In California’s ongoing education debates, one truth too often goes unspoken: the most important stakeholders in a child’s education are their parents. That’s why the Parents Matter Campaign is not just timely — it is essential.
For the last 3 months, meetings at numerous state lawmaker district offices offered a powerful reminder of what meaningful policymaking should look like.
Parents came together to share their firsthand experiences. These were not abstract policy discussions or secondhand perspectives. They were real voices from constituents whose daily lives are shaped by the decisions made in Sacramento. We are grateful to Senator Sasha Renée Perez, Senator Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh, Senator Christopher Cabaldon, Senator Angelique Ashby, Senator Monique Limón, Senator Sabrina Cervantes, Assemblymember Robert Garcia, Assemblymember Darshana Patel, and Assemblymember Josh Hoover and their district staffs for creating space for that dialogue.
District office meetings like this matter. They bring policymaking closer to the people it affects most. When parents and students can sit across the table from their elected representative, it grounds complex debates — about accountability, equity and oversight — in lived reality. It replaces assumptions with understanding and transforms policy from theory into something tangible and human.
The Parents Matter Campaign is already building on this model, engaging key lawmakers through legislative briefings that elevate real student and family experiences. These conversations demonstrate that parents are credible, informed voices in the broader 2026 education debate. When legislators consider reforms, parents are ready to explain how flexibility and choice shape outcomes for their children — not in policy memos, but in everyday learning environments.
As charter reform negotiations continue in 2026, legislators face a choice. They can continue to broker compromises among institutions, or they can expand this more grounded approach — inviting parents and students, especially their own constituents, into the process as indispensable partners. If improving student outcomes is the goal, the path forward is clear.
Parents matter. And when they are brought directly into conversations with their elected leaders, policy gets better. We thank each of the California lawmakers and their district staffs again for taking this important step. Now the challenge — and the opportunity — is to ensure that this kind of engagement becomes the rule, not the exception.
