Largely obscured in the rankings of national education systems is the concept of equity. In addition to fair funding, sustained comprehensive instruction is fundamental to equity. Conversely, beyond unfair funding, early tracking of students onto academic or vocational paths is basic to inequity. In The Politics of Comprehensive School Reforms: Cleavages and Coalitions, Katharina Sass documents how Norway achieved equity by keeping students together until age 16, while Germany accomplished the opposite by putting students onto academic or vocational paths at age 10. Applying Stein Rokkan's theoretical framework of cleavages and coalitions, Sass explains how political forces, not pedagogical expertise, determined these divergent outcomes. As early tracking precludes the discovery of intellectual talent among late bloomers, forfeits significant socialization, and reproduces class differences, such education policy has substantial implications for inclusion and enfranchisement. With her meticulous attention to how Norway and Germany developed such different school systems, Sass at once lays the foundation for a better understanding of these implications and paves the way for a more nuanced appreciation of the generation of education policy itself.