# Center for Education Reform (CER) Founded in 1993 by Jeanne Allen, the Center for Education Reform is one of the older school-choice and charter-school advocacy organizations in Washington — predating the Friedman Foundation (now [[EdChoice]]) by three years. CER occupies a specific niche in the school-choice coalition: it is the organization most closely aligned with charter-school operators and ed-tech entrepreneurs, rather than with the voucher-focused or ESA-focused wings of the movement. ## Focus and Function CER's primary outputs are the annual *Parent Power Index* (a state-by-state ranking of parental choice options), charter-school advocacy, and ed-tech policy promotion. The *Parent Power Index* provides a scoring framework that grades states on the strength of their charter laws, the availability of private school choice, and the degree of parental control over education decisions — giving advocacy groups and legislators a concrete metric to reference in policy debates. CER is smaller and less well-funded than the coalition's major players — [[American Federation for Children]] (lobbying and campaigns), [[EdChoice]] (research and technical assistance), and [[Americans for Prosperity]] (field operations) — but it has deeper roots in the charter operator community specifically. Allen has been a fixture in charter advocacy since the early 1990s, when the charter movement was in its infancy (Minnesota passed the first charter law in 1991, two years before CER's founding). ## Ed-Tech and Alternative Learning CER has increasingly positioned itself around "alternative learning" and educational technology — framing school choice not just as a question of traditional private vs. public schools but as a broader ecosystem of micro-schools, learning pods, online programs, and credentialing alternatives. This positioning reflects the post-COVID acceleration of non-traditional education models and gives CER a distinctive brand within a coalition otherwise focused on vouchers, ESAs, and charter schools. ## See Also - [[School Choice Ecosystem]] — The broader movement - [[EdChoice]] — Research/messaging counterpart - [[School Choice]] — The concept