Parents Across America: Parent “Choice” is Not Parent “Voice”
Influential public school advocacy group Parents Across America weren’t invited to Rep. Duncan Hunter’s House Education and Workforce sub-committee hearing on “Exploring State Success in Expanding Parent and Student Options.” No surprise there. PAA explains why:
Yesterday, a subcommittee of the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce held a hearing which was promoted as a discussion on “state efforts to expand parental engagement.”
However, the title of the actual hearing (see heading above) and the testimony of three of the four invited speakers, made it clear that the leadership defines parent engagement solely as parental choice.
In his opening comments, subcommittee chair Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) essentially equated parental empowerment with expanded charter schools, parent trigger laws, and school vouchers, i.e., the privatization agenda of corporate reform
Chairman Hunter even tried to tie those strategies to the research showing the many positive