Parent Revolution, the organization handsomely funded by the Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation, and the Walton Foundation, has finally gotten a charter conversion in the state of California, nearly two years after the law was passed.
Some victory: In a school with 600 plus students and 400 families, only 286 parents voted for the charter; when some changed their mind and tried to rescind their vote, they were told by a judge that they could not take their signature off the petition.
Only those who supported the charter were allowed to vote on which charter operator would run the new charter. That reduced the number of eligible voters to180.
Of the 180 who were eligible, only 53 voted on which operator would win control of their public school.
The winning operator received a grand total of 50 votes. That is 1/8 of the parents in the school. That is less than 15% of the parents in the school.
In the linked article above, no mention is made of the fact that the Adelanto school district had a charter that was closed last year because its operators engaged in funny business with the public’s money.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on Transparent Christina.
Parent Revolution has given many excuses for the low turnout, some obediently reported unquestioned by the mainstream press (the local daily newspaper, the Victorville Daily Press, has abandoned all pretense of journalistic standards and is openly cheerleading for Parent Revolution in its news coverage).
This would be laughable if the stakes weren’t pretty high. Parent Revolution has hinted that someone called in a bomb threat; claimed that a school district event was planned to draw people away; and claimed that the Desert Trails Elementary principal’s monitoring of a crosswalk after school was designed to intimidate people into not going to the nearby park where the vote was held, though the principal monitors that same crosswalk every day after school.
The situation is moving toward charter conversion, but I wouldn’t say Parent Revolution has gotten its conversion until it really happens. Who knows what may happen with any of this. California’s Riverside County, where all this is happening, has been a hotbed of charter turmoil Given that, it seems risky to view the takeover as a done deal until school opens in the fall with the chosen charter operator, Laverne, actually running Desert Trails Elementary.
There was an additional cut on eligible voters because some of the parents who had signed the petition had kids who had aged out of the school or had moved.
It’s a cruel irony: when community school boards were abolished in NYC, and the school system given over to dictatorial control by the mayor, one of the rationales was the low turnout in board elections.
Somehow, I don’t think we’ll be hearing that from the education privateers this time.
When is he accountable? Where is his value added number? He should have to resign for his incompetence.
Desert Trails is in San Bernardino County, not Riverside County, and yes, the Daily Press seems to be coming down on the side of the law.