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“Parent Power! Index” Gauges Education Opportunity Across The Country

  • November 18, 2022

School Choice Hope

Parents and students rally to promote education opportunity.
T. Allen

Liberals and conservatives both tend to equate the “school choice” movement, or the broader push to expand families’ educational options beyond traditional, district-run public schools, with the political right. They’re wrong.

In fact, if you look at the Center for Education Reform’s 2022 Parent Power Index, which rates the states on the degree to which they enable parents to control their children’s education, both the two top states in the rankings (Florida and Arizona) and the two bottom states in the rankings (North Dakota and Nebraska) are generally regarded as conservative or conservative-leaning states.

Square that with the notion that the political right is solidly behind choice, while liberal bastions such as Minnesota and the District of Columbia (both of which rank in the top 10 on the Index) oppose choice.

As we’ll show again next month when we reveal the winner of the million-dollar 2022 Yass Prize to Transform Education, the most-prestigious award in preK-12 education, those who embrace choice and opportunity come in every flavor and color. There are recent immigrants and members of families that have called America home from colonial times. There are Democrats, Republicans, progressives and conservatives. There are straight-arrow public school superintendents and there are dreamers, entrepreneurs, and experimenters.

What they all have in common is a drive to see children succeed in school, even in some cases if that means redefining what a “school” is. And to ensure that learning happens, all have either made innovative changes in their existing educational programs or have created new approaches to learning.

In short, there’s no ideology involved: just a desire to provide families with the broadest possible range of educational options for their children so they can find one that works—because the current system isn’t working for many, as the recent National Assessment of Educational Progress test results reconfirmed.

No family’s street address, income level, or child’s level of academic achievement should limit that family’s access to educational opportunity. Better schools come about when parents have power. Parents have power when states are open and transparent about their policies and provide parents with the necessary information, authority and funding to exercise more control over their children’s schooling.

After the pandemic-related school closings, lockdowns and other disruptions, parents, teachers and students all want more freedom and flexibility in education. It became obvious during the pandemic that children do best when the ‘system’ is flexible, responsive to their individual needs, and provides them with educational options that will enable them to succeed.

The NAEP reading and math tests, taken this year by nearly half-a-million fourth- and eighth-graders nationwide, have proven that business as usual is a formula for failure.

Even U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona described the test results as “appalling” and “unacceptable.” As I wrote after the scores were made public on Oct. 24, at the very least they’re evidence of “academic malnourishment,” if not malpractice.

Parents are demanding change and they have every right to do so. The Parent Power Index, which we’ve published annually since 1999, ranks states on multiple factors that gauge how much parents in each state are permitted to make critical decisions affecting their children’s schooling.

Parents are fed up. They see their states and communities spending record amounts of money—more than $20,000 per student per year in many districts—and they’re not seeing commensurate results. Not when two-thirds of fourth- and eighth-grade students can’t read proficiently, as NAEP tests showed.

Screen Shot 2022-11-18 at 6.55.28 PM

2022 Parent Power! Index assesses how much power states afford parents to drive the education of their students.
CER

Parents shouldn’t have to accept such appalling results. And political leaders need to empower them. That’s what the Parent Power! Index and the Yass Prize competition are all about: exploring the many ways children can receive an education besides the traditionally-run schools (micro-schools, online, on-ground, education saving accounts, scholarship programs, project-based and more) and showcasing education providers who are doing it right.

Parental involvement, of course, is critical. More studies than I can count have shown that parents who regularly read to their pre-school children will have children who are successful readers. But involvement doesn’t end when the children head off to school.

That, in fact, is when parent power begins; when parents, regardless of their income level and Zip Code, get to choose the school their child will attend.

Success happens after many pivots and changes.

Michael Moe
Founder and CEO,
Global Silicon Valley

We often jump to the what, without thinking with the community about the why.

Michael B. Horn
Author,
From Reopen to Reinvent

If you get to the accelerator after the application process, go in knowing you already won.

The fact that you are now with a group of your peers you really get to see how world class the education profession is.

Christopher Simmonds
Principal,
CARE Elementary School

The pandemic didn’t stop our families, scholars and educators from learning, growing and thriving.

Patricia Brantley
CEO,
Friendship Public Charter School

The fact that education has become partisan is upsetting, and I just hope that this award will encourage more states to view this as a bipartisan issue.

Janine Yass
Founder,
The Yass Prize

Remember, you are doing the work of civilization.

You are planting the seeds of a better world, despite any bad news, you’re doing great things.

Steve Forbes
Editor-in-Chief,
Forbes Media

You are in a moment in history that we have never seen before.

Any of us with a disruptive idea have a shot at trying to prove something.

Randall Lane
Chief Content Officer,
Forbes Media

What is good for families is good for the school because families want great schools.

Ceci Schickel
Senior Director of Organizing and Advocacy,
Mastery Charter School

I hope you all think about the fact that the impact you are having, you will never even know how widespread it is.

That’s the beauty of education, you impact lives in such a deep way.

Alyssa Farah Griffin
Co-Host on The View and CNN Political Commentator,

We see the Pulitzer prizes, we see the MacArthur Genius Grants, we see the Pritzker prize for architecture.

But for the one field that drives everything, education, there is no definitive prize. The Yass Prize has filled that vacuum -- it's more than just the money. It's about spurring ideas, it's about spurring innovation. We are very very proud to be a part of it.

Randall Lane
Editor,
Forbes

I'm deeply humbled and grateful to be part of this group.

The last month has been a tremendous experience and I'm so inspired and motivated by the amazing work this group is doing. Collectively, we’re working towards a real-world goal and it’s leaving me empowered and motivated to apply what we learn.

Jeffrey Imrich
Co-Founder,
Rock by Rock

The real source of wealth in society is the human mind, not material things, because with the human mind, great wealth can be created.

Steve Forbes
Editor-in-Chief,
Forbes Media

Entrepreneurs are people who teach us about needs we don’t know we need.

This is the fundamental basis of what we are doing.

Carl Schramm
University Professor,
Syracuse University

What has been created here at the accelerator is truly incredible.

We may never know how pivotal this really is for education in America right here, right now. This group of people will work together to force real change permissionlessly.

Rob Blevins
Executive Director,
Discovery Center of Springfield

We realized long ago that there’s a lot of money in the system, and it’s just not directed to the children.

Janine Yass
Founder,
The Yass Prize

I am still processing the magnitude of this experience and so grateful for meeting each and everyone of you.

I look forward to continuing our transformative work in our communities and together.

Taylor Shead
Board Member,
Dallas Education Foundation

When you are trying to advance and think beyond the status quo, this can be a lonely place, because our systems are structured to do the same thing.

It is important to surround yourself with like-minded individuals who foster innovation.

Phyllis Lockett
CEO,
LEAP Innovations

Unfortunately, the bureaucracy that’s behind the school system is more interested in perpetuating jobs and keeping the system in place, rather than giving children the freedom they deserve.

Janine Yass
Founder,
The Yass Prize

We may not agree on much of anything, but one thing that is a uniting force that we all agree on is that education opens doors, it’s the great equalizer.

Alyssa Farah Griffin
Co-Host on The View and CNN Political Commentator,

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