Each summer school choice parent advocates from across the country gather in Washington, DC to attend the PSO Parent Advocacy Boot Camp. This year marked the 10th anniversary of this gathering and it’s incredible to see how far our advocacy efforts have come in the last 10 years. At this year’s boot camp parents heard…
Each year, PSO parent advocates attend multiple national charter school and education conferences. Unfortunately, each year, the parent voice seems to be missing at these meetings. While parent advocates attend, rarely are parents or their perspective included in programming. They should. After all, who knows the educational needs of their children better than their parents?…
PSO board members Tillie Elvrum and Christin White-Kaiser attended the 2016 National Charter Schools Conference in Washington, DC this week where 4,500 teachers, administrators, lawmakers, policy makers, advocates, and parents gathered to share ideas and learn about education reform and what’s going on in the world of charter schools. At a panel discussion about the…
Last week, a former official at the National Alliance of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) and a self-proclaimed education reformer, tweeted an offensive and insensitive analogy, likening the country’s virtual schools – which serve thousands of students – to thalidomide. What is thalidomide? It was a drug used in the 1950’s that caused severe birth defects…
I recently returned from the Foundation for Excellence in Education’s 2016 National Summit on Education Reform. This conference is always a favorite because the panel discussions and keynote speakers are inspiring. The conference is led by reformers and advocates who are working to make a world-class education available to every child. As parent advocates, and national board members at PublicSchoolOptions.org, we attend lots of conferences every year to learn about school choice and policies that affect our families.
Earlier this year, parent advocates from across the country took planes, trains, and automobiles out to our nation’s capital, Washington DC. Why? To learn how to more effectively advocate for public school options for their children. All of these parents have their own school choice story. They come from different backgrounds and all have…
Earlier this year, parent advocates from across the country took planes, trains, and automobiles out to our nation’s capital, Washington DC. Why? To learn how to more effectively advocate for public school options for their children.
There’s been a lot of buzz lately in the education world about high-stakes testing. Students don’t like it because they have to sit quietly for 4 hours at a time. Teachers know it takes up valuable instructional time. Parents aren’t convinced that one number can accurately describe their child’s academic performance. A recent survey commissioned…
By: Colleen Cook Let’s face it, creating real and meaningful change is hard. It requires disciplined effort and significant time. I was blessed to spend part of the third week of November with inspiring creators of change at the South Carolina Charter Schools Conference. It brought together many smart, thoughtful leaders who are fighting to…
By: Tillie Elvrum My family has always been a family “on the move” due to my husband’s Air Force and corporate careers. We have never lived in any state longer than 5 years, so we’ve called many places home, and as President of PublicSchoolOptions.org I’ve had the privilege to return to many of the places…