Are your beliefs about child education based on a solid foundation?
Choices and Hopes for Future Education: Fundamental Questions and Reflections

Parents who want ‘a good education in a good environment.’
In our educational field, where long-standing issues have not been fundamentally resolved, the modern version of 'Mencius's mother's teachings of three moves' has always been the focus of conversation and controversy, and the parents at the center of it have had to endure criticism that is sometimes difficult to endure and difficult to escape.
Aren't many parents who are so focused on their children's education unknowingly becoming hypocrites?

In this book, British political philosopher Adam Swift philosophically analyzes current educational issues and proposes and evaluates countermeasures.
From the perspective of educational justice, it shows us how unreasonable our reality is, how we contribute to its creation, and where and how we can begin to join in the hope of reducing that contradiction, even if only a little.
The approach, analysis, and insight into educational issues arising in environments completely different from our own are remarkably relatable and serve as an important stepping stone for diagnosing and forecasting the current state and future of our education system.

The problem of "hypocrisy" that many people face, unable to escape the dilemma of ideals and reality, words and actions, and the journey of examining what it means to practice what you preach, centered around educational issues, sometimes confronts us with uncomfortable truths.
It may be difficult to readily agree with the author's argument and arguments.
But along the way, the author speaks of hope for the future of education.
Rather than vaguely optimistic hope, I seek to speak and communicate how that hope depends on our small actions and practices, and on the collective power that emerges through them.

The problem with private schools is not only that they clash with equality of opportunity by diminishing the instrumental and status value of the education received by children who are unlucky enough not to attend them.
Private schools worsen the latter's education in an absolute sense.
Compared to grammar schools, private schools are less radical in terms of peer effects, but more radical in terms of parental influence, adversely affecting the latter.
Furthermore, private schools undermine community and social solidarity more fundamentally than selective education.
--- From Chapter 3, “What’s the problem with selection?”

Many parents are not consistent with their political beliefs.
They suffer from their own weak will, doing things that they think are wrong and overly biased, even if they agree with the arguments we have discussed in the book.
But one of the purposes of this book is to show that the political arguments against private and selective schools that are perceived as inconsistent or hypocritical are not actually so.
--- From Chapter 7, “Legitimate Partiality and School Choice”

Public schools should be comprised of children with more diverse social backgrounds and abilities than they are today.
If that happens, parents who are generous with their children's support will be confident that public schools will have plenty of motivated children like their own.
There will no longer be a situation where such children are concentrated in certain schools and the education of the children left behind suffers.
If a bus system is necessary for this, then so be it.
If a policy of requiring some students to attend schools across town doesn't gain political support (though they may be willing to do so if they go to private schools), there could be financial incentives for schools to enroll a more diverse student body.
--- From Chapter 10, “Family Problems”

Experts and policymakers have made numerous diagnoses and prescriptions for our country's chronic "private education problem," but the situation seems to be worsening.
And at the heart of this precarious situation are parents, especially middle-class parents, who risk their lives for their children's education.
This book is boldly written for these parents.
However, not all parents risk their lives for their children's education.
To be specific, the author's intended audience is progressive parents who risk their lives for their children's education.

This book speaks to those who, even if they have done the right thing as parents, may still feel uncomfortable about their choices in raising their children.
So while we allow parents who want to make advantageous school choices for their children in the given circumstances to do so, we advise them not to do too much for their children.
This is not a case of hypocritical parents 'rationalizing' their choices, nor is it a case of 'compromise' where the ideals of social justice are realistically conceded.
Quite the opposite.
It proposes a third option that allows ordinary citizens—parents—to make choices that are beneficial to their children without having to force themselves into conservative political decisions by rationalizing their choices as parents.

--- From “Translator’s Note”