“Unless the balance of power changes, there will be another strike,” said Jeanne Allen, president of the Center for Education Reform and critic of teachers unions. “Just because [Chicago] was the first strike in a while does not mean they’re less interested in sticking to their guns. It’s not yet to the point where there’s…

The great Chicago teacher strike of 2012 has ended, and it's time for Ed Reformers to look back and decide what really happened. 

Allen says the Obama administration isn’t weighing in on the Chicago dispute because it is afraid of offending the unions. Education Secretary Arne Duncan issued a brief statement last week saying he hopes the parties can “settle this quickly.”

Currently, 42 states and the District of Columbia have charter school laws in place, and the Center for Education Reform notes that nearly 2 million American children were enrolled in 5,196 charter schools for the 2011-12 school year.

The Tampa Bay Tribune compares Florida's rating to top-rated Indiana in The Center for Education Reform's new Parent Power Index.

CER President Jeanne Allen stresses the importance of making education a central issue for the next president.

Jeanne Allen, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Education Reform, said recall policies do not encourage improvement or change within school districts but rather a status quo that has never led to improvement in educating children.

"Chicago remains among the worst performing school districts in the nation, yet instead of embracing the mayor’s rational, modest proposals to begin instituting limited performance evaluations, union leaders begin acting more like the Chicago thugs of old than the leaders they want to be considered today."

Jeanne Allen weighs in on parent power, education reform & the elections on WSJ Opinion Journal.

Jeanne Allen, president of the Centre for Education Reform, a Washington-based advocacy group, says the reforms are unique because Indiana has looked at education reform in its “totality”, rather than taking a piecemeal approach as many other states have done.