Privately owned but publicly financed schools are a strange element in a country like Sweden, where the public sector for so long had monopoly on running schools, as well as services like child care, hospitals, and geriatric care. Ever since the “independent school” reform was launched in Sweden almost 25 years ago, it has been under debate. Do the schools cause segregation, should for-profit schools be permitted and what about faith-based schools? In terms of start-ups independent schools have, however, been successful and today 16% of the students attend a privately owned school. In spite of much research it is hard to tell what the independent school reform has meant in terms of such issues as efficiency, quality, segregation and students’ results. In any event, independent schools have come to stay and have more and more become an appreciated and obvious part of the school system in Sweden. The analogy between the U.S. debate about school choice options and the Swedish debate about independent schools is striking. The similarity both in school design and in the issues at the center of the debates in the two countries are striking.