The Disempowerment Of Public School Parents
by Jeff Bryant
This post is republished from the Education Opportunity Network, a new online publication edited by Jeff Bryant.
For years, policy initiatives stemming from right wing belief tanks have been wrapped in the rhetoric of positive outcomes that are, in fact, the complete opposite of what the measures are really intended to do.
A bill called Clear Skies that called for more pollution. Another called Healthy Forestsincentivized cutting down valuable trees. No Child Left Behind, perhaps the crowning glory of duplicity, worsened the education of disadvantaged children it was purported to magically improve.
But without a doubt the most enduring of these wolf-wrapped-in-sheep’s-clothing ideas is the promise of “school choice” that’s been promoted to parents since the presidencies ofNixon and Reagan.
Sold as a way to “empower” parents to improve the education attainment of their
