The FreedomWorks organization, Building Education for Students Together (BEST), is tackling an ambitious task. Founded in January of this year, BEST's stated goal is to "ignite a national parent-led movement by building, educating, and mobilizing the largest network of parent activists in the country to advocate for their children's education through the election of school board members and the passage of policies that align with our vision of expanding education freedom."

FreedomWorks' Director of Education Reform, Laura Zorc, leads the organization in its four areas of focus:

• Parent-led state-specific coalitions — because parents are the only force large enough to impact our education system in the long term.
• School Choice — because public-school funding should follow each student, regardless of whether they attend private schools, public schools, charter schools, or are homeschooled.
• Anti-American curriculum — because Common Core standards have paved the way for biased, subjective curricula including Critical Race Theory (CRT).
• Candidate training — because to transform local school systems across the country, we must identify and elect like-minded board members.

Zorc's prior work as a founding member of Florida Parents Against Common Core, along with her experience as an elected school board member and president of her county's parent-teacher association, have prepared her for her current position. "Parents' rights in education are being stripped away," she says. "We want to tap into what's happening in the country with increased parental engagement. My experience has shown that when parents get involved, change occurs."

The website states: "What shifted in the school debate in the last year has been felt by everyone. Parents are waking up to these realities like never before. This creates a once in a generational-opportunity to move forward."

BEST Candidate Academy

One of BEST's chief areas of focus is candidate training. Parents and citizens considering a run for their local school boards can test the waters by registering for BEST's free Candidate Academy. "Our candidate training is a six-week online course that meets every Tuesday evening at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time," Zorc explains. "We use ZOOM, and so the meetings are interactive. Candidates can ask questions and provide direct feedback."

Zorc observes that everyone learns in different ways, and that the input BEST has already received from Candidate Academy trainees is taken to heart. "We will be updating our program in January," she notes. "We want to help remove roadblocks to success for the candidates who sign up."

Among the topics covered in BEST's training sessions are the "roles and responsibilities of a school board member, school board district specifics, structure of local government, and the characteristics of effective school boards." The Candidate Academy website offers a course outline, a BEST Handbook summarizing the organization's goals, a "School Board Candidates Forum" guide, and a referral form site visitors can fill out "if they know of a great school board candidate."

The website also includes video testimonials from school board candidates who have taken the training as to the value and effectiveness of the program. One graduate admitted the training "really opened my eyes as to how a school board is supposed to work, how to run a campaign, and how to put a team together. It made me realize I can do this!"

Mobilizing for change, advocating for choice

Other top priorities for BEST include coalition building for fighting CRT and advocating for school choice, and its website offers informational resources on both. Last March, the organization held its first national conference for the purpose of building relationships with parents from across the country. Since then, BEST has taken its show on the road, visiting individual communities to educate concerned parents and activists "about education freedom and how they can make a difference with groups in their areas."

"We want to get more parents to school board meetings," Zorc affirms. "We want to show them how to fill out Freedom of Information Access (FOIA) requests. We want to get them active. If our school boards won't listen to us, then we need to replace them," hence the value and importance of BEST's free candidate training academy.

Zorc continues: "One thing we need to stress is that we can spend every legislative session playing whack-a-mole legislating for transparency, for pro-American curricula, and so forth, but at the end of the day the most important legislation parents need is the freedom to choose. How do we accomplish that? Every state needs to have at minimum a bill similar to what passed in West Virginia this last 2021 session."

The bill Zorc is referring to was signed into law in West Virginia at the end of March by Governor Jim Justice, and which was heralded by school-choice advocates as "the nation's broadest nonpublic school voucher program." The new law takes effect at the start of the 2022-23 school year, when "families who withdraw their children from public schools can receive a currently estimated $4,600 per-student, per-year for private- and homeschooling expenses." The law also applies to children just starting school.

"Florida and Arizona were always viewed as the leaders in education reform," Zorc observes, "but the true leader right now is West Virginia because there are no strings attached as there are in Arizona and Florida, where parents must submit an application, have their income verified, their need assessed, student disabilities assessed, etc.

"My hope," she continues, "is that during the 2022 legislative session across the country, we really get down to the heart of the issue and allow parents the financial freedom to choose the best education for their child(ren) by allowing the money to follow the student." Meanwhile, BEST will be doing its best to support this course of action.

West Virginia Gazette, 3-29-21

Want to be notified of new Education Reporter content?
Your information will NOT be sold or shared and will ONLY be used to notify you of new content.
Click Here

Return to Home PageEducation Reporter Online - December 2021