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Habitual gadflies of public education in Montgomery County were ready to see Tuesday if their outside agitation was rewarded by voters.

After years of unrelenting criticism of Montgomery County Public Schools, the Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County decided to see if its advocacy — and in some cases victories — on classroom fees, fiscal policies and other issues translated into seats on the Board of Education.

In the midst of the election season, the school system officially began fighting back.

Parents' Coalition members Lyda Astrove, Agnes Jones-Trower and Louis Wilen's political aspirations were put to the voters in Tuesday's primary. (Results were not known before The Gazette's deadline).

The three were running in different races — at-large, District 1 and District 5, respectively — and Wilen said if the coalition had a willing member in District 3, represented by board President Patricia B. O'Neill, there would have been four coalition member candidates in the primaries. The top two vote-getters in each race advance to the Nov. 2 general election.

Although some might see this as the coalition trying to flex more muscle in a coordinated way, the coalition candidates say they were not running as an official slate and don't think the group has become significantly more active recently. Wilen, meanwhile, admitted that victory for Parents' Coalition members in the general election remained a tough task because of the incumbents' better-funded campaigns. Of the three coalition candidates, only Astrove was listed as having raised and spent more than $1,000, according to the Maryland Board of Elections.

"If we even got 25 percent of the vote, that would be a victory against the Apple Ballot," he said, referring to the county teachers union's endorsement of the four incumbents: Shirley Brandman, Judith Docca, Michael A. Durso, and O'Neill — who by comparison has raised more than $19,000 for the 2010 election cycle, according to the elections board.

But the coalition's battles with Superintendent of Schools Jerry D. Weast and the school board have been particularly intense in the past few years. The three candidates systematically hammered away at the school system for the same reasons: a lack fiscal accountability, unwillingness to respond adequately to parent concerns, eliminating "one size fits all" education focused on college matriculation and greater transparency. Also, the group's energetic platform on the Internet might have given the coalition additional clout.

If the school system simply answered parent questions promptly and clearly, Astrove argued, "There probably wouldn't be a need for a Parents' Coalition."

The school system, in turn, no longer takes the coalition's broadsides quietly. Just over a month ago, the school system's Public Information Office began putting out a new feature called "Fact Check," which is designed to correct what it called mistakes and misrepresentations in media outlets.

So far, three Fact Check statements have been issued, and all have involved the Parents' Coalition's blog on issues ranging from school graduation rates, which prompted the coalition's own retort, to dancing students at the Westfield Wheaton mall.

"People might be looking to them as some kind of a tip sheet. And our point is that they're not a reliable tip sheet at all," said Dana Tofig, a spokesman for the school system, who added that the Parents' Coalition contributed to the decision to start Fact Check.

Despite the opening of a new front in the public relations battle, O'Neill said the coalition has not really gained influence, because many voters still rely on traditional sources of information, such as voter guides and newspapers.

"It's very hard to determine the power or effectiveness of the Internet warriors in communicating information and positions," she said, adding later the Board of Education did not sanction and were not consulted about the creation of Fact Check.

It is not the first time Parents' Coalition members have run for school board — Astrove's husband, Bob Astrove, and Sheldon Fishman both ran unsuccessfully in 2004, two years after the coalition formed through a merger of parent groups from various backgrounds, such as special-education advocacy.

In the past, Fishman said, the coalition had a fundraising PAC that he used in his campaign, and the group also sponsored candidate forums.

The PAC became inactive and the organization itself became politically dormant until a few years ago, when the Internet and its ability to rally parents around a cause revived the group, Fishman said.

"The circumstances are more amenable to this," Fishman said. "I think people are more concerned about transparency and accountability than they have been in the past."

Within the past two years, the coalition has fought and won (at least partially) prominent battles with the school system about class fees and Weast's recommendation to close Monocacy Elementary School. After complaints, the school system reduced the number of curricular fees it charged in 2009, and the Monocacy Elementary School community, with the help of the coalition, eventually convinced the school board not to close the school.

The coalition still is fighting what it sees as illegal curricular fees. Janis Sartucci, a prominent member of the coalition, said it represented the coalition's most significant ongoing issue. But in general, the parents who join the coalition are already active in their local parent-teacher associations.

Sartucci said the coalition's blog has about 300 daily subscribers, although not all of those can be counted as coalition supporters. The blog for the coalition, which Sartucci said has no budget or expenses, listed 54,302 visits from Sept. 1 last year as of Tuesday morning.

"In some cases, those people become incredibly active and involved," Sartucci said. "In some cases, we may not ever hear from them again." From O'Neill's perspective, the general public may hear from the Parents' Coalition a bit too much.

"I've heard the Parents' Coalition described as a watchdog group. But I would argue that a watchdog that barks at every passing car, at some point loses attention," she said.

In response, Sartucci said, "I don't call it ‘every passing car' when our children are not receiving the free public education to which they are legally entitled under the Maryland Constitution."