It goes without saying that education and economics go hand in hand. For most parents, regardless of race or class, part of the American Dream is for our children to attend safe, family friendly, high-quality schools with great principals, teachers and support staff. As parents, we imagine that special day when our children graduate high school, attend a traditional college or trade school, and then obtain livable wage employment, hopefully with family friendly benefits.

The harsh reality, however, is that many parents, especially from Black and poor communities, must send their children to public schools that do not meet their academic and life needs. In addition, parents are learning that the many teachers who work tirelessly to put the needs of children first, don’t have much power within their own unions to effectively support students. Why? Because I learned, through the suit of Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, that many teachers are beholden to a narrow electorate of union politicians that shape education policy to favor the political agendas of union leadership, rather than the students in greatest need. All of this, at the expense of the taxpayer, regardless of results.

So, what do parents need to know about Friedrichs Plenty. This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court heard a case brought by Mrs. Rebecca Friedrichs and nine other California teachers who are not members of the teacher’s union, but are required to pay agency fees to the union, say that they do not benefit from the collective bargaining agreement and that collective bargaining is political because it includes workplace rules and requirements that prevent laws from being passed that would improve under-performing and under-served schools.

Friedrichs and many of her fellow teachers share the dreams we parents have for our children. This includes safe, high-quality schools that equitably educate all children, regardless of their zip-code and they encourage their colleagues to deliver the best possible teaching to all children, regardless of their family backgrounds. The reality is that families of color like mine are not alone in our fight for fair and just education.

For me, the suit brought by Friedrichs and her nine other colleagues brings awareness of the consequences of forced compulsory dues laws. While compulsory laws may have had good intentions decades ago, laws that force parents and teachers to do what is against their interests and those of children are wrong. It is unconstitutional, unethical, and wrong to force parents to send their kids to unsafe and low performing schools. It is unconstitutional, unethical, and wrong to force teachers to pay for other people’s political campaigns and agendas. Neither parents nor teachers should be forced to do what is morally wrong.

How can it be legal to force someone, in this case a teacher, to pay for an organization’s political agenda? How can forced compulsory dues laws be consistent with the First Amendment guarantees of free speech? Do the Constitutional rights of the individual matter? For both teachers and families, our ability to choose, either to support or not support political action, or to choose schools for our kids, is a Constitutional matter upon which no one should encroach.

But Friedrichs isn’t just about choice. It is also about justice, especially for our children. As parents, we are tirelessly fighting for equitable changes that would improve schools in disenfranchised and marginalized communities are prevented by union collective bargaining agreements. Each day, National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, and their affiliates use dollars forced out of the pockets of teachers to advance policies, laws, and collective bargaining agreements that stand against justice for our children and even against the interests of teachers they proclaim to represent.

If NEA and AFT were no longer able to force every teacher—even teachers who disagree with those policies—to fund their advocacy, we would have a better chance at adopting reforms that are fair to effective teachers and meet the needs of students. We could get rid of the policies and practices advanced by National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers affiliates that prevent justice for students most in need of meaningful review of teacher performance, demand assignment and retention of teachers based on seniority rather than effectiveness and need, and insist that teachers be compensated without regard to what, where, or how well they teach. We could instead fight for policies that bring justice to our children.

As a Black parent, living in the age of Sandra Bland, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray and the many unarmed Black people that needlessly lost their lives in 2015, what I want and need more than anything is for the Constitution to matter for all citizens. Children and families need our government to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees the equal protection of the laws and due process for all.

So you can imagine that I empathize with Friedrichs and her colleagues. She is compelled to send her dues to an education bureaucracy with which she did not agree, the same way parents like me are compelled by law to send our own children to schools that we do not trust. Her compulsory dues, like my children’s compulsory attendance, are part of a system designed to protect the economic interests of a white professional class at the expense of the freedom and equality for black, Hispanic, and Native American students.

Parents want the freedom to demand high quality educational opportunities for our children, and teachers like Friedrichs agree with us. But she is forced by these laws to fund anti-parent choice, anti-accountability lobbying that is fundamentally unjust. And this is wrong.

The research is clear: a quality education is the foundation needed to help ensure families and communities obtain careers that will lead to fulfilling, equitable lives. Parents like me are grateful for teachers like Friedrichs. Their fight is not only constitutionally just, it is also necessary for our public education bureaucracy to work the way it should, on behalf of children.

Sunday is usually a day of worship for black people and other communities. We pray for peace, guidance and strength to get through a long work week. We may even watch football and basketball with our family and friends.

But for black parents such as myself, along with New York City Parents Union President Mona Davids and @ThinkingintheGray, this weekend served as another reminder of Martin Luther King Jr.’s aphorism that we must remember the silence of our friends and not the words of our enemies.

For me, it began with a Twitter exchange between @ThinkingintheGray and Dropout Nation Editor RiShawn Biddle about the move by Success Academy founder Eva Moskowitz last month to release the school discipline records of a 10-year-old boy in violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. Why did Moskowitz do this? Because she and her charter school operation were engaged in crisis management. As this publication reported, the mother of the child, Faidi Geidi, appeared in journalist John Merrow’s PBS NewsHour report on Success Academy’s high suspension rates.

What Biddle and @ThinkingintheGray were pointing out was the fact that many school reformers stood by uncritically, both as Success released the child’s discipline record in violation of federal law and morality, and as Moskowitz’s schools suspended high levels of its students. Some, in fact, outright defended Success Academy’s practices.

When it comes to black children, many reformers and traditionalists seem to be on the same side. The wrong one.

I couldn’t just sit by and read. I jumped neck deep into Twitter conversations with my so-called school reform “allies”, demanding how they could justify Success Academy’s violation of a child’s privacy and right to not be brutalized in the name of public relations. I found myself reminding fellow reformers that the first duty of the movement is to children, not to adults regardless of their stances on transforming public education. I had to ask one fellow reformer how he could support Success Academy after they released this child’s record to the public. I even found myself defending both the right of families to choose any school they want and the right of advocates for children regardless of partisan lines to criticize the overuse of suspensions by Success and other operators, traditional, charter, or private.

Unlike Dropout Nation‘s editor, I’m not going to embarrass these reformers by naming their names. What I will say is that Mona, @ThinkingintheGray and I have found that we were on our own. What we heard from our fellow “reformers” and “advocates” for equity were justifications for throwing a child under the bus, all because they fear that traditionalists (including the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers) will succeed in their efforts to halt the expansion of school choice. They were unwilling to think that you can both celebrate the expansion of school choice that benefits all families and also call it out for practices done by charter schools and traditional districts that are harmful to the futures of children. There were others who clearly believe that black children aren’t worthy of nurturing, think they are little more than “disruptive” presences in schools, and deserve to be kept out of them. Despite calling themselves school reformers, they have long ago demonstrated that they will defend practices that harm black children.

We didn’t expect to ever sway them. But certainly other reformers will jump in on our side. Or so we thought. But outside of your esteemed editor and a couple of other folks (including Alex Medler of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers), all we heard was crickets. And that hurt me more than the exchanges themselves.

I’ve always known that traditionalists, especially NEA and AFT leaders, have low regard for parents and children, especially those black and brown. Dropout Nation revealed this to all of us four years ago when it shared a presentation by AFT’s Connecticut local on how it tried to stop the successful effort by a predecessor of the Connecticut Parents Union to pass a Parent Trigger law.

Many reformers chose to side with Success Academy Founder Eva Moskowitz over poor and minority children. To call this unfortunate is being kind.

What I have learned this past weekend is that there are school reformers who have as low a regard for black children and others from poor and minority households as the traditionalists we fight every day. What I also learned is that as a black parent, my voice and thoughts are given less regard than teachers by a good number of those who stand for reform. In some minds, the righteous indignation of a black mother is regarded as irrational anger when what I say is inconvenient for advancing their goals. As Teach For America staffer and Black Lives Matter activist Brittany Packnett once wrote on Twitter, we will always be “the angry black woman” when we “stand up for what’s right”.

What I also realized is that Mona was right when she said that teachers’ unions and reformers are battling over school funding and “the chattel is our black children and poor communities.” This doesn’t mean that every position taken by NEA and AFT affiliates, along with other traditionalists, is wrong. It also doesn’t mean that all reformers are wrong in their positions. What it does mean is that we must always keep in mind that there are many on both sides who have low regard for our poor and minority children. And on that front, they will always eventually show their true colors.

Some of these reformers, both black and white and including those who I call allies, will negotiate a child’s well-being through their silence. They will behave in ways little different than the traditionalists we must also oppose. Such silence is an implicit choice to side with oppression, to support mass incarceration, disproportionate use of harsh traditional school discipline, even to be a champion of the school-to-prison pipeline. No transformer for children can be silent in the face of these injustices and also say that all children matter.

At the end of the weekend, I realized that I must reaffirm my role as a mother, a parent, and a fan of humanity. I must reaffirm my conviction that adults can never negotiate the education, safety and well-being of our children. All children matter. As black mothers and fathers, we must stand between both the traditionalists and the reformers who don’t mean our children well. Because our allies can sometimes be as bad, if not worse, than our opponents.

Every day, parents across the country must send their children to public schools because of compulsory education laws — even if being in those schools harm their children physically and educationally. Every pay period, teachers pay their hard-earned dollars into the bank accounts of teachers’ unions — even if they aren’t members. Both are wrong. And perhaps, as the U.S. Supreme Court considers the case of Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, teachers should think about why they should support Parent Power and school choice for families the way they want to have choice for themselves in deciding to support a union.

Parents sometimes forget that sending our children to school isn’t something we can’t choose to do. We already want the best for our children and understand that education is the key to successful lives in adulthood. But we are also forced to send our children  to school because of laws requiring compulsory education, or a period of educational attendance required of all students often determined by their age.

In the United States, schooling is compulsory for all children. The age range for which school attendance is required varies from state to state. Some states allow students to leave school between the ages of 14–17 before finishing high school only with parental permission. In some other states, students are required to stay in school until age 18.

The problem with compulsory education laws as currently written, is that they does not take into account a child’s right to a safe and high quality education. As a result, a parent can be charged with educational neglect if they fail to send their child to a public school even if the school is unsafe and systemically academically low performing. Because of Zip Code Education laws, many of us parents throughout the country lack opportunities to either choose better schools or turn around unsafe, low-performing schools in our neighborhoods.

So imagine my surprise when I learned about Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association which challenges the constitutionality of compulsory union dues. As it turns out, 10 teachers realized that their freedom of choice in the form of being able to choose whether or not to join and pay dues to a union is also being harmed. Like parents, they too are tired of being compelled by law to pay money into a National Education Association affiliate that doesn’t serve their interests.

Upon reading the lawsuit, as a parent of color, I chose to be in concert with these teachers because no one should be forced to pay for a service that infringes on their principles, and violates their freedoms of speech and association. They deserve choice, the same options parents like I, from Connecticut to Washington State, should have in deciding what schools our children should attend.

Then Friedrichs made me think this: Now teachers can see, first-hand, how parents feel when they are forced to send their children to schools that are unsafe and chronically low-performing. That teachers can see how our children are denied access to high-quality education and safe learning environments. That teachers can understand why so many parents fight hard for learning environments that foster learning, prepare them for college and technical schools, and help them become civic leaders.

Parents such as I will be following Friedrichs very closely, and supporting these 10 teachers in hopes of them winning a victory. Because once they win, families will also file lawsuits against compulsory education laws and for expanding Parent Power. I suspect families in Washington State, where charter schools have been rejected by the state supreme court there, will have their own suit ready before then. We hope those teachers, along with others, will join alongside us to fight for high-quality schools that are safe and fit for the wellbeing of our children.

Sun Tzu once wrote that attacking an enemy’s strategy is of “supreme importance” in any war. This is a lesson school reformers should be doing in their efforts to sustain their efforts – and it must include fully embracing parents as lead decision-makers in education.

This is something I have strongly reflected upon over the past two weeks, especially after watching charter school operators such as Achievement First fail miserably in their efforts to provide parents with opportunities to choose the best educational opportunities for children. I also thought about this last week after listening to RiShawn Biddle on the Dropout Nation Podcast on how reformers must expand their social networks, as well as reading the Storify put together by Chris Stewart of Education Post that challenged the belief gap among traditionalists.

What I have concluded is that reformers must do better. Because right now they are not doing nearly all that well right now.

I know this from last month, when I attended a New Haven school district meeting that focused on discussing Achievement First’s school proposal. The plan, called Elm Street Imagine, would have provided much-needed academic opportunity for children and parents in Connecticut’s third-largest district, and at the same time, offered an opportunity for districts and charters to partner together effectively in providing great schools to our most-marginalized populations.

But as you know from listening to last week’s Podcast, it didn’t happen that way.

What I encountered instead was a school board meeting where the majority of attendees were New Haven’s mostly-white teachers, most of whom don’t even live in the city, who fought the Achievement First plan. What I saw was the New Haven local of the American Federation of Teachers, whose rank-and-file membership is 77-percent white, fighting against helping the district’s black and Latino children get the education they need for college of a trade.

What I saw were people whose minds were plagued by the belief gap, the soft bigotry of low expectations, arguing against the needs of the people who live in this urban community. What happened was that the war between teachers’ unions and school reformers was rearing its ugly head – and would be the focus of the school board meeting instead of doing what was best for children and parents, most of whom are low-income and people of color.

What I didn’t see was Achievement First working with families in such a way that they could stand up for its plan, so that the parents can take ownership and make the case to New Haven’s school board and superintendent. Achievement First’s Dacia Toll deserves praise for standing up to the AFT and to those teachers. But she needed parents and the community to take the lead for her and her plan.

This was disappointing because charter schools and other innovations are part of the solution for addressing our country’s education crisis. If all was well within traditional school districts, parents wouldn’t be clamoring for charters. But selling innovation and choice isn’t enough. This is a lesson that school choice advocates and school reformers, in general, have not yet learned.

Since I began my work, I have seen school reformers use “moments in time” strategies featuring kids and parents in matching t-shirts marching on statehouses during legislative sessions. But the yellow t-shirt brigades are no substitute for sustained advocacy, especially in galvanizing marginalized communities for the hard and daily work that we need for children.

Most of the families I know sleep in the t-shirts after the rallies have ended, and enjoy the food and music they got at the events. But they go back to business as usual because they already know that the t-shirts don’t stand a chance against the teachers’ unions and other traditionalists who have the loudest voices.

The parents know that teacher’ unions and administrators have statutory access to children and parents through classrooms, open houses, and the rest of the activities that make up public education. The parents know that reformers will more often than not lose because they continue to underestimate the access that NEA and AFT locals have to families day to day.

The parents also know that administrators, teachers’ unions and many in their rank-and-file don’t care about building lasting relationships with parents and children. They know they don’t need to, either, because the unions and their members have majority access to our children and families. And they can win either through persuasion or intimidation against their children.

This matters because the belief gap among many teachers affects the self-esteem and academic performance of our children of color. Parents are ready to fight for their children against these low expectations and they are willing to fight for school choice as well as Parent Trigger laws. But we cannot fight this battle without the help of school reformers – and reformers can’t sustain their efforts without us.

Yet movement’s strategies are not effectively reaching marginalized communities — nor is the mindset of some reformers toward families and people of color all that helpful either. Without execution of powerful advocacy, our kids will continue to be trapped in classrooms where they are taught by teachers that don’t believe that our children can achieve greatness.

It is time for reformers to effectively partner with parents and communities, to go beyond the yellow t-shirts, and affect sustainable change. This means empowering families within their own communities alongside responsive public policy.

This week, a 69-year-old great-grandmother, Lynda Faye Wilson, and I represented ourselves during oral arguments before a Connecticut state court judge to oppose an effort by the Gov. Dan Malloy to dismiss a lawsuit we filed earlier this year. And during that hearing, we confirmed why all families – especially those who are people of color who will always be judged by the color of their skin as well as the content of their character – must access high-quality data and knowledge in order to aggressively advocate for our children so they can get the high-quality education they need.

One of the most-amazing aspects of American public education is that families are compelled by state laws to send their children to school regardless of quality, yet they are denied their reciprocal rights as families and citizens to shape education decision-making. This is especially true when it comes to state boards of education, which are often influenced by affiliates of the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers, who use their campaign dollars and political pull to make sure that governors and state officials do not represent families properly.

So parents and caregivers such as Lynda and I (along with another mother, Sh’Keia Dickerson) must work zealously – including in courts of law – to make sure that all families are represented. This is what we began doing in September, when we filed suit against Malloy and the state to seek the removal of Erin D. Benham, president of the AFT’s Meriden Federation of Teachers and executive board member of the AFT’s Nutmeg State affiliate, from the state board of education due to ethics violations by Malloy as well as Benham’s conflict of interest as a leader in a teachers’ union. And Malloy, who appointed Benham to the board earlier this year after the state legislature ended its session, has fought to dismiss our suit ever since.

The latest step began on Monday at 9:30 a.m. with a straightforward hearing. That morning, an official from the state attorney general’s office, on behalf of the governor, began explaining to the judge why Benham, a teachers’ union leader who doesn’t represent families, should be allowed to sit on the state board like any other “Average Joe”. From where the governor sits, neither Ms. Wilson nor I offered a sensible argument against Ms. Benham’s appointment, and in fact, were wrong in alleging that our civil and constitutional rights were violated by the appointment of what the lawyer tried to call a humble educator. In our minds, our we wondered how could anyone call a teachers’ union leader with millions of dollars (as well as other political influence) at her disposal an Average Joe. But we didn’t worry. Because we had spent months talking to legal experts as well as gathering evidence. So we were well-prepared to counter-argue.

After Gov. Malloy’s legal representative finished his oral argument, I stood up and presented or case. We laid out the statutory language that outlines the appointment process to Connecticut’s board of education while the legislature was in and out of session – to the shock of the assistant attorney general. It is a look I have seen on the faces of teachers, school leaders, legislators, and even my fellow school reformers before. This was the look of shock that a mother, an Average Jane like I, a black woman, could speak for herself, do so eloquently, and with the knowledge that in their minds should belong to them alone.

Then I laid out the details of our lawsuit. I presented evidence that Benham’s appointment by Malloy was a clear conflict of interest because she was an AFT local president, a leader in a union that contributed $10,000 to his re-election campaign through a donation to the Connecticut Democratic State Central Committee and $250,000 to his campaign through the Connecticut Forward Super-PAC.

Furthermore, we as parents allege an AFT leader cannot be an impartial member on the state board of education because of the union’s well-publicized opposition to the Connecticut’s Parent Empowerment law, the nation’s second Parent Trigger law. Over the past four year, AFT and NEA opposition has led the state to refuse to enforce the law. This has left more than 100,000 children trapped in low-performing schools. AFT Connecticut’s efforts to quash the Parent Trigger law was exposed three years ago when Dropout Nation revealed its presentation on how it took action to first “Kill”, then “Diffuse” the law at a national AFT conference. The revelation was so embarrassing to AFT’s national leadership that its president, Randi Weingarten, came to Connecticut to apologize to me and to politicians who backed its passage.

After our presentation, the assistant attorney general was given a chance to provide rebuttal. But instead he proceeded to tell the judge that he was not aware that Benham was an interim appointment. Why wasn’t he aware? He said it was because “the parents” didn’t tell him. Throughout his rebuttal, he confirmed that he no longer viewed us as mere bystanders and that he could no longer downplay our presence as a mere nuisance.

When parents have access to high-quality information and resources, we can challenge efforts by politicians and others to protect the few at the expense of the rest of us. When families of color and those from low-income households have access to high-quality data, they can disprove the notions of so many that communities of color and low income are unable to work aggressively on behalf of our children. Well-informed parents are powerful – and no one should underestimate them. School reformers should especially be ready to join common cause with Parent Power activists to help all of our children get the best they deserve.

But it isn’t just about data alone. The fact that we parents, who were well-educated enough to navigate the world around us proves how important it is for all of our children to be provided high-quality education. When our children are highly-educated, they can go far as adults in ensuring that future generations of children can grow up safe and well-educated.

When families have high-quality data, they can be champions for all children. We should work to empower every parent and caregiver.