After leaving journalism, Brown emerged as a major player in the pitched political battles over charter schools, prominently clashing with teachers’ unions while coming out against teachers’ tenure. She became an outspoken advocate for school choice and "education reform". In June 2013, Brown founded the Parents Transparency Project, a nonprofit watchdog group on behalf of parents seeking information and accountability from the teachers' unions and New York Department of Education on actions impacting children in schools. The group, working with the
New York Daily News, investigated and reported on school employees who were accused of having engaged in sexual misconduct with schoolchildren but still kept their jobs. In a January 2014 op-ed, Brown criticized teachers' unions for failing to support a bill before Congress that would require more stringent background checks for teachers. Noting that 97 tenured New York City teachers or school employees had been charged with sexual misconduct during the previous five years, she complained that while ordinary employers would exhibit zero tolerance toward such offenders, New York law required an elaborate, expensive process that involves the participation of the teachers' unions, which "prefer suspensions and fines, and not dismissal, for teachers charged with inappropriate sexual conduct." United Federation of Teachers vice president Leo Carey disputed Brown's account of this process and its outcome, but Mayor Michael Bloomberg agreed with Brown, saying that "maybe if you were a serial ax murderer, you might get a slap on the wrist." In June 2014, Brown founded the non-profit organization Partnership for Educational Justice. In its first major endeavor, Brown's group helped nine New York families organize and file a lawsuit against New York state, challenging the state's teacher tenure, teacher dismissal, and "Last In, First Out" seniority statutes. In
Wright v. New York, filed in New York City on July 28, 2014, the plaintiffs claim that these teacher tenure, dismissal, and seniority policies violated their children's state constitutional right to a "sound basic education". Brown said she hoped that taking the issue of teacher tenure reform to the courts would "force a new legislative process" around New York's tenure policies. In September 2014, the case was consolidated with another lawsuit challenging New York tenure laws, and continued litigation as
Davids v. New York. In June 2024, the case was dismissed.
The 74 In July 2015, Brown co-founded
The 74, a non-profit, news site covering education in America; it gets its name from the fact that there are roughly 74 million children under the age of 18 in the United States. The 74 receives funding from a variety of
charter school advocacy groups including the
Walton Family Foundation, the Doris & Donald Fisher Fund and
Bloomberg Philanthropies. According to a report in the
Los Angeles Times, critics accuse The 74 of being pro-charter schools and anti-union. ==Other memberships==