parent advocates

Real Talk From Parents Homeschooling Children With Disabilities
Parents of children with disabilities are already some of the strongest, fiercest and most exhausted parent advocates for quality schools during regular times. So sure,…

National Parents Union Emerges to Disrupt Education Conversation
When it comes to education news and policy, we are used to hearing about the involvement of a union. However, typically the unions only represent…

Drop Your Assumptions About Kids With Special Needs and Their Families
As a parent of a child with special needs, I pay a lot of money to provide the services that she needs to be successful…

How a Dozen Immigrant Parents Organized to Transform Literacy in Their District
Parents’ love for their children is the single greatest—and most underutilized—natural resource in education. I learned this firsthand as a son. My parents escaped political…

Help Other Parents Find the Best Schools for Their Kids by Sharing Your Story
When we want to improve things, we often talk about what is broken. But if we truly want to find solutions, we need to pay…

If We Really Want to Change Our Schools, We Need to Get Real About What’s Happening in Them
Thirteen years after Hurricane Katrina and the reunification of all schools under the governing of Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB), we are still having conversations…

This Thanksgiving I’m Thankful for All the Education Advocates Who Make Doing This Work Just a Little Bit Easier
Outrage: Distractions Y’all, I’m irritated. The internet stays failing us and we believe almost everything we see and hear without doing our own research. Over…

This School Year, Let’s Show What Happens When Parents and Teachers Work as a Team
A parent is a child’s first teacher. It is through a parent’s teaching that children first learn to speak and say “Mama” and “Dada.” It…

Coffee Break: Oakland’s Lakisha Young Is Done Waiting for Superman and Ready for Parents to Take the Lead
Lakisha Young is executive director of The Oakland REACH. She has dedicated her career to promoting access to quality schools because she knows firsthand that…

Cynthia Nixon’s Run for Governor Is Looking a Lot More Like ‘Hypocrisy and the City’
For the past decade or so, the forces of the educational status quo have done battle with those of education reformers. The most common line…