Two parents who fought the takeover of their public school and its conversion to a charter school have been charged with vandalizing the school last June. They deny the charges.
The vandalism occurred at the Desert Trails elementary school in Adelanto, California, which was the site of a bitter battle among parents after the state’s “parent trigger” law was invoked. The school is the first school where the 2010 law led to a charter conversion. The parent trigger law and the conversion process in Adelanto was led by a group called Parent Revolution, funded by the Walton Foundation, the Eli Broad Foundation, and the Gates Foundation.
During the battle over the future of the school, parents were divided, lawsuits were filed, and ultimately only 50 parents chose a charter operator for a school of 600 children.
Some lessons:
One, vandalizing a school is wrong, no matter who does it or for what reason. It is criminal. Those who committed this crime must be held accountable.
Two, the parent trigger process is inherently divisive, tearing communities apart, when parents, teachers, and the community should all work together on behalf of the children.
Three, the “parent trigger” is a failed law, created during the Schwarzenegger era to allow charter operators to take over public schools by slick campaigns. Four years after its passage, there is only one school that has been taken over, after a divisive campaign, and there is still no evidence that charter operators can provide better education than properly resourced public schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Not defending anti-charter people if they did this, but is there any chance the pro-charter people pulled a Karl Rove — doing it themselves and then publicizing it to gain public sympathy and tare their adversaries?
Yes, I wondered the same thing. This was a tactic the police used against the Occupy Wall St. protesters in NYC and in LA to discredit the protestors.
Yes I though this as well… In fact that seems the most reasonable to me…
Oops, that’s “tar,” not “tare.”
As a follower of Diane’s blog I am primarily interested in ending Common Core, as she does, and applaud her efforts to tell blog followers why
Common Core is bad for public education.
But, I also take note of the entries on Charter schools, which are viewed
by the Diane and many others who post on this blog as bad for public education.
In an earlier mention it states that public schools must provide education, no matter any circumstance, and failing schools do not have the option of closing….as failing charter schools will do.
As true as this may be, I see this response to failing public schools as a deflection from the problem.
Public schools should not look at charter schools as a treat, but a viable alternative for parents not pleased with the education their children receive.
Attention should be paid to the ‘customers’, the parents who decided to take their children out of public schools.
The reasons are already well-known. It begins with discipline, which is something that has not been effectively addressed. And even with the recent announcement of the concern more Blacks are disciplined than non-Blacks….no serious effort is being taken, only a directory of ‘guidelines’ for teachers, without addressing the parents to be part of the solution.
Parental concerns also include what is being taught. They are tired of having a Federal Dept of Education get more deeply involved in what
was once the purview of each state. It appears to be more than a coincidence that since the US DOE was created in 1980, as its authority
expanded….the degradation of public education has accelerated.
Between Federal mandates, risk of losing funding public schools across
the country have become paralyzed, fearful of losing politically depended
‘certification’, if the do not remain submissive to the central control.
While public schools cannot ‘quit’, parents can. This is why they are opting for the choice of charter, private, including religious ones, and even home schooling.
When public schools acknowledge their failings, and tell Arnie Duncan and the US DOE to “butt out”….it will be a giant step in the right direction, and
perhaps return public education to the point it was at when it produced the students who would become the generation that landed man on the moon.
Regards,
Anthony Bruno
ajbruno14 gmail.com
Parents are not “customers”. Schools are not businesses. Diane has documented over and over again how charters siphon money off from public schools while skimming the easiest kids. This is very harmful to those left behind in underfunded public schools with the more difficult kids, which such schools are then labeled “failing” and teachers and staff are in danger of losing their jobs, kids and parents are in danger of losing their neighborhood schools (quite possibly one of the few stable force in their lives) and communities are in danger of losing their public institutions. Charters *are* harmful, no matter how many individual children they may “save”.
If you don’t like your public school either fight to change it or spend your own money to send your kid elsewhere. But don’t steal money and resources from those who do want or need the public system.
Great response, Dienne. I AGREE with you. Consumer education came with Reagan, a well…fill in the blanks.
Agree with Dienne
Dienne: well and succinctly put.
😎
Should we care that it is better for the easiest kids if they are skimmed, or are they not part of the all?
TE @ 10:46
Prove “it is better for the skimmed kids”.
Charter schools quit all the time. Quit students, that is. Charter schools cut them for poor behavior, bad test scores, parents aren’t rich enough, not wearing the right clothes, not able to volunteer enough,or can’t provide their own transportation to get to the charter school. Charter schools don’t let kids in because they can’t get into the country club to fill out the paperwork, or get into the wardhouse to fill out the paperwork, or can’t fill out the 20 page application because reading English is more difficult than speaking it, or can’t pay the $1200 “donation” each semester, or the child had a disability, or the child doesn’t speak English as the primary language in the home. The list goes on. Arizona and Utah charter schools are primarily white flight schools – get their lily-white kids away from the brown riff-raff, and while many parents there will deny it, there are plenty who will admit to it. Disgusting. If those are the charter school “customers”, I’ll take my public schools, thank you.
Me too, Quinn. Far too many charter schools treat students and teachers like well…rats in a maze going nuts looking for the food.
K Quinn: which brings up the question—
What happened to the hard-nosed mantra of “no excuses”? Evidently, in rheephormista lingo this means “we can do all the things K Quinn brought up and we don’t have to provide any excuse or justification whatsoever.”
¿?
Perhaps this explains their new maxim: “When the going gets tough, the tough give up.”
With the corollary: “Let the public schools do all the hard work.”
Where I grew up they would have been called ungrateful quitters.
I can just hear the sound of little troll feet coming to refute the obvious…
😎
What charter do you own? Have you ever worked in a charter? Did you know the charters throw out black children at an extremely high rate? The charters are cash cows and parents have been duped by people like Rhee, Gates, Duncan, and Obama to believe that they are a better alternative. They provide less and rip off the parents and the community. I’m tired of hearing a bunch o propaganda about charters because I know its a bunch of lies!!!!
Obviously, breaking the law is wrong, but I would be furious if a bare majority of current parents in my public school turned a public asset over to a private interest.
I think the whole process goes against basic ideas of democratic governance.
We have a publicly-funded senior center here. If a bare majority of current users of the center took a vote and turned it over to a private operator, I think there would be genuine civil unrest.
Parents don’t “own” public schools. Whole communities do. I wouldn’t even think this has to be stated or litigated. The whole idea is ridiculous. Can it work the other way? Can a bare majority of parents in a school pass a community-wide funding measure? Of course not. It’s a measure of how absolutely nutty this “debate” has become that this whole notion was swallowed whole as a result of a clever marketing campaign.
Simply as an aid to the owner of this blog—and to head off distracting molehills of tiny correction that divert from serious discussion—I include two excerpts below re the numbers involved in the charterization of Desert Trails Elementary School.
Please go to the articles linked below (and others; google) for more context.
I simply remind those viewing this blog that the parents who voted—53!—were not only a very small minority of the original petitioners, but also voted for the huge number of parents past and future. Among the charterites/privatizers, this is called “choice” — which as Chiara Duggan has pointed out, substitutes in their minds for “voice.” And in my mind, substitutes for “democracy.”
[start quote]
Only 53 of the original 466 parent petitioners voted, and amongst those who did, the vast majority voted in favor of LaVerne Prep.
[end quote]
Link: http://www.vvdailypress.com/articles/trails-38493-adelanto-approved.html
[start quote]
But some school officials and parents expressed concern that only 53 ballots were cast in the charter election. Although the school has about 400 families with 610 students, only 180 parents who signed the petition for a charter campus during the campaign last year were eligible to vote under the parent-trigger law.
“Fifty-three votes cast the direction of the school,” said LaNita M. Dominique, president of the Adelanto teachers’ union. “That’s a little disheartening.”
[end quote]
Link: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/oct/22/local/la-me-parent-trigger-20121023
😎
P.S. Chiara Duggan: I wrote my comment just before seeing yours. Fortuitous coincidence. Or as the pr machine for the leading charterites/privatizers would say [when they have a moment free from their defense of Gov. Chris Christie]—“a hack job, coordinated and orchestrated by the 120-member staff of that shrill and strident Ravitch woman.”
Or could the 120-staff person be Michelle Rhee? Hard to keep track…
😄
I think it’s nuts that they are even calling these “elections”. There’s no process and no state oversight.
The ‘elections” THEMSELVES are essentially privatized. I have no earthly idea who pays “Parent Revolution”, nor did I in any way authorize them to administer an election.
Look at a state election code sometime. Elections are rule-bound. That’s deliberate. Since when can private orgs run elections?
Chiara, go to the Parent Revolution website if you want to know who funds them. Their biggest funder is the Walton Family Foundation.
Had I not experienced Desert Trails and the antics of the Adelanto School District first hand, I would never have been in favor of the Parent Trigger Law. This vandalism is just one example of what the culture was like before the trigger was pulled, the first time in the nation it was successful. Yes, the jury is still out on the new charter school, but parents who have their children there are so happy with the respect shown the children and the different education they are now being given. We have been screaming for parent involvement for years. Now that the majority of the parents have spoken we don’t want it? This was grass roots democracy in action and I hope Parent Revolution has broken the hold of actions such as resorting to threats, vandalism and violence when district folk don’t get their way.
Parent Revolution has no business talking about threats to get their way.
The takeover of the Adelanto public school was successful but it is a bit too soon to say that the conversion to a charter school improved the education of the students. We will have to wait a few years to find out about that. And don’t forget that only 50 parents in a school of 600 children actually voted to choose a charter school. Those who did not want to give away their public school were barred from voting.
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/01/04/charters-ask-justices-to-rule-on-white-hat.html
Changemaker, this is a story in today’s Columbus Dispatch (an OH newspaper).
It’s about a 4 year legal battle between a charter operator and a group of charter school parents. The charter operator claims to own the public assets they (now) control as a result of a contract between the parents and the operator.
The parents have petitioned to the OH supreme court to regain control of the asset, but they will lose, if the court even agrees to take the case up.
If you’re going to hand your community school over to a private entity, at least hire an independent lawyer (one who does not work for Parent Revolution or the charter industry) and protect the public asset from seizure in the charter contract.
At least do that. You really owe that to the people who paid for the asset, which is not just 60 parents, but your entire community. Don’t give away something that isn’t yours.
Christie is bragging about cutting public sector jobs and “growing” private sector jobs.
Of course, that could just mean he’s “creating” private sector jobs by privatizing formerly public entities.
I’m curious. When an ed reform governor like Christie closes a public school and converts it to a private entity, do those employees count as private or public?
Christie’s primary charter push has not been to ‘convert’ public schools, but to find ways for private and parochial schools to get public monies by becoming charters.
He no doubt aspires to be an ‘ed reform governor’ but NJ is not an ed reform state yet (we have a “D” grade per Michelle Rhee). There is a strong union presence, plenty of Democrats, a history of quality state curriculum stds & achievement. Perhaps the best thing we’ve got going for us to counter the present ed-reform craze is a 25+-y.o. formula for devoting more state tax monies to lower-performing school districts (“Abbott Schools”).
The Abbott system has its successes & failures. The point is, there’s a paradigm which targets troubled districts for state takeover & negotiates contracts with them– as opposed to subjecting the entire state by fiat to top-down reform. There has been some of that– even tho the state did not apply for RTTT it has imposed CCSS and VAM. Most parents are still asleep at the helm. But the state has a tradition of stubbornly-strong municipalities which should help.
This might have just been a silly prank gone
wrong… or one that the charter folks are
over-reacting to in order to score political
points.
I remember that just before George W. Bush
occupied the White House, the Clinton staff pulled
all the plastic covers off “W” keys off all the
computer keyboards, leaving just the metallic
stub… just to kid and perhaps annoy George
W’s staffers.
Har-dee-har-har…
While technically, actual but miniscule damage
was done in this instance—and perhaps in the
Adelanto situation as well—nobody thought it
worth pursuing actual prosecution, and just
got on with the business of government.
Perhaps that’s what should have been
done in this case…
That’s my guess… time will tell as more
is revealed.
This is something that never happened, and is something I alluded to in the first post of this thread. Karl Rove and his minions said it happened, and the credulous media dutifully reported it. It turned out that it never happened, but people are left with the counter-factual impression that it did.
George W. Bush’s team planted the White House vandalism story in the press. The Clinton administration was cleared by a GAO report.
http://www.salon.com/2001/05/23/vandals/
Note that the Walton Foundation is behind this. Walmart breeding a new generation of underpaid workers.