This course focuses on three issues that are at the heart of current efforts to reform American education. One is a current plan to radically revise Chapter 1 (formerly Title I of the 1965 ESEA), which is the largest and oldest federal effort to improve schools for students from disadvantaged circumstances. A second issue is recent efforts to establish much more demanding national and state standards for school performance, in order to dramatically upgrade teaching and learning in schools across the U.S. A third is proposals to organize public education around family choice.