This week, the Center for Education Reform turned 32.
It’s a humbling milestone — not because of the number, but because of the meaning.
I launched CER from my husband’s conference table in 1993, driven by the belief that education excellence and opportunity should belong to every child, not just those lucky enough to live in the right zip code. My first public announcement was to a few hundred people from policy, media, the grassroots, and Capitol Hill. That fall, we held a modest reception at our “offices” on K Street, and by November, mailed CER’s first Monthly Letter to Friends.
We started with no budget, no blueprint, and no patience for bureaucracy. We were a small but spunky band — as Newsweek once described us — determined to challenge the old order of education. From those early days came the blueprint for nearly every innovation that followed: the first and best charter laws, accountability standards, and ultimately, the early stirrings of Parent Power.
Over the years, we’ve marked milestones — our 5th, 10th, 13th (yes, on Friday the 13th), 18th, 20th, 25th, and 30th anniversaries — each time honoring those who dared to break the mold. Our story is not one of comfort, but of conviction.
Mission & DNA: Urgency, Persistence, Parent Power
From day one, we’ve lived by three words: urgency, consistency, relentlessness.
When politics turned against choice, we refused to retreat — we sharpened our strategy, rallied communities, and held leaders accountable. When crises hit — Katrina, COVID — we didn’t freeze; we forged ahead.
During Katrina, we pushed for legislation and pressed the federal government to release $20 million in unused charter funds, launched a family hotline to match displaced students with schools across nine states, and stood up for parents who refused to let disaster dictate their children’s future.
When COVID struck, we again didn’t skip a beat. Within days, we rallied the innovators who kept teaching, built an “essential database” for families suddenly schooling on their own, and pushed states to fund families, not failure.
Those months reawakened a movement. For years, reform had grown cautious — comfortable, even. Some traded conviction for approval, appeasing the establishment we set out to challenge. But the pandemic stripped away the illusions. Parents, educators, and entrepreneurs saw firsthand what bureaucracy protects, and what it costs children.
A movement once thought to be fading found its soul again.
Parents rose up, policymakers took notice, and new leaders emerged. In a single year, 14 new choice programs were enacted — the boldest expansion since the late 1990s. Families are voting with their feet. Traditional systems have lost nearly 10 percent of expected enrollment, while microschools, pods, and hybrid models are flourishing.
Growing the Movement, State by State
Our work has always lived where change is real — in the states. CER’s Charter Law Rankings remain a bellwether for what’s working and what’s not: states that let money follow students, grant real autonomy, and protect innovation continue to lead in outcomes.
But law is only the beginning. Power must rest with parents. That’s why we created the Parent Power! Index — the nation’s most comprehensive measure of how states empower families to make decisions about their children’s learning.
The Index tracks not just whether parents can choose, but whether they can influence. Whether they can trigger change, start a school, or shape curriculum. Whether funding is accessible and transparent. In short: whether the system belongs to them.
And now, with decisions like Espinoza v. Montana, the Supreme Court has affirmed that choice is constitutional. Working with former Solicitor General Paul Clement, CER has built a legal strategy to help states dismantle the old Blaine Amendments that restrict families’ rights — opening the door to full education freedom.
Parent power isn’t rhetoric. It’s law, it’s leverage, and it’s life-changing.
The Yass Prize Era
That renewed energy also inspired us to build a platform that doesn’t just advocate for innovation — it rewards it.
In 2021, in partnership with visionary philanthropists Janine and Jeff Yass, CER launched the STOP Awards, now the Yass Prize — the $1 million award and multi-faceted initiative recognizing education providers whose work is Sustainable, Transformative, Outstanding, and Permissionless. Now in its fifth year, more than $55 million has been awarded to over 220 education providers who STOP for Education, and for the more than 15 million students they serve.
With Forbes as our media partner, we’ve elevated hundreds of groundbreaking educators and entrepreneurs, from microschool founders and traditional school leaders to virtual learning pioneers. The Yass Prize has become both a megaphone and an accelerator — building a national ecosystem of innovators changing the way America learns.
Through the Yass Prize Initiative, we’re not just helping philanthropists — we’re learning by doing and bringing opportunity directly to families who had been left out for generations.
Innovation, in real time. Parent power, in practice.
The Human Stakes
Would you ever send your child to a school with an F — one that fails, year after year?
In the film Won’t Back Down, a mother is told, “Everybody can’t rise to the top.” Her answer:
“You know those mothers who lift one-ton trucks off their babies? They’re nothing compared to me.”
That’s the spirit that drives this work.
Behind every statute and policy victory are parents who refused to accept mediocrity, teachers who risked careers to innovate, and leaders who challenged their own institutions. CER was built for them — and because of them.
We have learned that education reform is not episodic. It’s generational. Movements that succeed do so because they never mistake early progress for lasting change.
What Must Change
As we enter our 33rd year, our mission sharpens:
Be Permissionless — the freedom to choose and innovate requires no permission in law or practice.
Full and Fair Funding Follows the Child — because opportunity without equality is an illusion.
Entrepreneurs are Welcome — they are kind of like 22nd century school marms.
Scale and Fusion — small or large, K–12 to careers; it’s all about “higher” education.
And always ask, as we did in Won’t Back Down:
Would you ever send your child to a school with an F?
Voice, Visibility & Velocity
Among the many ways CER advances innovation, few have captured the spirit of open exchange like our media platforms.
In Piazza, launched in 2021, was conceived as a modern homage to the Italian piazzas of old — open-air forums where ideas, commerce, and courage collided to shape the future. It quickly became a gathering place for changemakers — from Netflix founder Reed Hastings and former Speaker Paul Ryan to author and educator Ian Rowe and Girls With Impact CEO Jennifer Openshaw — each exploring how innovation, leadership, and human potential intersect.
Later this year, In Piazza will relaunch with a new twist and new guests — a revitalized space for the next generation of disruptors and thinkers who are remaking education and opportunity itself.
And now, we’ve added another voice to the movement: #EdReformIn10, our rapid-fire podcast that captures big ideas in ten minutes or less. Designed for today’s busy reformers, it spotlights the educators, entrepreneurs, and policymakers building the engines of change — and celebrates the courage it takes to do so.
Together, In Piazza and #EdReformIn10 are part of CER’s expanding network of platforms designed to amplify those who dare to act, innovate, and lead.
Because movements don’t just need policy — they need voice, visibility, and velocity.
Forza — and Forward
Thirty-two years may feel like a long run for a “new” organization — but it’s barely a breath in the long fight for freedom.
We’re proud to have helped launch a movement.
We’re prouder still to see new generations carrying it forward.
From Newsweek to the nation’s airwaves, from research reports that shaped laws to rallies that reshaped hearts, CER has been everywhere the fight for opportunity demanded — in state capitols, on the steps of courthouses, in classrooms, and in the press. We’ve been in the thick of it for 32 years and we — alongside of our incredible partners — are just getting started.
Forza — and forward.
Because the best is yet to come. Andiamo! Jeanne
