Law & Courts

Report Links Parent Power to States’ School Choice Laws

By Karla Scoon Reid — September 04, 2013 1 min read
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States with charter schools, parent-trigger laws, and school vouchers get high marks on the Center for Education Reform’s latest Parent Power Index released today.

CER, a group that has been a school choice advocate for years, developed the online tool to track states’ progress in adopting education reforms that will give parents the “power and opportunity to get the best education possible for their child,” according to a news release. Access to online learning, transparency in reporting student-achievement data, and teacher-quality assessments also were valued highly on the index.

But few states measure up to CER’s standards, with only Indiana, Florida, Ohio, Louisiana, and Arizona showing progress in the report in meeting parent demands for educational options.

Still it seems that “parent power” may have a different definition depending on where your children attend school. States with no or “weak” charter school laws, like Montana, Nebraska, and Iowa, remain on the bottom of the index with little chance of moving up. According to the report, “some of these states have very homogenous populations where disrupting the status quo appears to be undesired by parents and lawmakers alike.”

Could opting out of school choice options, like vouchers and charter schools, be considered a form of parent power?

See how your state ranks here.

See our full coverage of parent empowerment issues.

A version of this news article first appeared in the K-12 Parents and the Public blog.