EDITORIAL PARENTS UNITED UNION BRINGS IMPORTANT VOICE TO LAUSD DEBATE.

TEACHERS have a union. So do school administrators. Even school boards have an organization to represent their interests. So it only stands to reason that parents should, too.

Which is why Steve Barr, founder of Green Dot charter schools, is helping to meet a critical need in founding the Parents Union to represent families in the ongoing battle to overhaul the Los Angeles Unified School District.

While Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the unions and the L.A. school board have duked it out over reform legislation in Sacramento, an authentic voice of moms and dads has been notably absent. If Barr can provide one, more power to him.

So far, the only parental voices that legislators have heard have been from handpicked champions of the status quo that the district has shipped up to Sacramento. If nothing else, the Parents Union, which actively supports Villaraigosa's reform plan, will provide some balance to the discussion.

But separate from the narrow question of what becomes of Villaraigosa's plan, the Parents Union can -- and should -- serve as a much-needed vehicle for organizing and representing LAUSD families on a wide range of issues.

Barr has put together a list of the group's core principles -- focusing on smaller schools, higher standards and more local control -- that most mothers and fathers can rally behind. And Villaraigosa has promised to make sure these elements are included in whatever form his reform effort ultimately takes.

This is a good sign. It's only when the public gets involved -- when it gets noisy and active -- that politicians ever take ordinary people seriously. The Parents Union might be just the tool needed to apply the necessary pressure on our political systems.

And who better to lead it than a charter-school founder? In recent years, charter schools have been the greatest source of vitality in public education, in no small part because they give parents a real sense of ownership over what goes on in their kids' schools.

If the Parents Union can give parents that same sense of ownership over what goes on in the LAUSD, it will be a powerful force for good in our schools.