For over 200 years legislators, educators, and public-minded citizens have debated ways of governing their country's public schools. In these debates the opportunity, or its absence, of participating in the choice and the administration of their children's school has been an ever-present concern to parents. This book reviews these debates and discusses such present-day school choice related issues as racial integration, ethnicity, social class, vouchers, charter, magnet and private schools in the United States, the former German Democratic Republic, and the Federal Republic of Germany.