To overcome the education deficit, the United States must first have a national commitment to excellence in education and, second, must restructure elementary and secondary education. The provision of choice in education is the cornerstone to restructuring education in this country. Opportunities offered by choice have benefited students at the Jose Feliciano School for the Performing Arts in East Harlem, New York. Minnesota has been putting the nation's most ambitious statewide choice program in effect since 1985. Iowa and Arkansas have enacted open enrollment legislation, and it is reported that 21 states are considering choice programs. According to Charles Glenn, civil rights director, Massachusetts Department of Education, choice can promote equity" by creating conditions that encourage schools to become more effective...by allowing schools to specialize and thus to meet the needs of some students very well rather than all students at a level of minimum adequacy, and...by increasing the influence of parents over the education of their children in a way which is largely conflict free." Choices at the postsecondary level of education in the United States have helped to produce the highest caliber educational system. The same approach can promote progress and success for our elementary and secondary schools. In order to provide momentum in the national effort on choice in education, several federal initiatives are announced along with four publications that concentrate on the theory and practice of choice. Finally, a 3-year evaluation to be conducted of the impact of Minnesota's open-enrollment choice program is announced. (MLF)