PublicSchoolOptions.org Praises Senators Alexander and Murray for Continued Work to Fix No Child Left Behind

WASHINGTON, April 16, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- As the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions mark-up the Every Child Achieves Act of 2015, PublicSchoolOptions.org, a national parent-led non-profit advocacy organization that supports education policies promoting access to high quality options in education, praises Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-WA) for their leadership on this important legislation.

"Chairman Alexander is a long-time champion for school choice and has trusted parents to choose the best educational option for their children since he was governor of Tennessee. We are pleased to see his plan to fix No Child Left Behind improves state and local control of schools, supports our teachers, and expands charter schools," said Beth Purcell, President of PublicSchoolOptions.org and mother of two children in charter schools.

Purcell continued, "The Committee's continued work on reauthorizing the Elementary and Second Education Act shows true leadership and reflects real experience."

PublicSchoolOptions.org supports federal legislation that:

• Lifts many of the heavy-handed federal one-size-fits-all regulations and permits states flexibility in designing testing and accountability standards.
• Removes the mandated focus on school- or district-wide averages in accountability designs and allows for focus at the student level.
• Empowers parents to make informed choices in selecting the school that best serves a student's learning needs.
• Allows some federal dollars for students most in need follow the student to the school of their choice.

"What our schools need is more elected officials who say 'I Trust Parents' to make the education decisions that are in the best interests of their children," stated Purcell.

PublicSchoolOptions.org is a national alliance of over 60,000 parents that supports and defends parents' rights to access the best public school options for their children. The Coalition supports the creation of public school options, including charter schools, online schools, magnet schools, open enrollment policies and other innovative education programs. Additionally, we advocate for equal access without restrictions to the school that best suits the individual student's learning needs whether it is public, non-public or home-based.

With active parent-led organizations in over thirty states, PublicSchoolOptions.org is an advocacy organization that is unmatched at the grassroots level. Just as parents have fought for years at the state level to support education policies that improve access and provide greater public school options, the parents of PublicSchoolOptions.org stand ready to support policy at the federal level that matches the principles outlined above.

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SOURCE PublicSchoolOptions.org