske, Helen F. Ladd ISBN: 0-8157-2835-2 Publisher: The Brookings Institution Pub. Date: April, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95

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Average Customer Rating: 3 (3 reviews)

Rating: 1
Summary: This book is a work of fiction
Comment: This book has no credibility at all. I am a New Zealander and have had kids at New Zealand schools through the nineties and they are currently still in New Zealand schools. New Zealand has never had a voucher system. New Zealand schools have never had complete operational autonomy and most schools had attendance zones. A minority of schools had 'bulk funding', ie they were funded a set amount per child, depending on the number of children on their role, on a given day in the year. The authors may have confused this with a voucher system but a voucher system is very different to bulk funding, and most schools were not bulk funded. Intelligent discussion on competition between schools is required but these authors have taken some far away country then made up a story to fit their political agenda.

Rating: 5
Summary: "The Truth About Vouchers"
Comment: Few issues in public education are guaranteed to provoke the kind of emotional response as vouchers. Yet despite the fervent arguments made by both sides in the debate, no hard evidence was available to judge the validity of their claims. That has all changed with the publication of "When Schools Compete" by Edward B. Fiske and Helen F. Ladd.
The authors present a probing and comprehensive report of New Zealand's experiment with vouchers, which stands as the definitive study of the subject. It's a compelling story, with far-reaching implications for this country. Fiske and Ladd make the events that took place in that faraway land come alive through a combination of exhaustive research and brisk writing.
In the early 1990s, New Zealand granted all public schools complete operational autonomy and abolished attendance zones. Parents were free to choose any school, including parochial schools. Vouchers followed students to their school of choice. In one fell swoop, the government created the kind of educational free marketplace that supporters assert will improve schools.
What happened,however,was contrary to expectations. The best schools quickly filled up. Hard-to-teach students, disproportionately poor and minority, were turned away and were effectively forced to return to their schools of origin. These schools became significantly more polarized along ethnic and socioeconomic lines than before. Realizing that its grand experiment was not working, New Zealand began to pull back in the late 1990s. The country is still trying to recover from the fiasco it created.
While New Zealand is not the U.S., it shares many values, customs and traditions, including a common language. Moreover, it has a sizable number of minorities in the form of Maoris and Pacific Islanders, many of whom live in the inner cities.
Fiske and Ladd's groundbreaking book should be required reading for everyone interested in education. Given the emotional issues involved, however, that isn't likely to happen. The losers in all of this,unfortunately, will be those students most in need.

Walt Gardner
Los Angeles CA

Walt Gardner, who taught for 28 years in the Los Angeles Unified School District, writes often on education.

Rating: 3
Summary: "An Imaginary Tale" by John Merrifield
Comment: As review of New Zealand's important public school choice program, the Fiske-Ladd book is a must-read, and indeed a "cautionary tale." Unfortunately, Fiske and Ladd squandered an opportunity to make an even larger contribution to discussions of public school choice by imagining that competition arises when families can choose which government-owned and operated facility to enroll their children in. They spin their facts into an imaginary tale even though their thorough research and meticulous reporting makes it quite clear that none of the conditions that prevail in a market exist in New Zealand's school system. There are no prices or profits. Unpopular schools are not closed or reconstituted into clones of the over-crowded, popular schools. The government won't expand or duplicate popular schools while unpopular schools have unused capacity. Instead the New Zealand central government has reacted to the waiting lists at some of the popular schools by re-imposing attendance areas on a limited basis. It means they force some families to enroll their children in a school they had hoped to escape. Again, unlike a market, parents' enrollment choices are not the only determinant of each school's share of government funding. That further mutes the limited rivalry for students possible within a government-controlled system. New Zealand schools cannot differentiate themselves to nearly the extent that independently owned schools would do in a true market system. The central government mandates a core curriculum, and political pressures limit remaining opportunities to specialize. The effects of public school choice we are supposed to be cautious about are not the result of competition, but, instead, are the result of its absence. Sadly, the Fiske-Ladd mistake of imagining the presence of competition and market forces where they do not exist is a common assualt on the integrity of the public debate of K-12 reform options. Editorials in the Wall Street Journal and Education Week have already mistakenly cited the Fiske-Ladd book to bolster a claim that competition has limited benefits and noteworthy costs. That may be so, but the Fiske-Ladd findings are not evidence for the effects of anything but the effects of open enrollment within a government education monopoly.