The current debate on educational choice concerns whether locally centralized school systems of the kind that predominate in the public school sector are responsive to and can accommodate the diversity of educational consumers' preferences. Section I analyzes policy options and illustrates how policymakers, by examining a range of solutions to the problem of school organization, can alter the relationship between clients and providers. Section II, focusing on the problem of accommodating diversity in locally centralized systems, presents (1) the case for choices, (2) the range of choices within the existing system, and (3) the collective consequences of individual choices. Section III discusses the various options available to policymakers and suggests some ways in which the major elements of school organization can be brought together differently to change the relationship between clients and providers. This section also discusses how alterations in finance, attendance, staffing, and content policies can change the form of a school organization and the relationship between consumers and providers of education. Finally, section IV, addressing the question of whether policymakers should experiment with choice, presents both reasons for and cautions about such experimenting. Appended are 44 references. (WTH)