membership, violence, incarceration, and long-term poverty. Many of us in the United States call this the “school-to-prison pipeline.” Our mission at CADRE is to solidify and advance parent leadership to ensure that all children are rightfully educated regardless of where they live. It is in the spirit of this mission that I frame my comments today on the recommendations. An independent parent organization such as CADRE has become necessary due to the fact that the learning environment in the vast majority of American public schools directly contradicts the promises and potential of American public education, especially in the urban areas where minorities, people of color, and poor families living amid poverty and violence are concentrated. On behalf of our constituents, we first want to wholeheartedly concur with the specific recommendations that elevate the significance of the learning environment in the fulfillment of the human right to education, and we suggest continuing to raise the bar even higher, because with any number of violations against the human rights of the child in our public schools, the situation is further exacerbated when we consider the number of simultaneous violations against the human rights of their parents, especially in regards to minority parents’ human rights to dignity and participation as advocates for and defenders of their children. In the case of the United States, these violations of parents’ human rights are as equally reflective of racial bias and a rush to criminalize and exclude as are the educational outcomes and treatment of minority children, specifically Black, Latino, or poor. We commend the construct and definition of “the learning environment” in the recommendations, and suggest that it be expanded to specifically indicate governmental