Carl Cohn is one of our nation’s most distinguished educators. He had led many school districts, received innumerable awards, and now serves as a member of the California State Board of Education. Like many people, Dr. Cohn finds the imagery of the “parent trigger” unseemly. Why suggest that parents take up arms and shoot someone, even metaphorically? Violence, whether real or metaphorical, is not the path to education or knowledge or wisdom.
Dr. Cohn writes:
“Given the horrific events at Newtown, isn’t it time for the
media and the proponents of this so-called reform to abandon the
image of parents pointing a gun at a school? As a member of the
California State Board of Education, I objected to this terminology
when the matter was before us for establishing regulations based on
the law. Wouldn’t it be fitting as a memorial to the heroic
educators at Sandy Hook who gave their lives protecting their
students to abandon this distasteful image?”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What’s also obscene is the concept that people with children should be the only ones who have a say in how public money should be used.
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More than that. As the Adelanto case illustrates, it is only a small minority of the parents with children in the school at the moment the vote is taken. And it is not their “finger” on the trigger but that of Parent Devolution, er, Revolution. The parents are simply being asked to help hold and aim the weapon. If dissatisfied with the eduproducts offered, parents are “free” to choose another [non-existent] neighborhood school.
Isn’t it great to be an educonsumer? Even better for the edupreneurial class, because until the laws are changed the community is stuck with the “choice” for generations to come.
“Kids, today in first grade we are going to learn what ‘ROI’ stands for. Be ready for the bubble-in test on Monday. Those failing will need to fill out an application to attend another school.”
🙂
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Frankly, the serendipity of choosing such a distasteful image may be the only honest thing about the pogrom, er, program.
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“…the pogrom, er, program.” Brilliant!
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I have engaged in a long and lonely struggle against the use of the term “bullets” and “bullet points” for those little round points that are used to highlight items in lists. Highlights, topics, items, keys — there are any number of good alternatives that don’t evoke violence and destruction.
While on one level this is obviously a quixotic quest, and I agree that it is a trivial point in the grand scheme of things, every little bit of the culture which numbs our sensibilities about how we treat each other further demoralizes us [for the same reason I just edited myself to change ” long and lonely battle” to “long and lonely struggle”].
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Is there any doubt in your mind that this country is one that is steeped in violence from the Department of War (oops I mean defense) down to the various local swat team tactics or to the local “family” religious TV stations?
A life long friend who was visiting and my son decided the other day that I just had to have access to the TV (I live out in the woods and got rid of the satellite account after my son moved out). So they went and bought a converter box so that I can get “over the air” TV. Well the “family” religious channel they had on had a program from the sixties that featured, in no particular order, shooting deaths, physical woman abuse, alcohol abuse, supposed good guys and bad guys, deceit and deception. Yep great programming for a family christian channel.
Death and destruction thy name is America.
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So Carl, how do you feel about “Students First”, beautiful name, how could one be against that!
Parent trigger laws are wrong not only in name but also in effects. As Leonie Haimson states:
“This isn’t parent empowerment; it’s parent trickery, disguised to enable the imposition of an agenda that puts public funds in private hands with less oversight, and leaves parents with even less voice than before.”
Just as one is “tricked” into thinking that “Students First” is an organization that wants to put students first, Parent trigger laws trick you into thinking they are empowering the parents. Both are simply putting charters (money) first!
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The intent of the “Parent Trigger” is good the people behind it are not. If the California State Board of Education had been taking care of business for parents and students this law would never have been introduced. You must ask yourself what are parents supposed to do when the principal, superintendent, board members, County Offices of Education and the State Board of Education will do nothing? Are they supposed to just sit there and take it? Originally, I was against the “Parent Trigger” and later changed my mind as I watched too many districts not care about what happened at many schools and would do nothing all the way up to the State Board of Education. This is how Mr. Cohn you got the “Parent Trigger” law. You pushed parents to the point that they passed this legislation. When is the California State Board of Education going to do something about the corruption in our public school systems? I saw this board of education listen to a staff presentation on how wonderful charter schools are and how accountable they are. Then I got up and read from the Sept. 2012 DOE OIG report on the total lack of accountability of charter schools all the way to the top in Florida, Arizona and California. This audit is DOE-OIG/A02L0002. The board admitted that they had the report. This means that they allowed their staff to lie to them and they said nothing as they knew as they had the report. Is this accountability and the way we want the State Board of Education with the largest amount of students in the U.S. to run?
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I would like to see a “taxpayer trigger” law to eliminate DOE and politicians!
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How about to eliminate the War Department?
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First you cannot eliminate the DOE and politicians. That is a result you would like even less than what it is now. We need to hold our public officials accountable and it that means jail time so be it. We throw people in jail for stealing bicycles and pizzas why not for real theft and ruining of the lives of mass quantities of people?
In a way the “Parent Trigger” is that elimination as it takes back the control to the parents if the parents decide to maintain the control. In Adalante the question is still out there as to “Have the Parents Maintained Control of the Situation” or is it in someone elses control with a slight of hand trick?
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George, parents did not pass the trigger law. It was hustled through the California legislature between Thanksgiving and New Years, folded into an emergency bill in an ill-advised effort to qualify for the first round of the Race to the Top.
In Adelanto, where the trigger has been successfully pulled for the first time, a new principal was poised to implement most of the parents’ desires in a collaborative effort that was squelched by the arrival of Parent Revolution.
In an interesting new development, the Parent Revolution-backed trigger petitioners are about to receive a cash settlement from the struggling district. The five trigger pullers plan to split the 6 figure award amongst themselves. Nice.
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Everything that Gates, Parent Revolution, touches turns to junk. The concept of the bill is not bad, it is who is behind it and behind the problems in Adalanto. Go look at the scores of the two charter schools in Adalanto. You want to say “Failure!” And now the former superintendent is the current superintendent of Compton where they have severe school police brutality problems that he is not addressing against both parents and students.
This is a sickness that comes from the top. There is no way this can happen without their assistance.
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Dr. Cohn was the superintendent when my son was a student at Long Beach Polytechnic High School. He had a true interest in the academic progress of every child and was a strong supporter of teachers. When my son won an award, Dr. Cohn was there to congratulate him and his teachers. No teacher bashing from him. Long Beach Unified has long prided itself on hiring well-qualified teachers and offering these teachers excellent support. They want to keep their good reputation when the next teacher shortage hits, as all excellent districts do. Only the really bad districts like DC are dumb enough to insult the people who actually choose to be with the children.
I’m proud that California is one of the few states that is not being drawn into the idiocy of “reform,” undoubtedly due to some very intelligent leaders such as Cohn, Governor Brown and State Superintendent Tom Torlakson. When Americans finally catch on to this “reform,” based on lies, damned lies and statistics, California and some other states will be proud that they didn’t fall for it totally.
As for the term “parent trigger,” let’s get rid of it. Not only is the term offensive and inappropiate, but it suggests that parents own these schools, when they actually belong to all of us.
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“inappropriate”
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It did this. It sure got your attention didn’t it? How many things can you say that about? Whether you like it or not it is good wordsmithing.
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That’s why it should be called the “PARENT TRICKER LAW”
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Well, in Washington State last November, when the vile, deceptive Initiative 1240 “passed” by a fraction of a fraction, statewide, it contained a Grab Bag of Privatization Wet Dreams, including this hideous “Trigger”.
But, of course, they knew better than to call it that. So they didn’t. They referred to it as a “Conversion Process”; anyone who actually looked at it saw clearly that it was the “Trigger” by another, less incendiary name.
Surveys afterwards demonstrated that among those voters who understood what the “trigger” was, and that 1240 contained it, over 80% voted “NO”.
No wonder they wanted to keep silent about it. Hoping no one would notice.
But…we’re going to hear about it a lot more, starting next week when the state legislature convenes…whether The Privatizers like it or not.
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Really? The term trigger is used for many things that reflects cause and effect. Earthquakes trigger tsunamis. Data update by use triggers email notification. Should we start complaining about the term shooting when used for photo shots? This is not about whether the parent trigger law is a good thing or not…but everyone loses credibility when trying to make an argument for or against something based on sensational and irrelevant arguments.
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Your failed attempt to dismiss the very real argument that the wealthy white men with strong connections to ALEC, dripping with racism and white privilege, who coined the phrase “parent trigger” intentionally to apply to schools predominantly serving impoverished children of color, isn’t surprising given that you’re a poverty pimp and charter profiteer yourself Mr. Fujimoto.
To be sure, the moniker “Parent Trigger,” like the other ALEC phrase “Stand Your Ground,” or even arch-reactionary Philip Anschutz’s trashy-fictionalized version of the trigger entitled “Won’t Back Down,” is carefully coded language to appeal to the most reactionary and racist elements around. The sad recognition that bigots like Ben Austin are playing to the same fear based politics that his friends at The Heartland Institute are famous for isn’t something that you corporate reformers are able to label “sensational and irrelevant,” since the right wing very deliberately chooses such language to pander to sensationalism.
Ben Boychuck’s friend Austin, and all his ilk at the so-called Parent Revolution, have a long reputation of of using racist code words, pandering to white flight, and manipulating self-colonized people of color. http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/10/code-words-euphemisms-and-green-dots-pandering-to-westside-racism/
What lacks credibility is for someone like you Fujimoto, an individual who has made a fortune from the school privatization industry, to defend the vile bigotry that is ALEC’s Parent Trigger. Shame on you.
Dr. Cohn is right to call out the violent imagery evoked by the phrase. We need to have very meaningful conversations about the kind of people and organizations that traffic in these fear eliciting expressions. We need to have conversations about the type of society that allows NPICs like Parent Revolution to prey on impoverished parents of color, while perpetuating racist stereotypes, all for the increase of lucrative charter market share.
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Let us hope that Mr. Skeels or one of those running with him against LAUSD Board President Monica Garcia wins that election and sends Garcia out onto the street where she belongs. Garcia is another of those phony democrats who is really a destroyer of public education and real democratic beliefs. Under her board presidency students not coming to school everyday is now at about 102,000 for a lost revenue of around $1.15 billion. And they call themselves the “Reform Board” which I call the “Deform Board.” The board has also allowed more than 1/2 of $27 billion in the school construction bond fund to be blown away by paying 2-3 times more per sq.ft. than any one else in L.A. County for construction. Not bad if you are on the receiving end of the game. Bad if you are a taxpayer or student.
the “Parent Trigger” is not bad in concept, what is bad is who is behind it. When a district, county and state do not do their job parents need to have an option. This legislation in California only allows for 75/year. There are over 1,000 school districts.
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Linda Johnson,
When I read your comment about California not being drawn into the “reform”, I knew you hadn’t looked at Fresno Unified. The highly paid superintendent came in and started firing principals and has villified teachers and brags about all the bad ones he’s gotten rid of. Site administrators, who are mostly new and less experienced, have been directed to put stress on teaching staff, and you hear about teachers being singled out at many school sites. The only game in town is raising test scores.
The union caved and agreed to support applying for RTTT funds the last go-round; fortunately, the application was not sussessful.
There has been no parent trigger activity, but this superintendent did manage to take over a closed school and make it into his own charter – with no union teachers! Part of the regular school board serves as the board for this school.
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California is all the way into the so called “Reform.” LAUSD is the prime suspect. The mayor of Fresno is the one who also along with King Tony, Mayor Villaraigosa, wanted mayoral control through AB 1381 with is California State Unconstitutional as determined by the courts. They just will not let go of a bad idea now will they?
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