It's clear parents want to choose a public school that meets their child’s needs | Opinion

All students deserve a high-quality public education, and our organizations, Nashville PROPEL and Memphis Lift, engage, educate, and empower parents and grandparents of students stuck in low-performing schools to advocate for change. Change is hard, but possible. We have a long way to go.

This year, 19 Metro Nashville Public Schools and 36 Memphis Shelby County Schools are considered “Priority Schools,” meaning their performance falls in the bottom 5% of schools in the state. These are the worst of the worst-performing schools, and most of them are in Black and brown neighborhoods where our kids are stuck moving from one failing school to the next. We believe that breaking this cycle is a matter of life and death.

The easiest place to start is by giving families an exit ramp, via the option to send their child to a high-performing public school. But taking advantage of that option today is easier said than done.

We find that too often parents don’t realize their child attends a failing school, and what it means. Their neighborhood school is the one they are zoned for and the only one they know. If, or once, they do realize they have options, navigating the process of switching schools – including finding transportation to that new school, likely across town – can be overwhelming.

And there’s a decent chance that even if you figure all of that out, you may still end up stuck – this time, on a charter school waiting list. The list at KIPP Schools in Nashville alone is more than 750 and thousands of families are on charter waiting lists across the state. Demand is growing – but supply isn’t keeping up.

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How we are empowering parents

To help support parents through this process, our organizations have started hosting public school choice fairs. These events are carefully designed for parents, by parents. We’re not just handing parents brochures - we’re helping them act. Parents leave feeling empowered, having taken more control over their child’s future.

A new survey shows that these parents are not alone: 90% of Tennessee parents say that being able to choose a public school that meets their child’s needs is important. Both Memphis Lift and Nashville PROPEL are members of an education reform coalition called Better Student Outcomes Now, and this is the third year we’ve done a statewide parent opinion survey.

Every year, that has been the clear takeaway: An overwhelming majority of parents want to be able to choose a public school that best meets their child’s needs.

What else has evolved – and what hasn’t – over the last three years of this survey is telling. A growing number of parents think that public schools in Tennessee need to change: about two-thirds agreed with that statement in 2020, and 4 in 5 do today. Curriculum improvements and better teachers topped the list of the greatest potential improvements this year, while last year’s top priority – more funding – has fallen to the middle. School safety has replaced COVID as parents’ top concern.

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Parents want their children to be able to read

We added a new question this year, gauging parents’ support for the state’s new law requiring third graders to be proficient in reading before advancing to fourth grade. The result? 76% of parents are supportive of the law.

This is not surprising, even in light of some of the questions that have come up – parents want their kids to be reading by third grade.

Figuring out why kids are not reading – and the interventions they need to get back on track – is vital, and the only way we will ever know the difference between a struggling reader and poor instruction.

Parents know what’s best for their child and their family, and they want to be able to choose a school that meets their unique needs. Policymakers have a long to-do list this year, and we encourage them to engage early and often with parents and keep that in mind.

Sonya Thomas is the executive director of Nashville PROPEL, and Sarah Carpenter is the executive director of The Memphis Lift.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Parents want to choose a public school that meets their child’s needs