People for Education is a Canadian parent-led organisation working to support public education in the English, French and Catholic schools of Ontario.

It was started in 1996, initially a small group of parents in Toronto concerned about fundraising and about cuts to education budgets.

“When we started there was an atmosphere of division and polarization in the education system. Teachers were fighting with the provincial government; the provincial government was fighting with school boards; and parents were caught in the middle. It was hard for parents to find objective information about what was going on, because all sides in the fights were saying that they were “putting children first.”

We decided there needed to be someone providing information parents could trust. Information that was as objective as we could make it, that was in plain language, and that was based in fact.

We developed a survey that now goes to all schools in the province so that we could report each year on the effects of policy and funding changes on schools. That way parents and school councils could understand that policy wasn’t something abstact and inaccessible. And we hoped that by assisting parents and school communities in understanding
that policy eventually has an effect – on our schools, our children, and our communities; that we are all capable of having an effect on policy.

None of the parents who run People for Education are educators – we’re former lawyers, real estate agents, accountants, designers, business women, stay at home parents, editors, and students. Since our beginnings as parent activists in the mid 90s, we’ve matured as an organization, so that now we occupy a fairly unique position on the educational landscape. We are equally at home in the land of parents, of academics, educators and policy makers. In fact, we act as a kind of bridge between all those worlds.”

People for Education now runs an online community that provides an effective model for online, mutually supportive, parent-focused discussion of education issues.

Read more at http://schools-at-the-centre.ning.com/