BY WILL CROSSLEY AND BOB WOODSON

Most education reformers — especially those interested in low-income communities — rightly focus on the needs and interests of students, whether they are discussing short-term outcomes like standardized testing results, or longer term results like rates of college acceptance and graduation.

But the most important question they should be asking is: What do the parents in these communities want for their children? What do their extended family, mentors and pastors want?

Unfortunately, even the best-intentioned reformers rarely entertain this question.

Parents are the most important stakeholders in matters of education after the children themselves, yet reformers’ ideological and emotional interests consistently take precedence over those of the parents and the local community.

All too often, the education of poor or marginalized children gets lost in ideological battles between groups of elites who are completely removed from the communities they purport to defend.

Read the full article in The Hill.