Nancy Beadie is a professor and historian of education in the area of educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Washington, Seattle. She is a co-editor of Chartered Schools: Two Hundred Years of Independent Academies, 1727 1925 (2002). She has twice received the History of Education Society's prize for best article published in a refereed journal, and her articles have appeared in numerous journals, including Social Science History, History of Education Quarterly, History of Education, and Paedagogica Historica.