NOT Your Mother's PTA

The organization that claims to represent the voice and interests of K-12 students and their parents is the Parent Teacher Association, widely known as the PTA. The organization aims to provide "parents and families with a powerful voice to speak on behalf of every child while providing the best tools for parents to help their children be successful students." Founded in 1897 as the National Congress of Mothers, the PTA declared that it was "up to the mothers of the country to eliminate threats that endangered children." Today, its goal is a "quality education and nurturing environment for every child." The PTA has worked to advance social changes that improved the lives of young people, including championing the creation of child labor laws, reorganizing the juvenile justice system, and improving a variety of children's services. But today, its orientation to K-12 issues is most aptly described by education analyst Charlene Haar as an "echo...of the teachers unions." Among today's advocates for young people are nonprofit insurgent groups that challenge the education establishment by organizing, educating, and mobilizing parents in a variety of roles and in different ways, empowering them to engage in K-12 reform efforts. This organizing generates collective, durable power that advances the interests of K-12 education consumers--especially parents--rather than education producers. These advocacy groups empower parents to make their voices and choices a primary catalyst of school reform. Unlike the PTA, Parent Revolution, Education Reform Now, and Stand for Children are insurgent organizations that exist to challenge the conventional power arrangements of the K-12 public education system, organizing parents at the grassroots level to advance a school reform agenda.