Despite the crucial importance of choice in a democracy, choice has not recently been an overriding concept in public education. If parents, especially poor parents, could choose among educational options for their children, schools would be more accountable and responsive to the public and more learning would take place. (GC)

Early desegregation efforts simply followed the authoritarian model predominant in American schools since the 1920s. As schools have become more democratic, however, so has the process of desegregating urban school systems. (GC)

Parents are being invited to step in to help improve public education, but they enter with neither resources nor power. Real parental involvement requires commitment to organizing parents and restructuring schools, as well as inventing rich versions of diverse educational democracies of difference. Schools must function like meaningful…