Could It Be Otherwise?

Parents who wish to choose schools for their children must have more than a desire for different or better - they need detailed knowledge of the processes and practices that will give them access to schools of choice. This book vividly contrasts the experiences of a diverse group of urban parents choosing their children's schools with school choice policies from voluntary integration mandates to the No Child Left Behind Act. Lois André-Bechely carefully uncovers the race- and class-based inequities these policies sustain, documenting the way parents themselves become complicit in the historical inequalities of schooling. This book exposes how educational institutions are making this so and provokes new thinking about how public school choice could be implemented in more equitable and democratic ways.

“"Throughout the book, we are shown how parent participants are socially, culturally, and historically positioned within systems of privilege and dominance, and how they bring to the forefront, where relevant, the particular intersections of race, class, and/or gender that position them through the choice process." --Teachers College Record, October 25, 2007 ”

"Throughout the book, we are shown how parent participants are socially, culturally, and historically positioned within systems of privilege and dominance, and how they bring to the forefront, where relevant, the particular intersections of race, class, and/or gender that position them through the choice process."

--Teachers College Record, October 25, 2007

The first chapter, "Institutionalizing public school choice in an urban district," contains an excellent and comprehensive historical overview of choice policies.

--Teachers College Record, October 25, 2007

Lois Andre-Bechely is Assistant Professor, Educational Foundations, California State University, Los Angeles.

Parents who wish to choose schools for their children must have more than a desire for different or better - they need detailed knowledge of the processes and practices that will give them access to schools of choice. This book vividly contrasts the experiences of a diverse group of urban parents choosing their children's schools with school choice policies from voluntary integration mandates to the No Child Left Behind Act. Lois Andr

"Andre-Bechely's book breaks important new ground. It demonstrates the subtle complicity between choice policies and family strategies in the production of educational inequalities. Her analysis of the power of policy discourses to shape family practices that lead to injustice is as sophisticated as it is disturbing. The combination of synthetic theory and innovative methods and forms of presentation make this a highly original contribution to the field of school choice research and a welcome break from the conventionality of most qualitative research studies. A must-read for choice researchers and policy-makers." Stephen Ball, Karl Mannheim Professor of Sociology of Education, University of London "Andre-Bechely's critical institutional ethnography brings new perspectives to the challenge of identifying how school administrative practices can be transformed to promote both the equality and the achievement of children of every class and race. Her focus on parents'- and especially mothers'-experiences of school choice options illuminates in new ways the causes of persistent inequality and low achievement in US public education." Sandra Harding, Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, UCLA "The relentless belief in school choice as a vehicle for school reform has gained widespread popularity in recent years. In this book, Andre-Bechely not only interrogates the darker side of choice, but cleverly reveals its own falsity without abandoning its potential altogether. Indeed, Could It Be Otherwise? is a must-read for researchers, practitioners, policy-makers, and anyone genuinely interested in examining the problematics-and possibilities-of such a deep-seededideology." Gerardo R. Lopez, Indiana University, School of Education Parents who wish to choose schools for their children must have more than a desire for different or better - they need detailed knowledge of the processes and practices that will give them access to schools of choice.This book vividly contrasts the experiences of a diverse group of urban parents choosing their children's schools with school choice policies from voluntary integration mandates to the No Child Left Behind Act. Lois Andre-Bechely carefully uncovers the race- and class-based inequities these policies sustain, documenting the way parents themselves become complicit in the historical inequalities of schooling. This book exposes how educational institutions are making this so and provokes new thinking about how public school choice could be implemented in more equitable and democratic ways.

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