In an article funded by the Walton Family Foundation, Education Week sums up the sad history of the “parent trigger” law. Clearly, the writer struggles to show the accomplishments of the law, but it is hard to hide its failings.
Two people–Gloria Romero (former state senator in California, former director of Wall Street-backed Democrats for Education Reform in California) says she wrote the law. Ben Austin, former leader of Parent Revolution, says he wrote the law.
The Gates Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, and other foundations poured millions into Parent Revolution, hoping that parents would vote to turn their public schools over to charter operators.
At the end of the day, five years later, here is the scorecard: six states passed similar parent trigger laws. “So far, nationally, only one school, Desert Trails Elementary School in Adelanto, Calif., has been transformed into a charter while another six schools in the state have used the parent-trigger law in some way to secure changes on their campuses.”
Only one school turned charter, and that happened only after a bitter fight among parents. Parents who did not sign the parent trigger petition were not allowed to vote in choosing a charter. Ultimately only 53 out of 600 parents selected the charter operator to take control of their public school.
Some reform.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Parent Trigger is like if the people riding on a single bus on my closest bus line decided to privatize that route regardless of the wishes of everyone else who rides it. Oh wait, that’s already been a part of my city’s history. We used to have a lot of different private companies running streetcars here. There were issues with that and, ultimately, the companies were required to work cooperatively under one management system, but eventually the remaining companies went bankrupt and the city took over the system.
Libertarians may say governments never get anything right and neoliberals may hail free markets as the answer to all problems, but nothing has worked out as well for the people in my city as PUBLIC transportation –at least until Rahm Emanuel decided to privatize the payment service that public transportation riders now have to use to pay for it.
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Parent trigger was a flop in Ohio. No takers. I think it’s because the market was already flooded with charter schools.
We’re really getting down to the real issues in Ohio charter law, after 17 years of this experiment. They’re “reforming” ed reform 🙂
The lower chamber put forth a charter reg bill that was very weak. The upper chamber bill is a little better.
The issue no one in charterland wants to talk about is “who owns the assets purchased with public funds”? Vitally important for the public obviously, and the public is paying for all this. If the public is investing in “public” schools the public should then own the asset.
This is part of the proposed law from the upper chamber in OH-
“Sec. 3314.025 . (A) Any state funds paid to a community school pursuant to this chapter that are used as payment for services rendered by an operator or management company shall maintain their status as public money once transferred to the operator or management company.”
The bill goes on to require public ownership of PERSONAL property purchased with public funds, but obviously the public would also want to retain ownership of any real estate a charter management company purchases with public funds. If your politicians aren’t protecting the public investment in charter school REAL ESTATE they simply aren’t doing their jobs. Tell them you want to OWN the charter school real estate you paid for. It’s the least they could do if they’re privatizing public schools, and they are privatizing public schools.
http://www.plunderbund.com/2015/03/21/will-the-sun-ever-shine-on-charter-school-spending/
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Excellent reporting. Thanks, and thanks to Diane for making it clear that the Education Week article on the parent trigger law is a Walton funded report.
That editorial content is supposed to reflect “independent” reporting, but huge chunks of the news in this weekly roundup is shaped by the special interests and funding of 18 foundations funding this publication.
Several, weeks ago I managed to get a 300 word rebuttal published to some ridiculous claims by the president of a group of civil and human rights organizations. He was bemoaning the politicalization of the CCSS and failure of Republicans to support it, and the necessity of keeping high stakes tests in place as if these were a remedy for entrenched poverty and achievement gaps among some minorities.
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I noticed that this article says nothing about the horrific conditions documented at Desert Trails by Bill Raden in Capital & Main:
http://capitalandmain.com/features/california-expose/adelanto-report-card-year-zero-of-the-parent-trigger-revolution/
http://capitalandmain.com/features/california-expose/high-noon-for-parent-trigger/
Also not stated is the simple math relating to a district pumping money into one school just to keep them from going the direction of the parent trigger. That money comes from the general fund which means that less is available for other schools. In Adelanto, the parents initially made demands for all kinds of things. With Parent Revolution’s help, they asked for way more than a small and poverty-striken school district could possibly provide for one school without harming all the others.
I just wish one….just one journalist would point this out. While I can’t blame parents for wanting more services at their child’s school, a district MUST look out for the good of all the children it serves, not just a few schools where parents are targeted by the likes of Parent Revolution.
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Laura, their confidence in testing is really sad. It is as if they do not realize that this testing will be used to deny them opportunities just as the early Army I.Q. tests did. The origins of testing lies in eugenics as social policy. Minorities will be legally excluded based on test scores, and they are signing on to it….it just does not make sense.
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Old Teacher: yes, testolatry “just does not make sense”—
But it does make a lot of ₵ent¢.
And I am not making a joke. If they deigned to respond, the self-styled “education reformers” would engage in the usual smear, sneer and jeer at what they would consider [in public] such an absurdly vicious reductionist recap of their words and deeds and goals.
Yet how else to describe what they are attempting except as an attempt to impose a business plan that masquerades as an education model whose highest metric is the bottom line?
And, from their POV, when in mad dog pursuit of $tudent $ucce$$ they figure we shouldn’t take account of those that don’t count—
aka the vast majority. Us.
So even when it comes to pursing worst business practices that have failed over and over and over again, they can only echo the NJ Education Commissioner:
“Whatever we’re doing, we need to double down.”
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2015/03/04/lyndsey-layton-governor-christie-fails-in-newark/
And while they “double down” on us, Chris Christie sends his kids to Delbarton School and Bill Gates to Lakeside School and…
Do I really need to go on?
Thank you for your comments.
😎
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Just can’t take any moe Debauchary
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The jury is still out on the success of Parent Trigger In Adelanto. What the journalists don’t report on is how bad Desert Trails was and for how long a time in Adelanto, with no hope for change as kids went their whole elementary career not being able to read or write, with few services. Adelanto likes to put all their money and hopes on beautiful brand new schools, while forgetting the ones they opened the year before. All is wonderful until even the district starts blaming the principal and teachers and the revolving door of new people begins, both teachers and administrators. While Parent Trigger may not be able to change this, they did make a dent at Desert Trails Prep while the district tries to hide its flaws. There are no easy answers here, people, except for examining ourselves on all sides.
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The only way you can evaluate the new Desert Trails charter is if the exact same population of neighborhood students is still attending. Unfortunately, that may not be the case. There is evidence that many of the former students did not enroll in the charter and instead chose to go to other elementary schools in Adelanto. Also, many more left during the school year only to show up at other local schools. So, any comparison is simply not possible.
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educator: thank you for countering a sad attempt to confuse Rheeality with reality by reminding us that—
When comparing groups, make sure the groups are comparable. [see Gerald Bracey, READING EDUCATION RESEARCH: HOW TO AVOID GETTING STATISTICALLY SNOOKERED, 2006]
As for the rest, I would add that those for a “better education for all” hold everyone’s feet to the fire.
And no, members of the BBBC [BoredBillionaireBoysClub] are not exempted.
Thank you for your comments.
😎
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Parent Revolution and Parent Trigger.
Democracy.
Just what do the former do to the latter? I reproduce below [bounded by BEGIN and END in brackets] a large part of what I wrote in a thread of a posting [10-24-2014] on this blog:
[BEGIN]
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.”
[START REPRINT]
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
[END REPRINT]
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!
[END]
Unlike such ‘thought leaders’ of the self-styled “new civil rights movement of our time” as Michelle Rhee, these are not your gleaming bright hard data points like bringing ‘your’ students to the 90th percent tile and only 1.7% of classroom time is devoted to standardized testing. Nope, these numbers don’t wither under even the most casual scrutiny—
53. 180. 400. 466. 610.
But why let real figures get in the way of a rheeally good sales pitch?
After all, Marxist aphorisms cover this too:
“The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”
And when it comes to the leader of the self-proclaimed “education reform” movement, Groucho is never ever far from their thoughts.
😎
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