Parents aren’t customers in a government school. Customers pay money. Parents are stakeholders, along with teachers, the teachers union and local politicians who compete for teachers votes. Children are not stakeholders because they have no power and their opinions are irrelevant.

A government school has an enormous advantage over private schools in that it’s free at the point of use. You can be a lot worse than the competition if the competition is expensive and you’re paid for by tax money.

Parents in competitive school districts also shell out exorbitant sums, both in property taxes and during school fundraisers.

It has given rise to a bargaining mentality.

Schools get money for each student enrolled, so there is a strong incentive to please parents so they don't move their kids (to a charter school etc). That seems fair enough to me in principle, but due to unrealistic demands, it can fail at times. Nonetheless it is better than a one-size-fits-all no child left behind policy. So charter schools create the competition in a district, and at least put pressure to raise the level of all the public schools.

> Children are not stakeholders because they have no power and their opinions are irrelevant

I think I see your point of view, but IMO that is too narrow a definition of "stakeholder".

One of the more commonly-accepted definitions of "stakeholder", at least from a project-management standpoint, would be:

"an individual, group, or organization, who may affect, be affected by, or perceive itself to be affected by a decision, activity, or outcome of a project"

Even in my work, I tend to think of stakeholders as those who stand to lose or gain based on the outcome -- literally, those who have a stake in the outcome. Many of them are active participants, but not always.

Just my 2 cents... I might be far from typical in this viewpoint.