Parental choice is seen as a promising approach to school improvement. This report supports choice by suggesting answers to the following questions that reformers might ask: (1) is school performance poor enough to justify wholesale change? (2) what have schools done about troubling trends in student performance? (3) what do other researchers say about trends in learning and schooling? (4) what does new research say about student achievement and school performance? (5) what is the relationship between school organization and school performance? (6) what organizational characteristics make schools effective? (7) how clear is it that effective school organization promotes student achievement? (8) what constitutes effective school organization? (9) why is autonomy so important for effective school organization? (10) why are so few schools autonomous? (11) what will be the consequences of 1980s' reforms and improvements? (12) what are promising approaches to school improvement? (13) how do systems of competition and choice work? (14) how successful have they been? (15) what results can they produce? (16) will unsound but superficially attractive schools flourish? (17) will children of uninformed parents end up in mediocre schools? (18) will choice systems be more expensive than current ones? (19) should private schools participate in choice systems? (20) would this destroy public education? and (21) what are the most important points for reformers to consider? The report includes 37 references. (AF)