Gary Miron

Exploring the School Choice Universe: Evidence and Recommendations (Hc) Gary Miron

Publisher Marketing: The book examines choice in its various forms: charter schools, home schooling, online schooling, voucher plans that allow students to use taxpayer funds to attend private schools, tuition tax credit plans that provide a public subsidy for private school tuition, and magnet schools and other forms of public school intra- and interdistrict choice. It brings together some of the top researchers in the field, presenting a comprehensive overview of the best current knowledge of these important policies. The questions addressed in Exploring the School Choice Universe are of most importance to researchers and policy makers. What do choice programs actually do? What forms do they take? Who participates, and why? What are the funding implications? What are the results of different forms of school choice on outcomes that matter, like student performance, segregation, and competition effects? Do they affect teachers' working conditions? Do they drive innovation? Contributor Bio:  Miron, Gary Gary Miron has a diverse background in the field of education. He worked as a public school teacher in Michigan in the mid-1980s. Later he worked as an educational researcher and university instructor in the field of education. Currently, he is Principal Research Associate at Western Michigan University's Evaluation Center. There, he has completed or is working on a variety of school reform evaluations including evaluations of charter schools in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Illinois, and Cleveland. In Connecticut and Cleveland, he has been involved in providing training and technical assistance to charter schools in terms of helping them develop and implement accountability plans and self-evaluations. He has also conducted a study of student achievement gains in schools operated by Edison Schools Inc. Before joining The Evaluation Center, Dr. Miron worked at Stockholm University where he had completed his graduate studies. While in Sweden he conducted a study on the national voucher reform in the early 1990s and later took part in a study of school restructuring in Europe. He has researched and written on such topics as educational evaluation, special needs education, educational planning and policy, multimethod research, charter schools, and school reform. Contributor Bio:  Hinchey, Patricia H Patricia H. Hinchey is Professor of Education at Penn State and a Research Fellow at the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She holds a doctorate from Teachers College, Columbia University, and has authored numerous articles as well as several books on topics including critical theory, education for civic engagement, action research, and teacher assessment. Dr. Hinchey is also former director of a professional development unit for faculty on Penn State's regional campuses.