I have long contended that the power dynamic caused by committed parents who decide they are mad as hell and don’t want to take it any more will be the lever that moves things once and for all in K-12. The United Federation of Teachers in NYC gets this.
There is a rather amazing piece in this week’s The Chief, a newspaper serving New York’s organized labor community. It basically describes the work the teachers union in NYC did last spring to organize parents, and how the new bond that was formed represents a healing of past wounds (especially in Brooklyn) caused by battles between black parents and largely white, Jewish teachers.