Reexamination of ‘Controlled Choice’ in Cambridge Public Schools

Abstract

School choice is a controversial issue. Current school reform in the U. S. is based on market mechanisms, and recently many people have been seeking alternatives in the public sector including charter schools and voucher schemes. The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the ‘Controlled Choice Plan’ in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In ‘Politics, Markets, & America's Schools’, John Chubb and Terry Moe made the case for public school choice based on market controls and their ideas have given great impetus to the subject. They tried to present the Controlled Choice Plan in Cambridge as a typical case of school choice reform in the public sector. In their assessment the Cambridge plan has been a huge improvement in comparison with the troubled past; the racial imbalance has dramatically changed for the better, student achievement scores are up, teachers are more satisfied with their jobs, parents and students are happier with their schools and the public schools are winning back students from the private sector. They also claimed that ‘the Cambridge plan did not go far enough’, as the supply side remained under the control of all the usual democratic institutions, such as the central office and Cambridge resident experts.