All Together Now: Creating Middle-Class Schools through Public School Choice

Feb 14, 2001

Authors: Richard D. Kahlenberg

Publisher(s): Brookings Institution Press

This provocative book asks a simple question: since we know that middle-class schools tend to work best, why not give every child in America the opportunity to attend a public school in which the majority of students come from middle-class households? Kahlenberg's idea combines Horace Mann's nineteenth-century concept of the "common school" educating those from all different backgrounds under one roof with the current enthusiasm for public school choice. Families would be able to choose the best school for their children from a range of middle-class public institutions. Economically integrated schools, he demonstrates, provide poor children with better social connections and raise their academic achievement, improving their chances of success without harming the prospects of more affluent students.