The new film “Won’t Back Down” apparently celebrates the “parent trigger.” Since this film is fictional, it is likely to provide misinformation about this concept.
Parents Across America invited member Caroline Grannan, who lives in California and often writes about education, to prepare a fact sheet about the real “parent trigger,” which was passed as a law in that state in early 2010.
All of us who are frustrated and occasionally outraged by current federal and state education policy owe a debt of thanks to Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post.
Her daily blog “The Answer Sheet” is a source of sustenance, information, and wisdom.
She has provided a regular outlet for teachers, researchers, and everyone else who has important things to say about high-stakes testing, privatization, the war on teachers, the politics of education, No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and almost everything else that is on the minds of education-minded people these days.
When my last book was published, I was very fortunate to be interviewed by Valerie on C-SPAN. I had never met her. The hour passed very quickly, as we enjoyed the conversation. Over the past two years, many of my articles have appeared on her blog. She helped me find my audience, as she helps educators everywhere know that they are not alone.
Thank you, Valerie, for all you do to encourage the people who dedicate their lives every day to educating the nation’s children. Thank you for your support for teachers, principals, and administrators. Thank you for understanding parents and children. Thank you for your wisdom, your courage, and your steadfastness.
This is a site for discussing better education for all.
You know that.
And you know that I won’t permit comments that are blatantly offensive.
I am the judge of what is offensive.
It seems that one of my posts, in which a teacher asked whether parents were always the best judge of what is best for their children, got published on a home-schooling website. I don’t know which site it was, but for hours I have been receiving offensive comments. Some describe teachers as perverts. Some curse teachers for daring to think that they ever know better than any parent. Some curse public education in vile terms.
I have deleted almost all of them because of the level of abusiveness and scurrilousness.
They can continue ranting on their website. Not here.
If anyone wants to disagree with anything printed here, welcome.
But mind your manners and your language.
A few months ago, the Florida legislature debated a “parent trigger” law.
It would have allowed parents to sign a petition and take control of their public school.
The proposal was strongly supported by Jeb Bush and Michelle Rhee.
Florida parent groups rallied against the law, saying it was a ploy by the for-profit charter companies to trick parents and take over more schools.
In this post, one of Florida’s leading parent groups–Fund Education Now–explains why it opposes the “parent trigger.”
Coach Sikes, our reliable Florida informant, describes how that state’s for-profit charter chains are pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into four key races for the state senate.
This past spring, the state senate deadlocked on a 20-20 vote and did not pass a parent trigger law supported by right-wingers Jeb Bush and Michelle Rhee.
Even some Republican senators turned against the proposal when not a single Florida parent group supported it.
Every Florida parent group opposed it. They warned that the parent trigger was a transparent attempt by the charter operators to trick parents into handing their public school over to the charter chains.
By funding opposition to the senators who oppose the parent trigger, the for-profit charter chains are demonstrating that the parent groups were right.
We’ll be watching these elections this November and hoping for the victory of the state senators who listen to their constituents, not to the big money and profiteers.
David Reber is a teacher in Kansas who happens to be a terrific writer.
His articles are always insightful.
This one is about the relentless advertising campaign in Kansas of the online giant K12.
As the privatization movement gathers steam, as equity investors launch their latest scheme to extract profits from the public schools, we will be bombarded by even more appeals to go digital. Of course, we are all going digital. But there is no good reason to home school children who don’t need to be home schooled. Virtual academies get terrible results for children. This has been documented by the National Education Policy Center and in exposes in the NY Times and the Washington Post.
Home schooling by computer may be right for some, but it is not right for most students. Don’t buy their con job.
The money behind the “parent trigger” movie comes from the rightwing.
It’s a shame to see mainstream movie stars and musicians fooled into thinking this movie “honors” teachers.
The parent trigger is a transparent attempt to fool parents into seizing control of their public school and handing it over to corporate charter chains.
So, the game is to fool the Hollywood crowd and to fool parents with deceptive packaging.
Read this about funding by Walton (Walmart) family, whose money supports vouchers and charters. It is known for its anti-union views.
And then there is the film’s producer, Walden Media, owned by billionaire Philip Anschutz, who funds libertarian and far-right think tanks and anti-gay activism. And, it may or may not surprise you to learn that his energy company is involved in hydrofracking, a technique opposed by environmentalists everywhere. In New York, Anschutz is fighting a small town named Dryden, that doesn’t want its water supply despoiled by this process. No choice for them!
Anschutz also owns many newspapers, which report favorably on his odious activities.
Is our democracy for sale?
Arne Duncan wants your district to compete for his millions. If you win the money, he will judge whether your superintendent and school board are doing a good job.
Who made him superintendent of education for the United States? Did he never learn about federalism? Did he miss that course?
If Romney is elected, his secretary of education will hold a Bigger Race to the Top contest and give points and dollars to districts that have vouchers, school prayers, eliminate unions and authorize for-profit online schools.
This is the article describing the competition in EdWeek:
The U.S. Department of Education today is kicking off the $400 million Race to the Top competition for districts after making big changes to the contest rules to assuage school board members and prod more large districts to apply.
Federal officials threw out a proposal to require competing districts to implement performance evaluations of school board members, and raised the maximum grant amount for the largest districts to $40 million, from $25 million. In a nod to rural districts, the department lowered the number of students that must be served to 2,000 from 2,500 and is allowing a group of 10 districts to apply regardless of the number of students.
The changes were made after the department received more than 475 comments when the draft rules were released in May.
According to final contest rules announced today, awards will start at $5 million for the smallest districts up to the $40 million cap; the money comes from the federal fiscal 2012 budget. From 15 to 25 awards are expected to be made in December. Applications are due Oct. 30.
The competition comes as the Education Department, which has focused on state-level reform in previous Race to the Top contests, switches gears and tries to use money to advance its education ideas at the local level. As another example, the Education Department is pursuing district-level waivers under the No Child Left Behind Act geared towards helping districts in states that, for whatever reason, are not getting or do not want a state-level waiver.
“We want to help schools become engines of innovation through personalized learning…,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a statement. “The Race to the Top-District competition will help us meet that goal.”
Contest Rules and Grading System
In addition to meeting the 2,000-student threshold, to be eligible to compete a district must also implement evaluation systems for teachers, principals, and superintendents by the 2014-15 school year.
Districts must also address how they will improve teaching and learning using personalized “strategies, tools, and supports.”
In fact, this personalized learning component makes up 40 points on the 200-point grading scale. The rest of the grading scale is:
Ten bonus points are available for districts that collaborate with public and private partners to help improve the social, emotional and behavioral needs of students.
After districts firm up their applications, states and mayors must be given 10 business days (up from 5 days in the proposed rules) to comment on the proposals. However, the contest rules don’t require districts to make any changes with the feedback they’re given.
A Mix of Awards
The department wants to ensure that not just districts within existing Race to the Top states win. (If you remember, there were 12 state-level winners that shared a $4 billion education-improvement prize in 2010.) And, federal officials want to ensure that not just large, urban districts win. So districts will be entered in different categories depending on whether they are rural or not, and whether they are in a Race to the Top state or not. The department will make awards to top scorers in each category as long as the winners hit some to-be-determined bar for high quality. This means it’s possible that a high-scoring district may lose out because the department wants to spread out the winners.
What remains unclear is just how much interest there will be in such a competition. There wasplenty of unhappiness with the draft rules. Various state officials were annoyed that they wouldn’t have more time to review district applications. School boards were more than annoyed that they would be subject to new performance evaluations. (The department still thinks that is in general a good idea, but they don’t think this contest is the place to get at it.) Small districts complained that the 2,500-student threshold was too high, while large districts complained that the maximum $25 million grant was too low to make it worth their while. Even Richard “Sweatin’ to the Oldies” Simmons weighed in (on the lack of physical education as a component in the application).
With the original $25 million award cap, Los Angeles Superintendent John E. Deasy has said that the department was asking a lot for a relatively small amount of money. And officials from rural districts, which can band together and apply as part of a larger
consortia, have said they may not have the resources to apply for a complex federal grant.
So will the department’s changes be enough to spur a lot of interest? We may know more after August 30, when districts are supposed to let the Education Department know that they plan to compete in the latest Race to the Top.
According to this story in Philadelphia’s Notebook, the Gates Foundation has been generously funding a teacher-training program tailored to test prep.
Philadelphia schools need higher scores, so the Philadelphia Great Schools Compact wants more, please, of this test-prep teaching training.
The city is also investigating dozens of schools for cheating on tests.
Step back a minute and ask yourself.
How did these tests become the goal of education instead of one measure?
Many people have asked me what time I will be interviewed on CNN on Saturday.
I will be interviewed by Randi Kaye, who interviewed Michelle Rhee on same program.
Saturday August 18, 10-11 am.
I will do my best to present the facts and to rebut the misinformation that has been disseminated to the public about the work of our nation’s teachers and schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 