Seventeen years ago, the Lagunitas School District (California) decided to honor the wide range of parent values and expectations by setting up alternative curricula. Options presently include an Academics and Enrichment program, a Montessori program, open classrooms, home study, and transfer to another school district. Nontraditional student…

Public education focuses on the lowest common denominator; cannot meet individual student needs; teaches competition; teaches children to learn for praise, not for the sake of learning; and has a 40 percent failure rate. These factors lead many to choose home schooling, but approaches to home schooling are so varied that a common definition of…