If schools are to reorganize to meet the educational needs of disadvantaged children, should they become freer or more directed? This paper analyzes twelve schools, all of which in varying degrees have proved successful, and chosen because they indicate the broad range of free and directed school programs now being developed for disadvantaged children of all ages. The schools, analyzed in terms of a scale from the most directed classroom situation to the freest, include: the Amidon Elementary School; the Bereiter-Engelmann Preschool; the Institute for Developmental Studies; the Perry Preschool Project; the African Free School Program; the Montessori Program for the Disadvantaged; the English in Every Classroom Program of the W.J. Maxey Boys Training School; the Free Schools of Prince Edward County; Harlem Prep; the CAM Academy; the Pennsylvania Advancement School; and, the First Street School. What can be usefully said about free and directed schools and the needs of the disadvantaged is not so much a matter of comparing systems of education but of pointing out what freedom and directedness mean in successful educational practice. (Author/JM)