This chapter analyzes the role of public opinion in the politics of education reform in Germany. Being a federalist country, policy-making happens both at the federal level and the subnational (Land) level. We focus on Baden-Wurttemberg in the south and North Rhine-Westphalia in the west of Germany. We identify salient issues with coherent popular attitudes (such as the reform of upper secondary academic education), where we find a strong influence of public opinion on policy-making (“loud politics”). In the case of vocational education and training, in contrast, interest groups and “quiet politics” rule. Lastly, the domain of school reform politics, in particular the institutional setup of the secondary school system, is an area of “loud but noisy politics” with a high degree of partisan contestation. Thus, the theoretical framework developed in Chapter 2 is broadly confirmed.