This paper focuses on educational equity in China using the experience of school choice reform in Shanghai. The education authority in Shanghai has launched a host of policy measures to address "school choice fever" (zexiao re) where parents compete to enrol their children in a top-performing school. The policy initiative has been enacted through three strategies that collectively seek to make admission into elite public and minban (people-managed) schools more difficult. However, the policy measure has not dislodged the fundamental societal perception of a good school as one that delivers high test scores. Furthermore, the policy change has paradoxically reinforced the existing inequalities between schools and families. The developments in Shanghai point to the mediating and influential role of parental choice in equity policy against a backdrop of neoliberal ideas and practices. The Shanghai example underscores how a school choice model, despite its best intention, may not succeed in ensuring educational equity for students because of parental intervention and counter-measures to education policy.