While charter schools are intended to give parents a say in their children’s education, few get seats on the governing boards at Massachusetts campuses, according to a new report.
Parents make up just 14 percent of governing-board members overseeing charter schools statewide this school year, says the study released last month by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University. About 60 percent of Massachusetts’ charter schools have no parent representatives on their governing boards.
Researchers looked at the websites of charter schools to determine where parents sat on their governing boards, as well as the affiliations of other members. Most schools with strong parent representation had predominantly white student populations, the report says.
Annenberg recommends that at least half the board be made up of parents from the school or students at high school campuses.
