The aim of this article is to review and critically discuss three arguments that proponents of further marketization and competition among elementary schools, most notably expressed in the concept of freedom of choice, have highlighted. These are: pedagogical improvement and the educational system’s efficiency as a consequence of competition; integrational aspirations of oppressed immigrant communities in segregated urban settings; and finally a substantial public support for the freedom of choice policy. Drawing on theoretical insights from international research and variety of empirical evidences I conclude that these three arguments in their practical outcomes are contradictory. But I also discuss how and why they nevertheless could easily be conflated into an ideologically plausible neoliberal story about market and education.