Efforts to expand parents' choice of schools, curricula, and teachers in elementary and secondary education have led to new educational and financial programs, but have also raised important legal issues. Programs to expand educational choice and administrative flexibility in public schools included alternative, mini, and magnet schools, parent advisory councils, school-based management, and decentralization. Their goals have been to achieve a more comprehensive education, better student performance, school desegregation, or improved school-community relations. Success of the educational changes has been greatest where they are integrated into the district's standard programs. The new financial arrangements, including vouchers and tuition tax credits, have extended choice to nonpublic as well as public schools, with the goals of expanding parent control of schools, school accountability, and public financing of nonpublic schools. Critics of these financial arrangements have charged that they perpetuate fiscal, racial, and social inequities and do not benefit those students with the greatest needs. Both the educational and financial programs to expand choice have raised legal issues revolving around their ineffectiveness in remedying racial segregation; violation of the separation of church and state; discrimination against handicapped, bilingual, or female students; and violation of due process regarding access to school programs. (Author/RW)