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“I never really told anybody about my music at school, only my really close friends,”Cheyenne Kimball told People Magazine in 2006. “Then [school officials] actually aired the show aroundthe whole entire school, and that caused a lot of problems. I was a straight-A student and all of a sudden Ididn’t want to go to school anymore because of the things people were saying. That’s why I’m homeschoolednow.” Cheyenne, winner of NBC’s America’s Most Talented Kid at age 12, recording artist, and star of herown MTV show, is just one of many high-profile Americans whose educational choice is home schooling.Movie stars Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, married in 1997, home school their two children along

ILLUSTRATION / RAFAEL LOPEZ

Home Schooling Goes

Mainstream

with Will’s nephew. Why? “For flexibility,” Pinkett Smithtold an Essence reporter, “so they can stay with us whenwe travel, and also because the school system in thiscountry—public and private—is designed for the indus-trial age. We’re in a technological age. We don’t want ourkids to memorize. We want them to learn.”While home schooling may have particularappeal to celebrities, over the last decadefamilies of all kinds have embraced the prac-tice for widely varying reasons: no longer ishome schooling exclusive to Christian fun-damentalism and the countercultural Left.Along with growing acceptance of homeschooling nationally has come increasingdiversification of who home schools and ofwhat home schooling actually means.

Though parents and tutors have beenteaching children in the home for centuries,in the late 1960s and 1970s there emerged forthe first time in the United States a politicalmovement that adopted this practice as aradical, countercultural critique of the pub-lic education system. Conservatives who felt

the public schools had sold out to secularism and progres-sivism joined with progressives who felt the public schoolswere bastions of conservative conformity to challenge thenotion that all children should attend them. By the early1990s they had won the right to home school in every

state. Some home-school advocacy groupshave attempted to secure a federal law orSupreme Court ruling that would establishuniform national guidelines grounded in Firstor Fourteenth Amendment rights, but to datesuch efforts have failed (to the great relief ofhome-school advocacy groups that opposethis strategy). Home schooling thus falls understate law, and these laws vary widely. A com-plex matrix of specific statutory language andjudicial interpretations emerged out of themaelstrom of political activism over the issuethat started in the late 1970s. In Indiana andMichigan, for example, there are virtually norestrictions on home schoolers and very lit-tle accountability to government. Home-schooling parents are not even required to reg-ister. In Pennsylvania and New York, state

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agencies oversee and regulate home schooling in a numberof ways, from curricular requirements to parental qualifica-tions to mandatory home visits by certified personnel toobligatory standardized testing.

By the 21st century, state laws were well established anduncontested, though nearly every year state legislators orjudges, especially in the most permissive states, seek to increaseregulations on home-schooling families in the name ofaccountability. Such initiatives nearly always fail due to theastonishing grass-roots organization and political mobiliza-tion of home schoolers. The most recent challenge to homeschooling arose when a California court cited a 1929 state lawthat ostensibly requires home tutors to be state-certified. Afterseveral months of protests and concomitant uncertainty forthe 160,000 home-schooled children in the state, the courtreversed the ruling to permit home schooling as a “species ofprivate school education” and came surprisingly close to find-ing in the federal Constitution a right to home school.

Reliable nationwide numbers are difficult to obtain, but theNational Center for Education Statistics estimates that from1999 to 2003 the number of home-schooled children increasedfrom around 850,000 to roughly 1.1 million, a 29 percentjump in four years. Movement leaders suggest even higherestimates of around 2 to 2.5 million children currently beinghome schooled. Some states keep their own figures. Virginia

had 3,816 registered home schoolers in 1990. By 2007 thenumber had grown to 20,694. Maryland saw similar growth,from 2,296 in 1990 to 24,227 in 2006.

After three decades of explosive growth, the rate ofincrease in home schooling has begun to slow somewhat, andhome-schooling rates are even declining a bit in some states.In Pennsylvania, there were 24,415 reported home school-ers in 2002, the largest figure the state had ever seen. But in2003 the number of registered home schoolers dropped to24,076. In 2004 it declined again to 23,287, a decrease of 3.3percent from the previous year.

Among the possible explanations for declines in homeschooling is the increased use of home-based public char-ter schools, often called “cybercharters” because of theirextensive use of online curricula, by families that had pre-viously been home schooling independently. Home school-ing is blending with other education movements to lead theway toward a 21st-century education matrix that is far

more dynamic and adaptive than the schoolingpatterns of the past.

The New Home SchoolersSurvey research has revealed a heterogeneous pop-ulation of home schoolers and higher rates ofminority home schooling than expected. EconomistGuillermo Montes’s analysis of data from the mas-sive 2001 National Household Education Surveyfound that 70 percent of respondents cited a non-religious reason as the top motivator in their deci-sion to home school. Home schoolers whose moti-vations are primarily religious have certainly notgone away, but they are now joined by those whosereasons range from concerns about special educa-tion to bad experiences with teachers or schoolbullies to time-consuming outside activities toworries over peanut allergies (see Figure 1).

Increasing participation in home schoolingamong African Americans has drawn media atten-tion in recent years. The U.S. Department of Edu-cation estimated that by 2003 there were 103,000black home schoolers (see Figure 2). Nonprofits,including the Children’s Scholarship Fund, foundedin 1998, have provided vouchers to help low-income families afford private schools, and some

are using the money to home school. Several nationwide sup-port groups have been formed by African Americans tobuild momentum; the newest and largest is the NationalAfrican-American Homeschoolers Alliance, cofounded in2003 by Jennifer James. By 2006 the organization had 3,000members. James learned of home schooling by watching thesuccess of home schoolers at the Scripps National Spelling

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Otherreasons

17%30%

7%

7%

9%

Schoolenvironment

Instructionquality

Religion/morality

Physical/mentalhealth problem

Otherspecial needs 31%

SOURCE: National Household Education Survey Program, Homeschooling in the United States: 2003

Religion Keeping Only Some at Home (Figure 1)

70 percent of parents who home school their children gave nonreli-gious reasons for doing so. The most common reason was a concernabout the local school environment.

Bee and embraced it for her family.“Families are running out of options,”James told the St. Petersburg Times in2005. “There’s this persistent achieve-ment gap, and a lot of black children aredoing so poorly in traditional schoolsthat parents are looking for alterna-tives.” Home schooling is becoming themethod of choice for many, and as such“the Black homeschool movement isgrowing at a faster rate than the generalhomeschool population,” according toJ. Michael Smith, president andcofounder of the Home School LegalDefense Association (HSLDA), thenation’s most powerful home-schooladvocacy organization.

Growth in home schooling can bespotted among other ethnic and reli-gious groups as well. Native Americansin Virginia and North Carolina havefounded home-school organizations inan effort to escape assimilationist pub-lic schools and preserve their traditionalvalues. Hawaiian natives have found home schooling to bethe solution to the gulf between tribal ways and public edu-cation. Jews, especially those who follow the Orthodox tra-dition, have been home schooling in much greater numbersin recent years. While Roman Catholic families have long hada presence in the home-schooling world with such institu-tions as the Virginia-basedSeton Home Study School(founded in 1980), recent yearshave seen an explosion inCatholic home schooling andresources. Islamic home school-ing has also grown rapidly,especially since 9/11, largelybecause “the public school sys-tem is not accommodating toMuslims,” in the words ofFatima Saleem, founder of thePalmetto Muslim HomeschoolResource Network.

Large numbers of parentswhose children have diagnosedlearning disabilities havepulled them from localschools, believing they can doa better job teaching them athome. Increasing numbers ofwealthy Americans are hiring

private tutors for their children. The U.S. Department of Edu-cation estimated that in 2003, 21 percent of home school-ers were being taught this way. Business Week editor MichelleConlin explained the appeal of home education to “cre-ative-class parents” as an outgrowth of the “spread of the post-geographic workstyle” and “flex-time economy.”

A final group of homeschoolers that should be men-tioned is children involved insports requiring rigoroustraining, acting and modeling,demanding arts or music pro-grams, and other time-inten-sive activities. In motocross,where an elite-level 13-year-old can earn over $100,000 ayear, 90 percent of minors areeither home schooled ordropouts. Circe Wallace, aretired snowboarder turnedaction-sport agent, remarkedin 2006, “I’ve been in this busi-ness 15 years, and it’s alwaysbeen those with parents thatunderstand the freedom andflexibility of home schoolingthat go the furthest.” OrangeCounty gymnast Katy Nogaki

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Growth Spurt (Figure 2)

From 1999 to 2003, the number of home-schooled childrengrew by 29 percent; among minorities, home-schooledchildren increased by 20 percent despite a modest decreasein home schooling among Hispanics.

Increasing participation in home schooling among African Americans has drawn mediaattention in recent years.

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was 11 years old when she told a reporter, “my coaches…saidif I home schooled, I could come to the gym early and Icould get really far in gymnastics…. When I was in regularschool, I wasn’t as good, but when I was home schooled, I gotstate champion.”

Many of the new breed of home-schooling parents, evenif they do not become dues-paying members of home-school-ing political organizations, still need help with pedagogical orcurricular decisions, playmates for their children and compan-ionship for themselves, and opportunities to get out of thehouse for a while. Home-school support groups can serve asremarkably diverse social networks. In a National Home Edu-cation Network online forum, Pam Sorooshian described herSouthern California group:

My homeschooling group includes Moslem, Jewish,Quaker, Baptist, Messianic Jews, Pagan, Baha’i, atheist,agnostic, Catholic, unity, evangelicals, other Protestantdenominations, and probably more. We have AfricanAmericans, Latinos, Asians, Middle Easterners, and otherminorities. We have stay-at-home dads and single moth-ers. We are FAR more diverse than the neighborhoodschool I pulled my oldest child out of 10 years ago.

In short, home education is now being done by so manydifferent kinds of people for so many different reasons thatit no longer makes much sense to speak of it as a political

movement or even a set of movements. Make no mistake: theveteran political movement is still going strong, as legislaturesthat attempt to increase regulations quickly discover. For agrowing number of Americans, however, home schooling isjust one option among many to consider, for a few monthsor for the entirety of a child’s schooling.

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Home School

$25,000 or less $75,001 or more$50,001–$75,000$25,001–$50,000

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50%

25.3%21.7% 25.8%

26.2%

9.4%

28.4%

26.9%

18.5%

24.1% 21.5%

22.1%

SOURCE: National Household Education Survey Program, Homeschooling in the United States: 2003

Home Economics (Figure 3a)

The most recent data show household income levels of home-schooled children mirror those of students in the public schools.Not surprisingly, fewer home-schooling families have both parents in the work force.

Home education is now being done by so many different kinds of people for so many different reasons that it no longer makesmuch sense to speak of it as a political movement.

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New Home Schooling in PracticeHome-schooling families of the 1980s and 1990s fell some-where along a continuum of pedagogical practice boundedon the left with “unschooling,” a word coined by educatorJohn Holt to describe the liberation of children from adult-imposed constraints on their learning. Unschoolers had noformal curriculum, no tests, grades, schedules, or bench-marks. Instead, children were free to do as they please withthe parent serving largely as a facilitator of the child’s indi-vidual growth and development. On the righthand side ofthe continuum was the formal “school in a box” approachwhereby a parent purchased a full year’s worth of text-books, worksheets, tests, and assignments and attemptedto reproduce in the home the same basic pedagogical strate-gies practiced in most schools. Not surprisingly, progres-sive types leaned toward unschooling and conservativeProtestants trended toward formal curricula, usually pro-vided by fundamentalist private schools, the most popularbeing A Beka Book, Bob Jones Complete, and Christian Lib-erty Academy Satellite Schools.

While some families began on one side of the contin-uum and stayed there, most gradually incorporated some-thing from both approaches. The most typical progres-sion according to a 1999 study by Karen Rogers Holinga wasfrom complete dependence on a prefabricated curriculumin the first year of home schooling to a more flexible, eclec-tic orientation by the third. Nevertheless, since the greatmajority of home schoolers in the 1980s and 1990s were

conservative Protestants, Christian presses did a brisk busi-ness selling textbooks and other material to them, at hugeannual conventions attended by thousands, at local Chris-tian bookstores, and, increasingly, over the Internet.

Home schoolers have for some time been creatinghybrids that blend elements of formal schooling into theusual pattern of a mother teaching her own children at home(see Figure 3). One of the simplest hybrids is the “MomSchool.” Pioneer Utah home schooler Joyce Kinmontexplains, “a Mom School happens when a mother is homeschooling a child who wants to do something that can bedone best in a group, so she invites other home-schoolingfamilies to join her. The mom is the teacher.” Related butslightly different is the home-school cooperative, whereina group of mothers (and sometimes fathers) pool theirexpertise, each teaching a subject she knows well to all thechildren in the group. Sometimes such co-ops are held inthe homes of respective group members, but often they meetin area churches or other buildings.

The most successful and developed cooperatives begin tolook quite a bit like schools, with an adult teacher in the frontlecturing to rows of students sitting quietly at desks, some-times hiring experts to teach advanced subjects like calcu-lus, foreign languages, or physics. Others carry a more free-flowing pedagogy into the new setting. North Star, aMassachusetts cooperative billing itself as “self directedlearning for teens,” was formed in 1996 by two disgruntledpublic school teachers. At North Star, no attendance is taken,

no grades or evaluations offered. Studentslearn about whatever they want. In 2006,students asked for and got tutoring inGreek mythology, historical interpreta-tion, Shakespeare, prime numbers, martialarts, culture and belief, electronic music,dance, historical fiction, and much more.Most students engage in apprenticeshipsand internships in the local community.Though the graduates receive no tran-script or degree, a 2006 Teacher Magazinearticle reported that 49 percent of alumnihad been accepted to college and 49 per-cent had secured full- or part-time jobs.

While large numbers of home-schooled kids transition to traditionalschools in their teen years, home school-ing for older children is a high-growthmarket, and there has been an explosionin innovative programs for them. Homeschoolers have challenged and are increas-ingly overturning laws barring them fromparticipation in high school sports andother extracurricular activities offered by

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Two parents, one in labor force

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Private schoolPublic schoolHome school

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(Figure 3b)

public schools. Journalist Peter Beinart found that Wichita’s1,500 home-schooling families had created “three bands,a choir, a bowling group, a math club, a 4-H Club, boy- andgirl-scout troops, a debate team, a yearly musical, twolibraries and a cap-and-gown graduation.” “Home-schooled” children were meeting in warehouses or businesscenters for classes “in algebra, English, science, swimming,accounting, sewing, public speaking, and Tae Kwan Do.”

Many with roots in conservative Protestantism havehad trouble adjusting to the more worldly culture thatoften accompanies cooperatives, especially ambitiousendeavors like sports leagues and orchestras. Disagree-ments over “what kinds of uniforms are appropriate forhome-school cheerleaders and whether rock music may beplayed at home-school events” are not uncommon, saysBeinart, as lifelong home schoolers rub shoulders withfamilies fresh from the public schools.

Blurred BoundariesNone of the small-scale culture skirmishes begin to matchthe controversy generated by the growing popularity ofgovernment-sponsored initiatives for home schoolers, how-ever. Many public school districts, having lost the fight tocriminalize home schooling, now openly court home school-ers. School districts around the country are experimentingwith programs that allow students to home school for partof the day but take certain classes at the local public school.

School districts with high ratesof home schooling have seen sig-nificant drops in funding, tied asit is to per-pupil enrollment. TheMaricopa County school districtin Arizona, for example, had bythe year 2000 lost $34 million dueto the exodus of 7,526 homeschoolers. In an effort to winsome of them back, the districtbegan offering à la carte servicesthrough satellite campuses at stripmalls and other locations. Homeschoolers there have attendedweekly enrichment classes in suchsubjects as sign language, art,karate, and modern dance. Thedistrict receives one-quarter ofeach pupil’s government alloca-tion for every student it enrolls inone of the classes. The state ofWashington has been a nationalleader in establishing such part-nerships. At the Homeschool

Resource Center operated by the Seattle Public School Dis-trict, home-schooled children can choose from a rotatingmenu of classes or just stop by to use the computer centeror library.

The College Board has seen a dramatic rise in homeschoolers who take Advanced Placement tests. Some 410home-schooled students took them in 2000, while 1,282 didso in 2005. Home-schooling diploma services have multi-plied across the country, as have honor societies like theHouston-based Eta Sigma Alpha. Many states have begunto extend to home schoolers the popular dual-enrollmentprograms (sometimes called “Running Start”) that allowhigh-school students to enroll for free in classes at local col-leges. Florida and Washington are perhaps the nationalleaders in establishing such programs, but other states arewarming to the possibility.

Not surprisingly, all of this innovation and experimen-tation at the secondary level has led to a dramatic rise inapplications to institutions of higher education by stu-dents without a traditional high-school background. In1986, 90 percent of the nation’s colleges and universities hadno explicit home-schooling admissions policy. A 2004study by Paul Jones and Gene Gloeckner found that bythat year, over 75 percent of the institutions did, and thatthe majority of admissions officers surveyed had very pos-itive feelings about home-schooled applicants. Another2004 study by Sean Callaway of Pace University, of thehome-school admissions policies of 72 colleges and univer-

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NYC families who homeschool their children gathered at the MOMA for an afternoon art class.

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sities and the performance of home-schooled students whowere enrolled, found that home schoolers were generallyhappy with the way they were evaluated and universitieswere happy with the performance and graduation rates ofthe home schoolers they admitted.

Virtual SchoolsAmong the most innovative and successful of the public-pri-vate hybrids is the Florida Virtual School (FLVS), foundedin 1997 and operated by the Florida Department of Educa-tion. It partners with all 67 Florida school districts to bringa complete high-school curriculum moderated by certifiedteachers to the homes of residents across the state, many ofwhom live on isolated produce farms or ranches. In the2006–07 school year, more than 52,000 students were enrolledin FLVS. By 2006, 21 other states and several local districtshad begun similar programs, both to service homebound orother special-needs studentsand as an effort to lure homeschoolers (and the tax dollarsthey represent) back into thepublic education system.

More provocative have beenonline schools founded by pri-vate companies that have takenadvantage of charter school lawsin various states to make theirservices available for free tohome schoolers. California wasan early innovator, with virtualcharter schools opening shortlyafter the Charter Schools Actwas passed in 1992. By 2001 thestate had 93 cybercharters serv-ing more than 30,000 students,which meant that over $200million of California’s publicschool budget was being paid toprivate firms offering home-school curricula and technol-ogy. After it became clear thatsome of these outfits were mak-ing scandalous profits by offer-ing minimal services, Californialegislators passed SB 740, whichimposed strict financial guide-lines on cybercharters, includ-ing a requirement that they spend at least 50 percent of pub-lic revenues on salaries and benefits to state-certified teachers.The law also set limits on pupil-teacher ratios, required moreexpansive record keeping, and imposed strict penalties for fail-ing to meet these and other standards.

By 2006, 18 states had a combined total of 147 virtualcharter schools educating over 65,000 students. Manycybercharters have faced growing pains similar to those seenin California. The Western Pennsylvania Cyber CharterSchool (WPCCS) opened its virtual doors in the fall of 2000as Pennsylvania’s second cybercharter and the first to offerits services across district lines. After nine months enroll-ment topped 1,100. Many school districts, frustrated thatthey now had to pay an outside organization to educate stu-dents in their own districts, many of whom had not evenattended public schools before, simply stopped makingpayments, causing WPCCS to lose nearly $1 million in2001. The Pennsylvania Department of Educationresponded by withholding $850,000 in state aid from 60 dis-tricts, sending the money directly to WPCCS. Lawsuitswere filed by 23 districts, and in May of 2001 senior judgeWarren Morgan ruled against the school districts. That

did not stop complaints aboutWPCCS and several othercybercharters. In 2002 thestate legislature passed Act 88,shifting authorization of cyber-charters from local districts tothe state department of educa-tion and setting more rigorousrequirements and accountabil-ity measures. Despite increasedscrutiny, virtual charters havecontinued to grow. By 2008WPCCS, now called PA Cyber,was employing 500 people toeducate 8,500 students on a$60 million budget.

For-profit cyberchartershave many enemies. Manypoliticians and public schooladvocates agree with Democra-tic Rep. Patrick Rose of theTexas state legislature that “weought not be in the businessof supporting for-profit educa-tion. Any program that takesmoney out of our publicschools would be against ourbetter judgment.” Profits haveindeed been sweet for manycybercharters, operating as they

do without extensive facilities and support staff, thoughadvocates always stress the cost of developing curriculum,advertising, and computer networks, as well as of highturnover rates. Cybercharter advocates and entrepreneursare not surprised at the criticism (and lawsuits, nearly all of

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HOME SCHOOL GAITHER

A 2004 study of thehome-school admissionspolicies of 72 colleges anduniversities found thathome schoolers were generally happy with theway they were evaluatedand universities were happywith the performance andgraduation rates of the homeschoolers they admitted.

which have been unsuccessful) they have been handed frompublic school districts, Democratic legislators resistant to edu-cational choice initiatives, and teachers unions. What has takenthem off-guard, however, is the vocal and bitter oppositionamong many leaders in the home-schooling community.Right- and left-wing home-schooling leaders have set aside long-standing grudges to unite in protest of virtual schools. In 2003,dozens of home-school leaders from a wide range of ideolog-ical positions signed a resolution condemning virtual charterschools called “We Stand for Homeschooling.” The HomeSchool Legal Defense Association did not sign the statementbut has heaped condemnation on cybercharters. ElizabethSmith, wife of HSLDA’s president, in a 2007 address urged heraudience of Protestant home-school leaders to pray against the“assault of the Enemy” that cybercharters represented: “if wewill band together…through prayer…our groups will win.”

Cybercharter backers have had difficulty understanding andresponding to such criticism. Ron Packard, founder and CEOof K12, a curriculum provider whose services in 2007 reachedover 25,000 students through virtual schools in 16 states andthe District of Columbia, has been “shocked” by oppositioncoming from HSLDA. He toldCNSNews.com, “It’s reallyamazing to me that a groupthat has fought so hard for itsright to home school wouldoppose someone else’s par-ents who are fighting for theirright to be doing at home agreat public school educa-tion.” Home-school move-ment leaders’ reactions domake sense, however. Animustoward government was whatbound leftist and conserva-tive Christian home school-ers together in the 1970s and1980s, and it is what hasbrought them back together tooppose virtual charters.

For veteran Christian lead-ers especially, the cyberchartermovement has cut in on theirbusiness. HSLDA senior coun-sel Chris Klicka explains how“even in independent-mindedstates like Idaho and Alaska”Christian home schoolers areenrolling in cybercharters “bythe thousands. They are attending government home-schoolconferences (where Christ or God cannot be mentioned) andreceiving the secular, government home-school newsletters.

They no longer go to the Christian home-school conven-tions.” Christian curriculum providers have lost market shareas well. Christian home schoolers who would otherwise be pur-chasing Christian curricula as independent home schoolersnow receive nonreligious, government-sanctioned curriculuafor free through cybercharters. It is only natural that Christ-ian companies would resent such a move and interpret it asa clandestine effort by the secularist state to destroy them.Despite the united front of opposition, with studies like CarolKlein’s 2006 Virtual Charter Schools and Home Schooling find-ing high levels of parent satisfaction and student achieve-ment at virtual schools, it is highly unlikely that independenthome schoolers and advocates for traditional public schoolswill be able to stop them.

The increasing diversity of home schoolers and institutionalconfigurations should not obscure the fact that many whohome school still choose this option out of frustration withor protest against formal, institution-based schooling andseek to impart an alternative, usually conservative Christian,worldview to their children by teaching them at home. Yet itis also the case that increasing numbers who opt to home

school do so as an accessory,hybrid, or temporary stopgap,or out of necessity given theircircumstances. It is this newergroup of home schoolers whoare challenging the historicaldichotomies between public andprivate, school and home, formaland informal that have playedsuch an important role in themovement’s self-definition andin American education policy.Trends toward accommodation,adaptation, and hybridizationwill likely increase as U.S. edu-cation policy seeks to catch up tothe sweeping demographic,technological, and economicchanges taking place. A move-ment born in opposition topublic schools ironically mightoffer public education its mostpromising reform paradigm forthe 21st century.

Milton Gaither is associate pro-fessor of education at MessiahCollege and author of Home-

school: An American History, from which this article wasadapted. His blog reviewing recent research on home schoolingcan be found at gaither.wordpress.com.

18 EDUCATION NEXT / W I N T E R 2 0 0 9 www.educationnext.org

Animus toward government was whatbound leftist and conservative Christianhome schoolers togetherin the 1970s and 1980s,and it is what has broughtthem back together to oppose virtual charters.

Programon Education Policy&GovernanceProgramon Education Policy&GovernanceR e c e n t P u b l i c a t i o n s

Schools and the Equal Opportunity ProblemLudgerWoessmann and Paul E. Peterson, eds.MIT Press, 2007

Leading researchers from the United States and Europe

report on new findings on the effect of education on equal

opportunity, using economic and statistical techniques

to assess the results of education policy reform in countries

including the United States, Britain, Sweden, Germany,

and Italy.

School Choice InternationalRajashri Chakrabarti and Paul E. Peterson, eds.MIT Press, 2008

Public-private partnerships in education policy play an impor-

tant role in enhancing the supply as well as the quality of

human capital. In recent years, there has been a burgeoning of

public-private partnerships in different parts of the world. The

essays in this volume study public-private partnerships in dif-

ferent parts of the world, such as the Americas, Asia, Europe,

Australia and New Zealand.

New Research: www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/research.htm

Program Events: www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/events.htm

Post Doctoral Opportunities: www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/postdoc.htm

V I S I T U S O N T H E W E B

www.hks.harvard.edu/pepgwww.hks.harvard.edu/pepg

PEPG 2008 ProgramReport

An appraisal of the program’s recent research

activities, their policy impact, and influence in the arena of K-

12 education policy.

The full report is available at:

www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/PDF/Annual_Reports/2008AR.pdf

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