News Release

October 18, 2005

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Coulson to Head Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom

The Cato Institute has named Andrew J. Coulson as director of the institute's Center for Educational Freedom.

Coulson is the author of Market Education: The Unknown History, published in 1999. He has recently been senior fellow in education policy at the Mackinac Center and editor of SchoolChoices.org. Prior to entering the field of education a decade ago, he was a systems software engineer with Microsoft Corp. So, while Bill Gates quit school to form Microsoft, Andrew Coulson quit Microsoft to reform schools. He still lives in Seattle.

The Center for Educational Freedom was founded in 2001 on the principle that parents are best suited to make important decisions regarding the care and education of their children. The Center's scholars seek to shift the terms of public debate in favor of the fundamental right of parents and toward a future when state-run schools give way to a dynamic, independent system of schools competing to meet the needs of American children.

Coulson, who will formally begin at Cato on November 15, said, "I'm energized by the move to Cato, and look forward to providing policy makers, the media, and the public with incisive education policy research and analysis."

Recent publications of the Center for Educational Freedom include What America Can Learn from School Choice in Other Countries, edited by David Salisbury and James Tooley; "No Child Left Behind: The Dangers of Centralized Education Policy," by Lawrence A. Uzzell; and "The Affirmative Action Myth," by Marie Gryphon.