Introduction

Abstract

Education has been near the top of the national domestic agenda since the 1980s. In that time, the federal government has passed innumerable small pieces of legislation, twice reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, dabbled with national standards and tests, and supported a mixed bag of innovations such as charter schools and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Despite substantial effort, much creativity plenty of politics, and many billions of dollars, however, none of this activity has amounted to much, with Washington continuing to foot only about 7 percent of the nation’s K-12 education bill and most of the real action taking place in states and districts.KeywordsPublic ChoiceSchool DistrictPrivate ProviderCharter SchoolSchool ChoiceThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.