Complete Coverage

'Parent Unions' Seek to Join Policy Debates

Gwendolyn Samuel, 46, at laptop, founder of Connecticut Parents Union, works with student volunteers at her Meriden, Conn., home, in preparation for an education rally on March 14.

—Christopher Capozziello for Education Week

By Sean Cavanagh

Whether they're organizing events, buttonholing legislators, or simply trading ideas and information, a growing number of "parent unions" are attempting to stake out a place in policy debates over education in states and districts, amid a crowded field of actors and advocates.

As the term implies, some of these organizations see themselves as countering the political might of teachers' unions, though others see the labor groups as allies. Still other parents' unions are less concerned with teacher and labor-management issues than with advancing their own tightly focused—or very broad—agendas. Those agendas include improving school gifted-and-talented programs, for instance, and closing achievement gaps between minority and white students.

Many parents' unions are still in their infancy, and can count few outright successes or failures in trying to shape policy. Whether such groups emerge as powerful voices, or fade into obscurity,...