Peabody to host national 'school choice' conference

The Peabody College at Vandebilt University announced Thursday it will host a national 'school choice' conference in October.

The National Center on School Choice's 2009 National Invitational Conference, set for Oct. 25-27 is titled "School Choice and School Improvement: Research in State, District and Community Context." This is the second such conference the group has held to bring together research material on how students and families make the decision of where to sent students.

'In particular, the conference will examine how communities, districts and states implement choice as a strategy for improving schools and student outcomes,” the conference's Web site says.

The keynote speakers are Paul G. Vallas, the superintendent of the Recovery School District of Louisiana, the man responsible for turning around New Orleans schools in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and Henry M. Levin, a professor of economics and education at Columbia University's Teachers College anddirector of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education.