Equal education has traditionally meant free education offering a common curriculum to all children attenting a school in a given locality. However, since the 1954 Supreme Court decision and the Equality of Educational Opportunity survey, implicit assumptions have been challenged by a new concept: equality of opportunity is dependent upon the effects of schooling. At present, educational equality is determined more by the ability of resource inputs to bring about achievement than by the equality of the inputs themselves. This concept implies that the responsibility for achievement rests with the school, not the child. The school might implement this responsibility, particularly for assuring that lower class children learn reading and arithmetic, by contractual arrangements with entrepreneurs outside the school system. This innovation should involve released time plans, private contractors who are paid by results, and free choice for the consumer (parents). Guarantees of racial and social class integration would be built into the contracts. Social integration in large urban school systems can be encouraged by contractual arrangements for interschool activities and programs. (NH)