It seems we’ve finally reached a place whereby more and more families are seeing beyond the veil of misrepresentations, miscommunications, and misinterpretations about what’s actually plaguing schools in neighborhoods and communities most at risk. The students who are the most vulnerable academically are the ones who have suffered for years because of the inattentiveness of the adults in their lives, the deception displayed by some teachers and administrators, or parent inability to discern or intervene. The administrative fraud, teacher incompetence, poor leadership, and mismanagement in nonperforming elementary and secondary schools have been exposed by local and state education officials and others who are advocating for strong systems of accountability, the highest levels of teacher qualifications, and elevated academic standards across all schools. Thankfully, there is a national consensus across rural, suburban, and urban communities that the expectations and standards in public schools must be transformed. The shroud of excuses and falsehoods that have allowed years of sheer hypocrisy in America’s schools is about to be completely obliterated by the very parents and public stakeholders who were the targets of this scam for so many years. The day of reckoning seems to have finally arrived as it pertains to American public education.

It is worth noting that parents have become more empowered by the new school choices that have become available and accessible to them unlike in past years. The innovativeness of educators and professionals from varied professions, industries, and sectors has made it easier for students and their families to opt out of nonperforming traditional schools in exchange for a better, more promising academic environment. The reality is that a whole segment of the parent population has not been aware of its right to demand a school transfer from a school that is not performing adequately. So the notion of pulling a child from a school never entered the minds of many parents who were deprived of accurate information and better choices. As the public school landscape has expanded to include all kinds of viable school alternatives, families are displaying a greater sense of focus and desperation to secure the best academic setting for their school-aged youngsters. The pace at which seats are filling up in charter schools, parochial schools, and other independent schools is truly a testament to this new activism among the adults who wield the most influence in the lives of students. It’s refreshing to witness the active participation of so many adult stakeholders who have been challenged and chided for years to become more involved in their children’s education.

The partisan and ideological bickering that has contaminated school reform dialogue for the past two decades is being muted. Real and substantive conversations about what’s best for students are being led by persons and organizations that have labored for years to produce practicable substitutes for failing schools in districts across the country. Their market-based reform experiments have provided the necessary evidence for constituencies to realize that a new paradigm can work. On the other hand, the seemingly intractable nature of some of the academic problems and the urgency for academic readiness may have even pushed some stalwarts beyond their longstanding, unsubstantiated, and stale arguments and positions. Global changes and the renewed focus by state and local education officials to hold educators and their cronies accountable has awakened this group of partisans to at least think outside of their ideological and bureaucratic boxes. The role of politics may essentially be over if we can count on families and others to keep their eyes on the ball and hold schools accountable to their public mandates. The era of national solutions being applied across the board to schools in diverse areas of the country has passed. The uniqueness of student and school challenges warrants local solutions to local school problems. The interests and agendas of national advocacy groups and political parties no longer dominate our public education debate. Families and community stakeholders are exerting their power and influence to ensure that their local students’ dreams and hopes are sufficiently nurtured by the schools set up to serve them.