Black Educational Choice: Assessing the Private and Public Alternatives to Traditional K-12 Public Schools

This important book provides African American parents with the knowledge to diversify K–12 school choices beyond traditional neighborhood public schools in order to optimize the educational chances of their own children, and it will help educators and policymakers to close the black-white academic achievement gap throughout America.

Closing the K–12 achievement gap is critical to the future welfare of African American individuals, families, and communities―and to the future of our nation as a whole. The black-white academic achievement gap―the significant statistical difference in academic performance between African American students and their white peers―is the single greatest impediment to achieving racial equality and social justice in America.

Black Educational Choice provides parents, citizens, educators, and policymakers the critical knowledge they need to leverage the national trend toward increasing and diversifying K–12 school choice beyond traditional neighborhood public schools. Parents can use this information to optimize the success of their own African American children, while policymakers and educators can apply these insights to help close the black-white academic achievement gap throughout America.

The book collects the interdisciplinary, multi-racial, and multi-ethnic perspectives of education experts to address the questions of millions of anxious African American families: "Would sending our children to a private school or a charter school significantly better their chances of closing the achievement gap and becoming successful individuals? And if so, what kinds of challenges would they likely experience in these alternative educational settings?"

Diana T. Slaughter-Defoe, PhD, is the Constance E. Clayton Professor in Urban Education in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania.

Howard C. Stevenson, PhD, is associate professor of education and former chair of the Applied Psychology and Human Development Division in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania.

Edith G. Arrington, PhD, is a licensed psychologist and a project manager at the OMG Center for Collaborative Learning, Philadelphia, PA.

Deborah J. Johnson, PhD, is professor of human development and family studies at Michigan State University.