The editorial in our last issue signaled the interest of The Montana Professor in open dialogue on the merits of what is commonly called school choice, i.e., charter schools, voucher plans, tuition tax credits and home schooling. In this issue we continue the theme of that editorial with an article, "School Choice: Legal Trends and Developments" and a review of Short Route to Chaos: Conscience, Community, and the Re-constitution of American Schooling followed by a reply to the review by the author of Short Route to Chaos. The reply is titled, "Planting Land Mines in Common Ground...." All three of these items are deserving of careful attention because of the quality of the articles and the importance of the subject.
Additionally the editors are now engaged in developing plans for a statewide conference on school choice. While this is still in the initial stages of planning we have sufficient evidence of wide interests and financial support to make us optimistic the conference will become a reality. What we need now is to hear from our readers as to who is knowledgeable about these matters, who is interested in writing about them, who has some ideas for the conference, etc. We will welcome all contributions and will print as many as possible. Comments intended to help us but not intended for publication are also welcome. Ideas for groups or individuals as participants are needed. Anyone who is familiar with the literature on some aspect of the topic would do us a favor by writing and telling us of it.