> Many parents know their children are receiving a substandard (or even damaging) 'education'
Many parents believe that.
Many parents have children for which that is true.
The overlap between those two sets, OTOH, may be smaller than you think.
> the problem they often face is that they are powerless to fire the teachers, or switch schools. Being 'engaged' does basically nothing to fix the schools in these cases.
IME, this isn't really true -- but the perception it is true results in parents not being engaged. When parents are active in addressing perceived problems with teachers in public schools, it is very effective in getting those teachers out of the classroom. (And I've seen it happen numerous times both to bad teachers based on parents acting reasonably based on real problems, and to good teachers based on parents acting unreasonable out of offense that their special-snowflake children weren't getting handed grades on a silver platter. Sometimes it doesn't mean the teacher gets fired, sometimes they get laterally transferred or technically promoted to a position with the school system which is out of the classroom and not dealing with students, and sometimes they just voluntarily leave teaching. But parent activism is quite effective at getting teachers out of the classroom.)
Many parents believe that.
Many parents have children for which that is true.
The overlap between those two sets, OTOH, may be smaller than you think.
> the problem they often face is that they are powerless to fire the teachers, or switch schools. Being 'engaged' does basically nothing to fix the schools in these cases.
IME, this isn't really true -- but the perception it is true results in parents not being engaged. When parents are active in addressing perceived problems with teachers in public schools, it is very effective in getting those teachers out of the classroom. (And I've seen it happen numerous times both to bad teachers based on parents acting reasonably based on real problems, and to good teachers based on parents acting unreasonable out of offense that their special-snowflake children weren't getting handed grades on a silver platter. Sometimes it doesn't mean the teacher gets fired, sometimes they get laterally transferred or technically promoted to a position with the school system which is out of the classroom and not dealing with students, and sometimes they just voluntarily leave teaching. But parent activism is quite effective at getting teachers out of the classroom.)