This commentary was written by a veteran education advocate who must remain anonymous because of a career situation. All sources are cited.
The billionaire-funded education “reform” operation Parent Revolution recently announced that its longtime director, Ben Austin, is leaving. I’ve followed Parent Revolution (PRev) since the beginning, so to mark the occasion and the new year, I’m presenting some informal history and observations – including predicting the likely fizzle of yet another once-hailed fad.
PRev has fallen drastically short of its own projected impact. PRev created the “parent trigger,” whereby a 50%+1 majority of parents at a school can sign a petition forcing “transformation” of the school, or forcing it to close. The parent trigger was originally projected to turn many “failing” public schools into charter schools. In reality, since its founding in 2009, it has turned just one public school into a charter, inflicting ugly divisiveness on the community in the process and resulting in wildly conflicting reports about the charter’s effectiveness.
PRev continues to tout itself as a success. It has won ample favorable press coverage from the beginning, and has persuaded legislatures in several states to pass laws allowing the parent trigger, though there are no reports since of parent triggers actually taking place in those states. PRev lists a string of high-ticket funders, including the Laura and John Arnold Foundation (of Enron), the Walton Family Foundation (Walmart), the Gates Foundation, and the Broad Foundation. Its funders seem unlikely to maintain their enthusiasm as the lack of actual results becomes increasingly evident.
PRev began in 2009 under the auspices of Los Angeles’ Green Dot charter school chain, launched by the mercurial, once-high-profile Green Dot founder Steve Barr. The intent appeared to be to enable Green Dot to take over schools. PRev said it was targeting “failing schools,” but in early 2010 I researched the test scores, based on California’s Academic Performance Index, of the existing Green Dot schools. It turned out that 14 of the 15 Green Dot schools had lower test scores than the public schools PRev was targeting and defining as failing. In other words, by Green Dot’s own definition, almost all of its own schools were failing, which would seem to raise questions about Green Dot’s efforts to save other schools.
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/may/11/local/me-greendot11
Barr’s name is no longer mentioned in connection with PRev, possibly because of his checkered history, including a rapidly squelched flap about misuse of funds and some much-publicized failed projects. The story of Barr and the Green Dot charters he founded has been marked by rifts, feuds and separations. Since PRev began operating on a statewide and then national scope, there has never again been public discussion of Green Dot taking over a parent trigger school.
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/dec/02/local/la-me-greendot2-2009dec02
PRev at first operated only in Los Angeles. At the time, it was easy to follow online discussion forums connected with the schools PRev was targeting, and there were many comments from parents along the lines of “Parent Revolution, leave our school alone.” A budding parent trigger at Mount Gleason Middle School in the community of Sunland-Tujunga won press coverage in early 2010. But based on online discussion at the time, that parent trigger effort appeared to have only one supporter – a former parent at the school who wanted to have the principal fired. The effort evaporated. There were apparently no completed parent triggers in LAUSD during that time.
http://www.dailynews.com/20100214/parents-pulling-trigger-on-school
In 2010, the California Legislature passed a law allowing the parent trigger statewide. The parent trigger was to offer four options for parents to choose: turning the school over to a charter operator; replacing the principal and/or much of the staff; closing the school; or a restructuring process to be determined.The parent trigger was entrenched deeply in right-wing philosophy and ideas, including advocacy of privatizing public services and hostility to teachers, their unions, and their due process and job security. But PRev disguised its right-wing foundations by decking itself out conspicuously in Democratic Party trappings. Ben Austin had Democratic Party credentials, as have a number of paid PRev operatives, as well as then-state Sen. Gloria Romero, who sponsored California’s parent trigger legislation.
The first parent trigger: McKinley Elementary, Compton, Calif. 2010-11
After the state legislation passed, PRev embarked on its first parent trigger late in 2010, at McKinley in the impoverished Los Angeles County city of Compton. Reporter Patrick Range McDonald of the politically maverick/libertarian advocacy newspaper L.A. Weekly followed the process but didn’t write about it until late in the game, after the parent trigger petitions had been submitted.
The coverage made it clear that actual McKinley parents had been absent from the process. McDonald, writing from an openly pro-Parent Revolution viewpoint, reported that PRev had looked around the state for a school to target: “Parent Revolution decided to focus on McKinley Elementary School and approach parents there after researching the worst school districts in California,” he wrote. The article recounted how PRev had already determined that the school would become a charter and had pre-selected a charter operator before approaching any McKinley parents: “Already waiting in the wings [was] Celerity Educational Group. … Around the same time that Parent Revolution was researching Compton Unified, Celerity was looking to open a school in the stubbornly anti-charter district. The two organizations found each other.”
http://www.laweekly.com/2010-12-09/news/Californias-Parent-Trigger/
The Weekly article described the signature-gathering operation run by PRev – polished and professional but carried out “quietly,” without open community discussion: “[PRev Organizing Director Pat] DeTemple set up a computer program to track trends in the progress of his staff’s work,” McDonald wrote. “Once a parent signature was obtained, DeTemple input that parent’s address in the program, and a green dot appeared on a digital map of Compton. If a particular block in McKinley Elementary’s feeder area showed no green dots, he’d ask one of the five salaried organizers to make a follow-up visit to the block. … Field organizers… canvassed a large chunk of the 10-square-mile city of Compton, knocking on hundreds of doors, walking its sidewalks and driving its streets, asking people if their children attend McKinley.”
Emphasizing the furtiveness of the effort, the article described DeTemple’s decision to deliver the signatures on Dec. 7, 2010, as he semi-facetiously compared the “surprise attack” to Pearl Harbor: “Remembering that Dec. 7, 1941, was the ‘day of infamy,’ when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, DeTemple can’t help but eye Dec. 7. ‘It’ll be a surprise attack,’ he quips.” On that day, after its stealthy signature-gathering operation, PRev presented the petitions to the school district in a blaze of publicity, including chartering buses to take the press to the event.
The Weekly’s McDonald helped shield the signature-gathering from public view by not writing about it until it was complete. Apparently unversed in education issues, McDonald and fellow Weekly reporter Simone Wilson illuminated damning details of the operation despite their open intent to promote PRev’s viewpoint. However, the money and influence PRev wielded insulated it from much harm to its public image, and the oddity of the press’ actively helping to shroud in secrecy a process aimed at turning a public resource over to a private operator attracted no notice.
After the petitions had been presented, the Weekly’s Wilson covered a Compton school board meeting at which, her report related, “hundreds of angry parents” from McKinley showed up to protest the charter takeover they had supposedly demanded – “many of whom say they were tricked into signing the Parent Trigger petition without understanding its gravity.” Reports have quoted parents as saying they had signed petitions they thought were to improve or “beautify” the school. One said she thought it was to improve parking around the school.
These flies in the ointment didn’t register with the mainstream news coverage, and the process continued. There was legal back-and-forth about handing the school over to Celerity. Eventually, that plan fell through and McKinley was left as it was. Celerity opened a charter nearby. Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Newton gloated in September 2011 about what he predicted would be McKinley Elementary’s destruction: “The charter operator that would have taken over McKinley opened a school down the street, and it quickly filled up. A second one is opening in the neighborhood. By this time next year, parents will have voted with their feet, and McKinley will be a ruin.”
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/19/opinion/la-oe-newton-parent-trigger-20110919
But actually, California Department of Education statistics do not show parents rushing to vote with their feet. McKinley’s enrollment dropped only 12.9% when the new Celerity charter opened in fall 2011 – there’s no way to know whether all those students transferred to the charter or left for other reasons – and has made modest bumps up and down year by year since. Four years later, McKinley continues to exist as a high-poverty public school and is apparently not a “ruin.” (There’s also no indication that Celerity has opened a second charter “in the neighborhood.”)
The only “successful” parent trigger: Desert Trails Elementary, Adelanto, Calif., 2012
In spring 2012, PRev found a foothold at this high-poverty school in a prison town in the high desert east of L.A. Despite the hugely favorable press coverage of the McKinley parent trigger, PRev had gotten dinged for the total absence of parent involvement, and it made a much bigger show of including parents in its next high-profile effort.
It was becoming apparent that charter operators actually don’t consider it desirable to take over existing struggling schools, with existing problems and already-enrolled students whom the charter operators may find undesirable. It’s evident that most or all prefer to start new schools. That became a problem for a process intended to turn public schools over to private operators. During the Desert Trails battle, there was no mention of a pre-selected charter operator “waiting in the wings,” and in the end, PRev had to scrounge to find one.
As predicted by parent trigger critics (and, realistically, by anyone with common sense), the effort in Adelanto ripped the school apart, creating a tense, angry atmosphere and destroying friendships. PRev engaged in an odd tactic, circulating two petitions for parents to sign – one calling for a list of improvements in the school such as more resources and smaller classes, the other for turning the school over to a charter operator – and then submitted only the petition calling for the charter. It’s not clear whether all signers signed both or understood that there were two petitions; those details are murky. After the petition was presented to the school district, the battle continued, with some parents asking to remove their names once the odd two-petition process came to light. Eventually a judge ruled that once a parent had signed a parent trigger petition, it was a done deal and the signer had forfeited the right to change his or her mind.
After more angry controversy and lots of publicity — this time the effort had not been stealthy, and parents opposing the petition were vocal — PRev dredged up two or three charter operators who said they were willing to take over the school, and held a vote for parents who had signed the petition to choose (only the petition signers could vote). An operator was elected, the school community scattered, and the charter operator took over as of the 2013-14 school year. Reports so far are wildly mixed. Some mainstream news reports have been glowing; other accounts portray a “dysfunctional” and “law-breakingly unprofessional” school. As with all charter takeovers of existing schools, it’s not clear how many of the students from the previous school enrolled at the charter or remained there.
Adelanto Report Card: Year Zero of the Parent Trigger Revolution
Once again, despite the largely admiring press coverage of PRev’s effort, it was apparent that the Desert Trails operation had been problematic, with the divisiveness it wrought on the school and greater community, the strange dual-petition strategy, and the brouhaha over the refusal to allow parents to rescind their signatures.
Beyond Adelanto
As all this was going on, PRev was lobbying in other states for the passage of parent trigger laws. The lobbying efforts were marked by deceit – from claims that California had seen numerous schools transformed by parent triggers to paid PRev operatives masquerading before state legislatures as grassroots parent activists. At least six other states now have parent trigger laws on the books, but there are no reports to be found of any actual parent triggers.
In California, reports have surfaced occasionally about PRev activity at schools that later simply fades out, including in San Diego, Orange County and Pasadena. PRev has been a presence in a few Los Angeles schools and touts itself as a huge success, but the acclaim otherwise has been muted. Since the Adelanto fracas, no other charter takeovers have made headway.
The Los Angeles Times has long been an enthusiastic supporter of the “reform” camp that created and sustains Parent Revolution, but its enthusiasm for the parent trigger has been rapidly diminishing. A June 2013 Times “voice of the newspaper” editorial headlined “The ‘parent trigger’ trap” raised concerns about the dubious results of a parent trigger at Weigand Elementary School in Watts:
“A petition requiring the removal of the principal, Irma Cobian, was signed by 53% of the parents. According to organizers, the parents didn’t want a charter school and wanted to keep all the teachers. But they apparently weren’t aware that many of those teachers thought highly of Cobian. After the petition was accepted by the district, 21 of the school’s 22 teachers indicated in writing that they would seek to transfer from Weigand [most or all of those teachers did wind up leaving], and some parents expressed regret over signing the petition.
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/may/24/local/la-me-weigand-20130525
“Weigand’s test scores are low,” the editorial continued, “but it’s unclear how much of the problem rests with Cobian, who has won praise for some of her work … Many (parents) were stunned to learn that the teachers didn’t share their views.”
The Times editorial called for open, public discussions in the parent trigger process. “This misunderstanding would undoubtedly have been avoided if there had been a more public airing of opposing views. … This process does a disservice to parents, some of whom miss out on opportunities to become more informed about their options — or in some cases even to know that a petition drive is underway — before nearly irreversible decisions have been made. … Reformers might fear that a more open process would lead to more misinformation and even intimidation of parents by teachers or others with a vested interest in the status quo, but a closed petition means that parents are shut off from debate and discussion that lead to truly empowered decision-making.”
What of parent triggers elsewhere? There’s still some activity in Southern California, including a current effort at Palm Lane Elementary in Anaheim, near Disneyland – a school already suffering turbulence over principal turnover.
A highly touted effort in Pasadena has faded. An involved Pasadena parent gave me an update as of December 2014: “The Parent Revolution effort here comes and goes. I haven’t heard of anything lately. Our former board member and Parent Revolution supporter Ramon Miramontes is submitting two charter school applications himself. He was responsible for Celerity Charter opening up a school, and now they have closed it and left town.”
The September 2011 Los Angeles Times column by Jim Newton that had applauded the impending “ruin” of McKinley Elementary also touted budding parent triggers at Los Angeles Academy Middle School and Woodcrest Elementary School, both of which have apparently quietly fizzled. A teacher at L.A. Academy Middle School told me, “They chose not to target our school after all.”
At this point it seems fairly safe to declare the parent trigger a failure. If its creators had sincerely intended to improve the education and well-being of low-income, high-need students, that would be a sad thing. As someone who has observed the machinations of education “reform” operatives for years – and who is aware of how much philanthropic funding is available for credible-looking, skillfully promoted fads – I don’t believe they had any such intentions. The level of deception and skulduggery PRev has engaged in throughout its history demonstrates the lack of sincerity.
The outcome is indeed a sad thing for those who were trusting enough to genuinely hope that the parent trigger would empower parents and improve the lot of disadvantaged children.
Even if the parent trigger had ever been effective and its process transparent and honest – even if it had ever been sincerely intended to improve schools – critics have pointed out the fundamental flaw in the notion that the parents who are currently using a public resource should be the lone voice in the design and operation of that resource. It’s as if the passengers on the municipal bus decided on their own to hand the bus over to a private operator, or the people in the park at a given moment elected to put it under private management.
Another Los Angeles Times “voice of the newspaper” editorial, in September 2013, further summed up the problems. The editorial was headlined “Fix the ‘parent trigger,’ ” – though most rational observers would see that such a badly flawed process is beyond fixing: “The lack of a public forum is fundamentally wrong. These are public schools, and the petitions have the force of law. The fate of taxpayer-funded schools should not be decided in secrecy.”
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-parent-trigger-lausd-20130920-story.html
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé.
The California parent trigger law is called the Parent Empowerment Act of 2010. It was written by Gloria Romero who is termed out now as a state legislator, and she now writes for the Orange County Register. She recently wrote such a biased article on this flawed law that I wrote a letter to the editor refuting most of her perspectives. It garnered comments of support to the position of public ed and not charters embedded in public schools. I posted all of this on this site some weeks back.
This long exposition by “unknown” if generally on target, but there is not enough mention of the notorius Ben Austin’s role is setting up this situation through Parent Revolution which was started in California in 2009. He was the lobbyist who worked with Romero and to influence, I dare say by givng donations to legislators, the implementaion of the Act.
The main funding of over $14 M was proferred by the Waltons who also donated a fortune to implement Stand Your Ground laws nationwide, and who kept sending millions more to the LAUSD charters to hire TFA kids while dumping the trained credentialed teachers. Eli Broad and the Wasserman Foundation were major donors as well. Austin was raking in about $250K in salary, and some of his assistants were earning 6 figures for their part in this
Last year, at the CSUN Parents Symposium which I attended as an observer (you can read my article on Chalk Face), the parents of color, mainly Latino and African American, vitually ‘hooted down’ Gabe Rose of Parent Revolution. During comments, these parents told horror stories of the encroachment of charters into their public schools, and they particularly were NOT fooled by the boyish charm of Gabe Rose who represented his hidden boss, Ben Austin. In private conversation with many of them, I found that they were very sophisticated regarding this political ploy by the billionaires to grab their schools for profit.
Please read the ‘Educator’ comment above, which adds important facts to this privatizing onshluss in Los Angeles.
It is only weeks ago that the figures for failing schools in California were announced, and within moments, Ben Austin was meeting with LAUSD interim Supt. Cortines to rush to use parent trigger in 95 LA schools. A short time later, LASR announced that Austin had resigned as director of Parent Revolution. Ah so, a mystery. Is it that Parent Rev is failing as an organization? Is it that the big money privatizers no longer are throwing money at it?
Parent trigger, at the behest of these funders, was urged to be placed on the ballots in many other states, with Austin doing much leg work. Most voted it down, with voters recognizing the implications of takeover of public schools by devious methods.
If you are interested in googling Adelanto and the manipulation of the mainly field worker, non English speaking population, and how
Austin worked them through lies and intimidation, it is all online. I wrote about him the last two years in great detail starting on Oct. 28, 2013, which was published here (can be found in the archives) and at dozens of other sites should you wish to learn more about this pernicious law in order to protect yourselves in other states.
Parents should have a say in directing their schools, but trained educators are far more knowledgeable about what makes a successful school over the long haul. So the goal of a partnership between them seems to be the better route than turning over schools to most unknown charter mavens.
Please be sure to read the ‘Cynthia’ (Cynthia Liu of K12 News Network) comment below, and a MUST read is her Report link on the LAUSD schools assaulted by Parent Rev including Adelanto’s Desert Trails. 24th Street, and Weigand. She explains exactly what and how it all happened.
The LA Times articles are to be read with a big grain of salt. The leadership at the Times is pro Charters and the new publisher is a Wall Street billionaire (and the new leader of the Broad Foundation also made his fortune on Wall Street), and this is reflected in their editorials supporting Eli Broad and charters, and also it is alleged that in their articles, reporters are limited in what and how they report by the oversight of their employers who instruct them as to how much they are allowed to report. This certainly played a large part in keeping the public in the dark about not only Parent Rev, but about all the Deasy mismanagement.
**The complete comment I made on a posting on this blog of 10-24-2014.**
Old Teacher: excellent points.
Let me reinforce what you said about the undemocratic nature of this whole “parent trigger” [i.e., shooting the gun of self-styled “education reform” at unsuspecting parents) business as it has worked itself out in reality, not in rheeality.
I reprint the first part of a comment I made on this blog on 1-14-2014 under a posting entitled “Two Anti-Parent Revolution Parents Accused of Vandalizing Charter School.” Also see my comment on this blog, 6-28-2013, under the posting “A Sad Graduation Day at Desert Trails Elementary School in Adelanto, CA.”
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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
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Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2014/01/14/two-anti-parent-revolution-parents-accused-of-vandalizing-charter-school/
But why let decency, compassion, facts and logic stand in the way of self-proclaimed “education reform”? Parent Trigger! Parent Revolution! Choice! Miracles!
Or am I exaggerating? Surely this is an outlier. Or maybe, as in the case of Steve Barr and his offhandedly cruel abandonment of John McDonough High School in New Orleans, this is just another example of ed business as usual in the pursuit of $tudent $ucce$$. Which in rheephormish, as Bob Shepherd would remind us, means that, most dear and near to the hearts of those leading and enabling the charterite/privatization movement are the acronyms “ROI/MC” aka “ReturnOnInvestment/MonetizingChildren.”
For McDonough, see this blog—
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2014/10/23/the-miracle-that-wasnt-steve-barrs-failure-in-new-orleans/
Just my dos centavitos worth…
A parent trigger law is one of the first things on this year’s Nevada Legislative session. The republicans think it is just a great idea.
Excellent summary. It is also significant that there was really only one charter for parents to choose from in Adelanto. There was a second choice but this school’s original charter had lower scores than Desert Trails. Also, it’s very important to note that only 53 parents showed up for the vote. The law does not require a certain number of parents to be included in the vote. Basically, the law would not have been broken if just 1 parent had voted.
Last, there is no mechanism available to trigger schools to turn the school back to the district if the parents are dissatisfied. In fact, charters most often do not give parents the same rights of involvement as they do in traditional schools. All in all, the kids who were apparently underserved, remain underserved and underrepresented.
“Last, there is no mechanism available to trigger schools to turn the school back to the district if the parents are dissatisfied.”
Now there’s a shocker. You mean the charter promoter drafted a process that ensured the school remains a charter school? No one could have seen that coming.
Is there an avenue to appeal, or is that too much like “the status quo”? Generally in the US we like a process that includes an appeal because we aren’t dumb enough to believe any person or process is infallible, and we have 200+ years of experience to draw on.
Chiara: you mean the “choice but no voice” crowd denies people the right to make choices that diverge from the party line?
😱
Tell me, please, that it ain’t so!
And you wrote: “You mean the charter promoter drafted a process that ensured the school remains a charter school? No one could have seen that coming.”
😏
Er, that’s called a “sucker punch.”
Or in today’s parlance: “education reform.”
English-to-English translation brought to you courtesy of your local neighborhood KrazyTA.
😎
P.S. From page 1 of the Potemkin Village Business Plan for $tudent $ucce$$: “The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”
Rheephormers. Always, and forever, with their Groucho.
😊
Parent trigger in Ohio had no takers as of December, even after Ohio lawmakers and other public employees completely abdicated their responsibility to public schools and “relinquished” their job duties to Students First:
“If the district or the third party organization ‘Students First” of Cincinnati do not receive a petition for parent intervention at any of the schools it’s uncertain whether the pilot project would continue. Greg Harris of Students First faults Columbus schools for lack of effort to promote the parent trigger. Columbus has a page on its website with ‘parent trigger’ information.
“But that doesn’t necessarily reach these parents where they’re at. So as a third party partner here we’d encourage a more deliberate effort to reach parents directly,” Harris said.”
Do public school districts have a duty to market ed reform experiments to parents? Who is going to pay for that marketing? Does that come out of public funding that is supposed to be dedicated to students? I think public schools have enough unfunded ed reform mandates on their plate right now. I’d be really reluctant to add another one.
http://stateimpact.npr.org/ohio/2014/12/17/ohio-parent-trigger-pilot-project-has-no-takers/
I can only comment on the Adelanto situation. If Parent Trigger hadn’t come along, the status quo of that district and school would have remained corrupt. When it came to who would take over the school, Adelanto district applied but didn’t make the due date. Another successful charter of twenty years in the area with a 3,000 waiting list also applied and was not chosen. The practices that date back to the 1930’s or 40’s with a union contract that said teachers did not have to supervise children and had to arrive to school only 10 minutes before instruction and could leave 10 minutes after, left principals with no assistant principals up a creek with uncaring teachers, some of whom even left their classrooms unattended when it suited them. When principals couldn’t fix these problems, the superintendent fired them, unless they were in the “inside group,” and then they would be transferred to another school or to the district office. Several administrators welcomed Parent Trigger because they didn’t know how to blow the whistle on such a situation. The district refused to comply with what the court ordered in the Parent Trigger case and the immigration status of many of these parents was threatened in as you call it, “a prison town.” It is also a poverty stricken town, and the parents didn’t even know the half of how that district was run. If the Parent Trigger school doesn’t succeed, I give up all hope for that district. Because of a “Career Situation,” I can’t reveal my real name either.
I think we should expand this innovation to other public entities. We have a publicly-funded senior center here. If I go over there and collect a majority of signatures can I sell it to a private company? Just the CURRENT over-65 attendees. If you’re 64 you’re out of luck. You’re also out of luck and denied a vote if you’re everyone else in the county who paid to build this publicly-funded asset and is paying for operations. No vote for you!
It’s the most undemocratic process I have ever heard of, not to mention they’re essentially running elections with little or no oversight. They can call it whatever they like. It’s an election. I guess that’s what happens when you’re a lawmaker or public official and you decide it’s easier to outsource your work to some “org” or another. You get “governance” like this.
You’re on a roll Chiara…and at viewing the petitions online, some were signed with only an X so it was clear the signator was illiterate. One wrote a note with her vote and said she wanted a new principal since the old one never said hello to her. Another who had signed added he wanted to change his vote to no, but was not allowed to. The whole thing was a farce and a fraud.
Thank you for this. My only issue is that I thought that we had another PRev success story right here in Los Angeles at 24th Street School. It happened so quietly, I guess, the media failed to exaggerate its success. But I do believe that much that goes on in the sprawling metropolis of L.A. doesn’t get noticed perhaps until the FBI comes calling, or someone gets hurt or killed. Sad. I think there will continue to be such efforts here as long as there is profit to be made.
It is my understanding that at 24th St., the far more sophiticated and better educated parents, mainly first language English speakers, could not be fooled by ParentRev, but used the leverage to force LAUSD to work with them to improve conditions at the school.
Parent Revolution had many educated, second language people working with the Adelanto parents. Everything was explained to parents in Spanish if they needed it. Nobody was forced or fooled into anything, unless it was the school district who was telling the parents that their school would soon be out of School Improvement after 7 or was it 8 years and their children would somehow magically be able to read or write.
Changemaker…we have done this dance before. You imply here that you teach in Adelanto and cannot come forth with your name and creds, and yet, once again, you give support to PRev counter to the many reports of the incursion they made into the community. This includes planting phony parents to influence others, and essentially intimidating some.
So who are you really? Is this Gabe or another staff person at PRev?
Ellen, it doesn’t matter who I am. What matters is that change for the better because it couldn’t get any worse (or maybe it could) is happening in Adelanto because of the shake up from Parent Revolution. If PR was forcing themselves on anyone, they would have taken over all the schools in Adelanto.
The organiztion pushing “the parent trigger law” is called Parent Revolution.
Parent Revolution is supported by the big three predators in the educational landscape. The Walton Family Foundation, Gates Foundation, and Broad Foundation.
In addition, Parent revolution is supported by:
Biller Foundation (currently focused on school systems in Los Angeles County and Washington State “on projects to empower families and advance programs which yield measurable academic gains for students”).
California Education Policy Fund (a Sponsored Project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, established in 2011 with a “leadership gift” from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation)
East Bay Community Foundation (based in Oakland, CA, grant maker)
Joseph Drown Foundation (active in the hotel industry, known as developer of Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles, supporter of Teach for America, many charter schools)
Laura and John Arnold Foundation (Enron trader, hedge fund wealth, donor to PBS for series on “The Pension Peril,” promoting cuts to public employee pensions, pushing same agenda in multiple state legislatures.
Rogers Family Foundation (based in Oakland, CA, supports charter schools, charter management organizations, and other non-profits).
Silicon Valley Community Foundation (claims social equity as a major concern…conduit for investments and grants, has funds and “partnerships” with other foundations, corporations, nonprofits, donors and government agencies. Huge promoter of the Common Core)
The Hastings/Quillin Fund (Netflix wealth, an advised fund of Silicon Valley Community Foundation (see above). Hastings is on the board of KIPP and a major funder of the Charter School Growth Fund and New Schools Venture Fund)
Wasserman Foundation (wealth from MCA/Universal and an extended media empire, the current CEO of the Wasserman Foundation is a trustee of the William J. Clinton Foundation)
Here is a letter I wrote and sent, when Trigger legislation raised its ugly head in FL
————————————————————————-
“Parent Trigger” Bill, HB 867:
Are you certified, have a permit and can aim this legislative “gun”?
As a high school science teacher (biology, chemistry, physical science and AP Environmental) for over 20 yrs, a PhD candidate in science education, a NBCT (National Board Certified Teacher) since 1999, a M-DCPS 2001 Science Teacher of the Year and a past PTSA president I believe I am qualified to speak about public education. Also, I am a parent of a 17, 14 and 13 yr. old and know the struggles, tensions and juggling acts needed to get them “life-prepared”, and am keenly aware of my own limitations, failures and sins (ex. not reading with my son enough).
The Parent Trigger bill is a noble but misguided attempt to improve public education by allowing parents the “right” to force a public school into being run by a private company.
The Bill is misguided for 2 primary reasons: 1) a flawed diagnosis of the underlying “problems” in education 2) a more-flawed prescription to a faulty perception.
Schools “fail” (get FCAT D-F ratings) for the most part because they are populated by students from “failing” families, or no family (in the traditional sense) at all. Yes, teachers and administrators should and must do their part, and with a passionate professionalism do all they can to help students learn. Yet, we cannot perform miracles; we are not pedagogic alchemists taking students who may have been through a couple of divorces, or have little to no parental, familial, support, and then teach them to love learning and pursue excellence (if these things are not modeled at home).
Fundamentally, schools are not doing a poorer job than several decades ago, but the quality of the “raw ore” may have decreased. The problem is socio-cultural and moral, not institutional, or at least the school-structure is not the main factor. Maslow’s hierarchy of need elucidates that kids will not be free and motivated in their mind-soul-body to pursue learning, career preparation and self-actualization, if their basic needs of love, belonging and physical requirements are not being met in their families.
Being over-worked, having excessive debt, divorce, substance abuse, entertainment addictions, inane past-times, technological distractions (ex. hours of useless computer games) are all factors that have decreased the pedagogic potential/capacity of our students in the last several decades.
Educational research reveals time and again that the most important variable (the most accurate predictor) of a student’s school success is family structure and support. School setting, administrative leadership, teacher experience and degrees are also important, but not nearly as influential as family support and accountability.
The sequence of the cause-effect relationships is first failing families, then failing students, which leads to failing schools. The sequence does not begin with failing schools. Yes, there needs to be more teacher accountability (though perhaps not through excessive testing or VAM, value-added model), and we, as teachers, should perform at our highest capacities and potentials.
If parents are discontent with their local schools performance then they should visit the school, get to know it, inquire about it, get facts to diagnose it, and then come and participate to help it. Just like charter schools require some parental support so should public schools. Public schools were meant to be many things, one of which is the local institution, expression, of participatory democracy, with the goal of stakeholders contributing to the pedagogy of their neighborhoods.
Yet, in this current milieu of “parental choice”, which is being fueled by many charter-school lobbyists and corporations, wanting to divert public funds into their private ventures, parents are allowed to “run away” from their local school, instead working to make it better.
Perhaps, if all parents who use public schools would be required to volunteer and contribute to their school, they would “walk in our shoes” and experience the trials and triumphs that we experience. Maybe parents would see that most of us teachers are passionate and committed professionals, who love our jobs, love students, love teaching and learning and love preparing the next generation for the challenges and blessings of their futures.
This would give them more experience and wisdom, in order to make better pedagogic choices for their students. Then, if they were still discontent with their local public school (after doing all they can to fix it) they would be given the right to form and sign a petition, in order to force change upon the public school (ex. get taken over by a charter school corporation?). Parental rights first require parental participation, before parental complaints can be made. Our rights are to make us act responsibly, not blindly complain about issues we know nothing about, then demand change for something we don’t understand, which only creates more confusion and dysfunction.
Charter schools do not inherently educate better, especially when the fact that they selectively recruit and retain better students, sending the “problem” students back to their home public school. Therefore, their test scores are “skewed right” because of the student population at charter schools. So, charter schools are not better, just different.
Finally, maybe parents should be empowered and legally allowed to create “trigger laws” for every other democratic institution they are unhappy with. So, you don’t like your local police force or County Board of Commissioners then vote, and go and hire a private entity to replace them? What about the Governor, can the “trigger” get pointed at him; can an alternate, private, entity be brought in to replace him?
Better yet, what if we (the stakeholder collective) aim and point the gun at all the parents who are failing in their basic responsibilities? Yes, look in the mirror before you aim and shoot that legislative “gun”, or at least go a PTSA meeting at your local public school and learn of their struggles and contribute to the solutions. Remember what Jesus said about hypocrisy? Only those without sin can throw the first stone; only those who have fixed their own problems can go about and help others fix theirs. Which translates as: only those who have first contributed to make their own local public school better have the right to complain.
Excellent assessment, Rick. It mirrors every community situation in the nation.
There were two other “successful” triggers in LAUSD. Weigand Elementary did not choose the charter option and 24th St. only allowed the co-located Crown Prep Charter to take over the 5th grade since they already were serving 5th graders. The other grades, K-4, stayed with the district, even though that was NOT a legal choice allowed in the law. That happened because the parents did NOT like the charters that submitted bids, and PRev was about to lose everything which would have exposed another major flaw in the law. That flaw has to do with the strong possibility, as happened in Adelanto and for 24th St., that there are few or possibly no choices presented to the parents. That’s why Ben Austin’s buddy, former superintendent Deasy, came to his rescue. In fact, there is no guarantee that even one charter will bid. Then what?????? I assume that the trigger would be reversed, but this would be after all the divisiveness has already invaded the community.
ahhh, “after all the divisiveness has already invaded the community”. A “house divided shall not stand” and I wonder if the corp execs promote these triggers, via lobbyists and other nefarious types, in order to create tension and division and legitimize the “take over”.
Historically, and in theory and practice, the local public school has been THE local expression of stakeholder participation in pedagogy; a collaboration where all work together for the greater good of the all (regardless of class, socioeconomics, religion, etc.). It is a beautiful institution with noble and virtuous objectives and goals, but it requires all local stakeholders to work together; not looking for excuses and pointing fingers at others, in hope to argue for alternative choices. Read my earlier post about my thoughts about trigger laws in FL.
The Walton Family Foundation and the Eli Broad Foundation are the prime donors to produce and implement parent trigger laws. Other similar privatizers and Wall Street mega million and billionaires also contribute. Their goal is to do away with all unions, except the house unions ruled by them, and to turn all public education into free market investment opportunities. This is fact and has been in process for some years.
I’ve worked at 24th st. How the situation will play out remains to be seen, but I have a few observations. Crown Prep is a no excuses type middle school. The teachers are YOUNG and desperately eager to maintain control especially in how well their students walk in lines. I I have not directly observed instruction, but while passing through the halls, the kids look miserably bored, yet under control. A parent working there has expressed sadness about the fact that the kids get no arts and never smile. There is a ridiculous staff turnover. The Elementary school has young teachers also, but many are credentialed through the excellent UCLA ed. Program. They have better working conditions due to our union contract. So there is a wierd two tier situation with the two separate staffs.
No discussion of Parent Trigger would be complete without mentioning Parent Rev’s Hollywood propaganda feature film:
WON’T BACK DOWN
from two years ago.
Salon hit it out of the park in its review:
http://www.salon.com/2012/09/26/wont_back_down_why_do_teachers_unions_hate_america/
There were many irregularities in the use of parent trigger at 24th Street Elementary iin Los Angeles, which have been detailed in the original article and in the comments. But at K12 News Network, a small group of researchers tried to contact the permanent staff, personnel, or address of the Education Management Organization that “took over” the running of 24th Street. That entity was a LAUSD EMO called Practitioner Center Schools.
At no time were we ever able to find a non-profit registration or for-profit corporate registration at the Secretary of State’s listings of organizations for PCS. Nor did any permanent staff or contacts materialize. So just who is this phantom PCS EMO? Why is this even lawful given that the parent trigger requires EMO or CMOs attempting to take over a “triggered” school show both a record of facilitating academic achievement for students and a track record of past sound financial management? A public records request submitted to LAUSD yielded none of the things we asked for and things that were readily available online, such as the bill text of the “parent trigger” law. Our questions remain unanswered.
You can read the 40-page report here: http://thewire.k12newsnetwork.com/2013/10/30/turnarounds-at-two-los-angeles-unified-schools-prompt-deeper-questions-over-practitioner-center-schools/
Who reviews the petitions? How is it different than an election? Why don’t election process and rules apply?
I just can’t believe people swallowed this. It seems like an absolutely horrible idea, subject to fraud and all kinds of manipulation and campaign trickery.
Chiara, in Adelanto, the petitions were originally reviewed by the then superintendent who said if the person wasn’t on the emergency card their vote shouldn’t count. So you send Mom instead of Dad to the school and she signs on the emergency card, Dad doesn’t count. You are very correct that this was “subject to fraud and all kinds of manipulations and campaign trickery,” but not necessarily only on the part of Parent Revolution.
Change maker,
Emergency cards are sent home to be filled out. Parents are supposed to list everyone who may pick the child up in the case of an emergency. This could include grandparents, neighbors, friends… Anyone the parent trusts. Being listed on an emergency card is not that difficult.
“KrazyTA
January 8, 2015 at 1:36 pm
Tell me, please, that it ain’t so!”
Parent trigger seems crazy to me. We just had a 2 year process here on whether to build a new public school, how much it should cost, what it should look like, etc. It all went to referendum and there were contentious public meetings, levy failures. proposals, campaigns, yard signs, letters to the editor, and on and on.
I cannot imagine if we had just cut everyone else in town out and said “this if for parents of current students ONLY”. I think there would be genuine civil unrest. Why would parents just make the decision? It’s a public school. That’s part of what “public” means. You have to deal with the public. All of them.
If we don’t want organizations like Parent Trigger to get a foothold, then tell me, what do conventional, experienced educators do–who do they go to–when they see corruption on a large scale, ignoring of children, etc. in their district and when no one else will listen?
What about process protections for a political minority? Say the school is doing a bang-up job with disabled kids and the “trigger” parents, the 51% majority, want a completely different focus, one that might risk the benefits to the 15%? The parents in the 15% are just out of luck?
It probably wouldn’t be so bad but when we see Parent Trigger engaging in “corruption on a large scale, ignoring children” and parents, then perhaps we do not want such an organization to get a foothold.
changemaker
January 8, 2015 at 5:44 pm
Chiara, in Adelanto, the petitions were originally reviewed by the then superintendent who said if the person wasn’t on the emergency card their vote shouldn’t count. So you send Mom instead of Dad to the school and she signs on the emergency card, Dad doesn’t count. You are very correct that this was “subject to fraud and all kinds of manipulations and campaign trickery,” but not necessarily only on the part of Parent Revolution.”
I didn’t say it only applied to Parent Revolution. That’s why we have process. So we don’t have to parse motives and decide who the “good” and “bad” people are.
Why is a superintendent reviewing an election? That’s insane. That’s exactly my point. I don’t want “Parent Revolution” OR the school superintendent reviewing what is essentially balloting – an election mechanism. I object to this whole nutty scheme.
Chiara: you instinct often seems unerring.
And I mean that in the best possible way.
😊
So let me add something that I think you will agree with.
When it comes to ensuring a “better education for all” it doesn’t matter whether it’s a public school or a for-profit (or putatively non-profit) charter school or whatever, I say—
Hold everyone’s feet to the fire.
No exceptions. No rheephorm double standards. Everyone plays by the same rules. The maximum possible transparency. The same regarding responsibility, with clear penalties for violating clear cut legally binding guidelines. No concealing who is involved when it comes to policies and public monies and the democratic process and everything else.
No excuses for holding everyone to the highest ethical norms so among other things—to make this perfectly clear to everyone who comments on this blog—no midyear dumps, skimming, counseling out, or denial of services to the neediest.
“I reject that mind-set.” [Michelle Rhee]
In a weird sort of way, she’s absolutely right.
Speaking Johnsonally, of course. On Bizarro World.
Rheeally!
And I really mean that…
😎
The beginning of the sentence—
“No excuses for holding everyone to the highest ethical norms so among other things”—
Should read: “No excuses for not holding everyone to the same high ethical norms so among other things”—
My bad.
😎
Exactly what is the “process” you’re referring to. It seems to me it has to be outside the district.
This process:
“whereby a 50%+1 majority of parents at a school can sign a petition forcing “transformation” of the school, or forcing it to close.”
You don’t see any possible problems with that? What if my child is 4 and 1/2 and I want a vote on the public school she’ll be attending in 6 months? I don’t get one? What if I’m an 80 year old citizen and I helped pay for the existing public school and I’ll be paying for the charter that replaces it? No vote for me either?
This process might be okay for a private school, but where is “the public” part of public schools in all this? Are public schools central to whole communities or are they just contract service providers for parents?
That’s why it’s a good thing that public institutions are to some degree anti-democratic.
Chiara…every point you make here is correct.
So where is Ben Austin right now?
What is the plan at Parent Rev?
What is his next big money-making scheme?
Will Cortines help him put his scheme in play?
Who us watching the store?
Will Austin apply to be the next Supt. of LAUSD?
Will Broad push him through as he did with Deasy?
It is a cliff hanger in our land of the Lotus Eaters.
(No one mentioned in this post that Austin and Steve Barr of Green Dot fame are pseudo Siamese twins, and have worked (connived) together for many years on all this trash…and Austin even got charter lover- former Mayor Villaraigosa, to let him double dip when he was hired by Tony to work for the people of LA as a City Attorney after his questionable time in Sacramento, but was also allowed to work for Barr at Red Dot concurrently. Is that even legal?. Marshall Tuck, who lost the recent election for State Supt.of Public Instruction, makes up a Third Musketeer in this unholy trio.)
What is Cortines doing to support Austin and parent trigger, or not?
Why is Gloria Romero still beating the drum for parent trigger?
And now Eli Broad is raising his voice again to influence the choice of a new Supt. He has this community in a money-driven vice.
How can we keep from getting another Deasy-like grad of the Broad Academy imposed on LAUSD who will continue to rip off the taxpayers?
But a note of thanks to the LA Times for the recent article on the Supt. search and all the Supts. LAUSD has had in the past two decades, but the end sentences were very disconcerting when they reported that the search for Supt. will not even start until the end of this school year. How come, Howard, Karin, Ramon, Eli, BoE, et al?
Chiara, it has been traditionally the people whose children are attending a certain school that are the real “stakeholders” and invited to be on School Site Council, etc. If you want to be involved in a school in an area where you don’t reside or have a student, then you can join their PTA. And you only get to vote as a resident for school board members. It’s how our system has worked for years.
Chiara…using Adelanto’s Desert Trails as an exemplar school in a deeply poverty stricken, mainly field worker, community, it is clear that parents who may have the best intentions for their children’s well being, still are easily tricked by the corporate Parent Rev push for parent trigger. The preponderance of these agrarian parents may have had only a first grade education in their native land, and they never learned to read nor write in their first language. (Read the academic writings of U of Calif. professors, Concha Delgado-Gaitan and Henry Trueba who have done longitudinal studies over the past 30 years re this population). It follows that they cannot learn English if they are illiterate in Spanish.
Without being able to read and assess about parent trigger, these parents are the prime target of Parent Rev for they are easy to manipulate. This is why Ben Austin and his funders set up this plan to attack inner city schools with many poverty stricken and illiterate parents. Easy pickings is their goal.
Changemaker’s comments in support of the “educated Parent Rev” people who inform parents in Spanish is typical of how this insidious group operates. Their highly paid insurgents are trained in the psychological skills of mind bending.
Ellen, the majority of the people in Adelanto are not “agrarian field workers.” Many have moved to Adelanto because of low housing prices and they own their homes. The majority work “down the hill,” about an hour away. Many of the Parent Revolution parents are bilingual (reading and writing) in Spanish. They do not have the time to home school and fill in the gaps they saw in their own children’s education. I find your portrayal of these intelligent parents offensive and condescending. Not only PR people were there to translate for those who needed it, but other parents assisted. Also, the parents were not only Hispanic. There were a large number of black parents involved. Not to mention other Adelanto teachers and administrators cheering Parent Revolution people on behind the scenes.
It would clear the air Changemaker, if you would identify yourself. As it stands, to me your continued comments in support of PRev are to be taken with a vast mountain of salt, for a grain is far too little. You do not cite statistics nor any data to support your biased views.
The amount of data re populations in California counties is available for all to see. When viewing Adelanto, the poplulation, including transient field workers who must follow the crops, clearly inidicates that this is one to the poorest districts in the nation, not only in California.
Until you indicate who you are and where you get your information, I do not find your comments credible. As an educational researcher on these issues for over 40 years, I can be verified, so until you too can be verified, I must assume you are a shill for PRev.
I challenge you, Ellen, since you live in California, to drive through Adelanto in the Mojave desert and see one field worker at work in the fields.