PARENTS' ALLIANCE
STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES

The Parents' Alliance is group of Montgomery County parent and teacher organizations dedicated to educational reform centered on the five principles that follow:

1. Standards - Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) shall implement clear, coherent, and content-rich curriculum standards.

2. Achievement - MCPS shall enable each child to achieve his or her potential by fostering high expectations for all, offering challenging instruction for students at every level, and providing timely and appropriate remediation and acceleration.

3. Educational options - MCPS shall work with parents and teachers to make available to all students a broader range of educational options, such as special education placements, charter schools, magnets, and consortium programs.

4. Transparency and accountability - MCPS administrators and the Board of Education (BOE) shall improve transparency and accountability by (a) publishing budgetary information that clarifies appropriations for specific personnel categories and programs in a manner commensurate with program size and importance, and (b) ensuring that new initiatives are systematically piloted and are not implemented districtwide until they demonstrate sustained, significant positive effects on student achievement in multiple sites.

5. Community input - MCPS administrators and the BOE shall deal fairly with the community by acknowledging community input, giving community opinions due consideration, and explaining how community input influenced their decisions.