Caroline Grannan wrote the fact sheet about the parent trigger for Parents Across America. Here she explains more about what is happening now in the Adelanto School District, where Parent Revolution is leading the effort to convert Desert Trails Elementary School into a charter school.
| The ultimate question is whether the way to repair a struggling school is to attack its teachers and attempt to turn it over to corporate privatizers. (I don’t use the term “failing school,” which heartlessly brands the students and the rest of the school community as failing.) The concept is that we must destroy the school in order to save it.
In fact, as anyone informed knows, the Adelanto school district had just put a new principal in place at Desert Trails, and parents have been pleased with him. Charter schools overall have a worse record than comparable public schools, and “takeover” charters, in which an operator steps into an existing struggling school, have an exceptionally dismal record. There have been no successful parent triggers anywhere. Why would someone want to inflict a “solution” that has no track record of success on an already challenged school community? For those who are sincere about believing this is a good idea (I don’t harbor any illusion that anyone within Parent Revolution is sincere about that; they are simply trying to keep the funding coming in), the concept behind that is that the school is such a disaster that something, anything, must be done, no matter what. Would you apply that thinking to a medical crisis — randomly start removing organs, even with a record of failure in past organ removals? Many parents at Desert Trails are pleased with and hopeful about their school, though the press is so bought into the parent trigger that only the small number of Parent Revolution loyalists get attention. Parent Revolution’s hostility to teachers also demonstrates how doomed their approach is, should anyone be gullible enough to believe their efforts are sincere. Waging war on teachers is not the way to repair a broken school; teachers must be partners. “You can’t win a war by firing on your own troops,” as Diane Ravitch has said. Here’s a great article on the heart and soul of a school that would appear to be “failing” based strictly on flinty-eyed data: And here’s what education scholar Richard Rothstein has said about the concept that we must destroy America’s schools in order to save them: “A belief in decline has led to irresponsibility in school reform. Policymakers who believed they could do no harm because American schools were already in a state of collapse have imposed radical reforms without careful consideration of possible unintended adverse consequences. … http://www.cato-unbound.org/2008/04/07/richard-rothstein/a-nation-at-risk-twenty-five-years-later/ |
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m afraid in all of the posts that reject the current school system in favor of doing something else like charters, privatization, etc. always leaves out the WHY factor.
WHY are parents so angry? Why do they want to make such a drastic change?
Constantly bashing alternatives ignores the root of the problems that currently exist.
I think until those problems are addressed, you will never stop the wave that currently exists. The wave to offer alternatives to those frustrated parents.
When you have studies like these: http://www.edchoice.org/Newsroom/News/Friedman-Foundation-Says-New-Study-Again-Shows-School-Choice-Empowers-Students.aspx
it’s going to be a hard sell telling people that school choice doesn’t work.
So I ask, what is the solution to the problems that exist in public education? Have you been able to identify those root problems and then offer a viable solution? Or is the solution to continue to ignore the problems and demonize those who want something different?
I have to be honest, I don’t have a big problem with school choice. I utilize school choice for my own kids and I think others should have the same options.
However I would like to see successful public schools because I think that is the heart of education.
I would like to see our public schools thrive and right now, I do see the destruction happening in public education.
I see the education establishment and the over-reaching political entities destroying public education and the teachers and students being the victims in all of this.
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The simple answer to the question posed in the title of this post is “No!”
Schools don’t improve if you attack teachers, or threaten them, or harass them, or fire them, or just hound them out of the profession! Schools only improve with appropriate professional development training in ‘best practices,’ with a shared belief system, and a common and well defined goal. Rather than ‘getting rid of’ teachers who don’t fit the mold or the school culture, you achieve cohesiveness by showing positive results. Just like the children we teach, teachers need to want to learn, want to achieve similar results, and trust their professional colleagues enough to ask for help.
That paragraph contains about ten years of experience and observation, and requires a lot of explanation.
I teach in Nevada. Nevada school districts encompass the entire county, – 17 counties, 17 school districts. There are three major population centers, each in a different county, – Las Vegas in Clark County, Reno in Washoe County, and Carson City in Douglas County. The rest of the state is rural. I teach in Nye County. Geographically, Nye County is the third largest county in the United States, after the Borough of Barrow, Alaska, and San Bernardino County, California. From Duckwater’s one-room schoolhouse in the northern county, and Gabbs K-12 schools also in the northern county, to the town of Pahrump with four elementary schools, one middle school, and one high school in a town of 30,000 people is a good six to seven hour drive. About eleven years ago, my position at Gabbs Elementary was cut, and I transferred to Manse Elementary in Pahrump.
My first day on the job was a teacher work day. The school had been struggling for two years to come to terms with NCLB, and was a needs improvement school. They had also changed principals twice, and had about 40 percent of their teachers retire or move out of the district. On that teacher work day, a group came from the state to ‘help’ our struggling school, and the first words the first person said were “We can fire all of you!”. I don’t remember anything else anyone in that group said, and they talked, harangued and cast blame all day long. I remember being angry, and tearful, and distrustful of my colleagues. I also remember thinking that the needs improvement status was based on standardized tests given to 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students, and that an entire grade level had moved on to middle school, and that I was new at that school, and that I could be much better employed getting my first grade classroom ready for the students.
I had been in the military, and that experience taught me never to identify a problem unless I could also propose a solution. That group from the state had no proposed solution to the problem. And, honestly, I feel that the core problem is NCLB! Giving anyone only one way to succeed and 37 ways to fail is just wrong! Any teacher, parent, clergyman, psychologist, coach or sensible person could tell you that!
My school and district have been working on the problems ever since. I have received training, gone to conferences, had professional development, and done a lot of personal research and independent reading. I feel I’m a much better teacher, and getting better all the time!
One of the best things my school does is called Instructional Consultation. That is where one knowledgable teacher with a puzzling and struggling student asks for help, and another knowledgable teacher helps identify the reason the child is struggling, and together they arrive at a better instructional match for the child. We also have Professional Learning Community groups at our school, and that has greatly improved communication among teachers, and between grade levels.
I’ve also become very informed about my teacher’s union membership, and the master contract that covers union and non-union people in the bargaining unit in this right-to-work state. That group from the state could never have fired any of us, and could only have recommended a transfer if they could specifically identify a teacher as being responsible for a failure in one of those 37 sub categories. Their bullying tactics were not only poor motivation for improvement, but they were based on wrong information.
So my solution for NCLB, simply stated, is support the teachers who teach the children who take the tests. Give the teachers the tools and training they need to do their job, and then get out of their way and off their backs while they do it. Threats, intimidation, bullying, personal and professional attacks, – those don’t work!
Sent from my iPad.
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I live in Pahrump, I teach in Sandy Valley for Clark County. I know just how you feel. Some days I feel like telling them to just go ahead and fire me, I spent 16 years in Special Forces and had a life before teaching. Either let me do my job, or end the suspense and let’s just get this over. Good luck finding anyone else who cares as much as myself and the staff I work with. I have friends at Manse, it is a good school! Thank you for being here and caring for our children. My children all go to school in Pahrump, they all have received excellent educations.
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Absolutely not!
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