"Parents as partners" is the new buzzword in federal and state education marketing efforts. Some local schools are now using Parent Contracts to achieve this partnership. These contracts mandate that parents support school policies and personnel, and guarantee that home television viewing and child bedtimes are "appropriate."

The contracts do not mandate that school personnel be supportive of parents and they are unclear as to who defines "appropriate" in the areas of bedtime or television viewing.

For parents to make good decisions about the education of their children, they must KNOW what is happening in the classroom. Parents must be able to see all curricular materials, including student textbooks and workbooks. handouts, movies, filmstrips, teacher manuals, and speakers.

In some state codes, like Pennsylvania's new draft of Chapter 4, school regulatory language gives parents the right to have "information about" the curriculum. This is not the same as direct access to the curriculum. Such language legally allows the state or school district to give parents only a generic description of a program instead of the program itself. A parent cannot make an intelligent decision about a program that he cannot examine.

The increasing importance of state assessments in student promotion and/or graduation makes their secrecy a real cause for concern. If parents cannot even see the tests and are also denied the right to opt their children out, it becomes impossible for them to prevent the state from testing and scoring student attitudes or values; manipulating the difficulty level of particular assessments, or using the tests to force curriculum changes in a particular school district.

Because parents are ultimately responsible for the behavior of their children, they must have the authority to make decisions about their children's education. Schools, therefore, should seek parental consent before enrolling students in courses, programs or activities that are non-academic and value-laden.

All schools are not equal. Parents should not be trapped by geography into sending their children to substandard schools.

In the past, proponents of school choice have considered vouchers to be the answer. But the voucher solution has not proven to be as successful as its advocates originally thought.

Vouchers tie private schools to government, continue to treat parents as petitioners, are entirely dependent on the vagaries of the state budget process for their continued existence, and have not commanded the political support necessary for their passage.

Many school choice advocates now support Tuition Tax Credits. Tax credits have already passed in Arizona and Minnesota. They have just been fully explained in a policy paper issued in the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Michigan.

The Universal Tax Credit approach allows parents to offset their school taxes with a dollar-for-dollar credit for tuition, books, and fees paid for their child's education in a school other than their local public school. The universal nature of the credit would allow non-parents to take the same credit if they contributed to a foundation for the express purpose of funding the education of children.

Proponents of tax credits believe that this approach reinforces the principle that parents are primarily responsible for their children's education, keeps government from encroaching on private schools, and has demonstrated that it is politically viable.