Miss. Group Forms National Parent Network

By Meg Sommerfeld

A Jackson, Miss.-based citizens' organization has launched a five-year campaign to recruit a grassroots army of parents to support education reform across the nation.

The group, Parents for Public Schools, was founded in 1989 to halt "white flight'' from Jackson's public schools. (See Education Week, March 20, 1991.)

Leaders of the new effort, "Project Appleseed,'' hope to establish strong state-level Parents for Public Schools organizations comparable in stature to the state affiliates of the national teachers'...