Insurgent parents - scary stuff?

If you are a teacher or an education policy maker, this story from the US will be very unsettling..

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/29/AR2009012904176.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter

Headed "well connected parents take on school boards", it catalogues a number of instances where parents have harnessed the social web and other online campaigning tools to challenge, and in some cases overthrow the decisions of local school superintendents and school boards.  The decisions affect issues ranging from maths tests, changing the starting time of school days and challenging grading policies.

As the article explains, "what binds them is impatience with the school establishment and an aptitude for harnessing the power of the Internet to push for change."

The article rehearses all of the predictable arguments for an against the rise of this new wave of engagement - more active parents who don't need to get to the PTA meeting to get involved, too much influence for well-heeled and richer parents who know how to manipulate the system and so on.

But it's another story about the underlying phenomenon of moving power from the centre (in this case school boards and the hitherto all powerful School DIstrict Superintendent) to the edge (concerned, active and energetic parents). 

I can think of a few teachers and education bureaucrats who would be choking on their Cornflakes at the implications of this outbreak of subversion!