ECAs are not dependent on the local schools for invitations, input, or validation of their views. Their role is to monitor the actions of schools and to comment and report to the public as they deem necessary and appropriate. Member opinion, community surveys, and various forms of objective data are collected, summarized, and disseminated in consumer-friendly form. Schools may provide input but they do so at the invitation of the ECA, i.e., in much the same way they might provide input to the Chamber of Commerce. Although Education Consumers Associations are often formed in reaction to some local schooling controversy, it doesn't mean that an adversarial relationship with the schools is inevitable or permanent.
Satisfied customers can be supportive customers.
Unlike PTAs, however, ECAs maintain an arms-length relationship with local schools. PTAs are founded on the notion that parents and teachers are partners. ECAs are founded on the premise that parents are the senior partners. In the marketplace, it is the buyer that leads and the seller that follows. J. E. Stone, Ed.