Speaking of parent power!

Parents Across America is proposing a school governance structure based on Chicago's Local School Councils:

To provide the opportunity for such authentic parent involvement at the local school level, PAA recommends adoption of a school governance model based on Chicago’s Local School Councils. 
LSCs are duly elected, parent-majority bodies at nearly every Chicago public school. They have real power – including hiring, evaluating and firing a school’s principal. LSC’s oversee a school wide process of program and budget evaluation, planning, and monitoring that offers the kind of collaborative effort researchers say is needed to make local reform succeed.

 (Briefly: this are a bit like Massachusetts site councils, except they are thoroughly duly elected, majority-parent boards, with broader powers, including evaluating the principal.)