School choice and educational opportunity: Rationales, outcomes and racial disparities

This article examines the rationales for school choice, and the significance of choice mechanisms for racial disparities in educational opportunities and outcomes. It identifies tensions between liberty-based rationales and equality-based rationales, and surveys research findings on the outcomes of school choice policies, especially with regard to the racial composition of schools and distribution of opportunities. It concludes that school choice policies are multifarious and lack cohesion, that many existing mechanisms of choice lack proper public justification, and that the outcomes of these policies and mechanisms are at odds with most of the goals identified by their advocates, particularly for minority families.