Julian Vasquez Heilig recently testified to the House Education Committee of the Texas legislature on legislation called “the parent trigger.” Such legislation, originated in California five years ago, would give parents the “power” to take control of their school and hand it over to a charter operator. The link contains both the transcript and a video of his testimony. The “parent trigger” was initially financed by billionaires with the expectation that parents could be used to privatize their schools, thus transferring community assets to private hands by vote of a simple majority of those who are parents in that school today but may be gone the next year.
Put simply, Vasquez Heilig’s testimony is brilliant.
Here is an excerpt:
The current research on parent trigger suggests that we should have major concerns about SB 14
SB14 is parent empowerment without the empowerment. Parental involvement without the involvement.
Why? Students and parents rights are actually more limited. Once the petition goes forward, the rights that are currently guaranteed to parents, students and teachers under the democratically defined education code are squelched. Under private control, parents and students no longer have guarantees on class size limits, disciplinary decisions, or qualified teachers among others.
As the Houston preacher just said, “parents deserve to have a say.”
Furthermore, as my real estate agent recently told me “Location!, Location!, Location!” I understand why there is great interest in parent trigger. Schools are sitting on very valuable parcels of land in Austin, in Houston, in Dallas.
It would be a coup for those shopping for real estate and facilities if just a few parents from any particular year are given the reins to easily transfer hundreds of millions of dollars in public assets. Let’s do some quick math.
Originally the SB14 Parent Trigger bill would have impacted more than 200 schools. Based on changes to the bill in the Senate, estimates that I have heard are that this would probably now impact 60 schools per year. Let’s estimate those schools are worth $3-5 million each in terms of property and buildings.
A few thousand parents could move $300 million in property resources out of the public space! Thus, Parent Trigger as written in SB14 is a one-way easy street.
My understanding from attorneys that I have talked to today is that it’s a grey area whether Texas could get the buildings back. Specifically, related issues have been litigated in Ohio and elsewhere.
Parent Revolution likes to talk about California. Turns out Californians don’t like the idea of giving away their schools for free. Parent Trigger has been boondoggle in terms of implementation and student achievement in California. Californians have realized parents trigger sounds good in theory, but in practice has been a failure. It’s a California export best left on the shelf.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The Gates Foundation is only one on many claiming that charter schools are under -funded on facilities. In addition to trying to confiscate public schools that are “under-utilized,” Gates et al are helping charters build brick and mortar facilities, underwriting loans and bonds for “community development.”
Here are programs supported by the Gates Foundation.
1. KIPP HOUSTON
CHALLENGE High-performing Charter Management Organizations (CMOs) needed to access bond markets after the market collapse of 2008. Bonds issued on behalf of charter schools are perceived as a higher risk than those issued on behalf of traditional public schools, but usually receive less funding for facilities. General market challenges after 2008 further restricted financing options for CMOs
PROGRAM STRATEGY
CMOs are critical partners in developing and demonstrating new approaches to achieve better outcomes for all students in the broader education system. We aim to eliminate financing disparities between traditional public schools and charter public schools to ensure the long-term stability of CMOs as well as signal charter sector soundness and support to capital markets.
PARTNER KIPP Houston Top-ranked school system serving low-income students as part of a larger, national network Foundation Focus: provide affordable facility financing to high performing CMOs
INVESTMENT Partial backstop guaranty on partners’ bonds Date: October 2009 Co-Guarantors: Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) Associated funding: grant to LISC to serve as financial intermediary Source http://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/Quick-Links/Program-Related-Investments/KIPP-Houston The following programs are also at this website.
2. CHARTER SCHOOL GROWTH FUND
CHALLENGE Academically strong charter schools face substantial obstacles in obtaining affordable commercial financing. Charter schools receive on average 80% of student funding that traditional schools in the same district receive. They also typically have to finance their own facilities.
PROGRAM STRATEGY The foundation seeks to increase the number of academically strong seats in charter networks that serve students of color and low-income populations. We seek to build capacity by leveraging other funding sources, both public and private and increase the number of students graduating from high school college-ready.
PARTNER Charter School Growth Fund Non-profit organization focused on supporting high performing charter management organizations. Foundation focus: provide high performing charter schools with facility financing
INVESTMENT Low Interest Loan Date: February 2012 Co-investors: Broad Foundation, Walton Foundation, and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation Associated funding: None
3. ASPIRE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
CHALLENGE High-performing Charter Management Organizations (CMOs) needed to access bond markets after the market collapse of 2008. Bonds issued on behalf of charter schools are perceived as a higher risk than those issued on behalf of traditional public schools, although charter schools usually receive much less funding for facilities. General market challenges after 2008 further restricted financing options for CMOs
PROGRAM STRATEGY CMOs are critical partners in developing and demonstrating new approaches to achieve better outcomes for all students in the broader education system. Our goal is to eliminate financing disparities between traditional public schools and charter public schools to ensure the long-term stability of CMOs. We also want to signal charter sector soundness and support to capital markets.
PARTNER Aspire Public Schools Top-ranked large charter school system in California serving predominantly low-income students Foundation Focus: provide affordable facility financing to high performing CMOs
INVESTMENT Partial backstop guaranty on partners’ bonds Date: April 2010 Co-Guarantors: Schwab Foundation and NCB Capital Impact Associated funding: grant to NCB Capital Impact to serve as financial intermediary
4. CIVIC BUILDERS
CHALLENGE Central Falls was unable to fund maintenance or expansion of high quality school seats. The economically poorest and most densely-populated city in Rhode Island had limited space for new schools. The bankrupt city had limited funds to repair current structural problems.
PROGRAM STRATEGY Extending affordable facilities financing to charter schools located in districts attempting to increase district-charter collaboration. As part of the district-charter collaboration program, cities with under-utilization provide district-owned facilities to charter schools. This win-win solution allows for the expansion of high-performing charter seats to fill voids in a city’s educational inventory.
PARTNER Civic Builders, Inc. Non-profit charter school facilities developer focused on urban neighborhoods Foundation focus: Renovating unused district-owned assets to expand high-performing seats
INVESTMENT Loan fund: providing low-interest, subordinated debt Date: February 2013 Co-Investors: Equity from Civic Builders and senior debt from other financial institutions Associated funding: None
These programs are different from the Gates foundation grants, but their grants are often working in tandem with these investments. These bond-backing and loan programs are building the infrastructure for a dual system of education, with the covering narrative of helping low-income and minority students.
The financial aims are pretty clear: “ensure the long-term stability of CMOs (charter management organizations) as well as signal charter sector soundness and support to capital markets.” These investments seek to “catalyze other private capital to fund innovation.” They are intended to forward real estate deals enabling the “expansion of high-performing charter seats to fill voids in a city’s educational inventory.”
It’s as if the passengers on a mass transit bus or train at a particular time were able to take a vote and sell the line to a private operator.
Normally that would be called piracy, but it’s A-OK with the Public Ed Piratizers.
These are more gimmicks and slight of hand moves to send public assets into private portfolios. It is the ultimate quest for urban plunderers.
In California, first in the nation to use this ‘parent trigger’ scam, The Parent Empowerment Act of 2010 is a misnomer of huge proportion. The very few schools Ben Austin was able to turn into charters with his shady manipulation of mostly non English speaking rural and uninformed parents, have been failures in many ways.
The first school in Adelanto hired a Broadie (of course) as CEO/Principal of the charter and paid her over $250,000 to run this charter for this district of mainly poverty level people The teacher turnover in just a few years has been tremendous much to the detriment of the students.
The paid honcho, notorious Ben Austin (who had a payoff of about $14 Million for his efforts), represented his funders, Eli Broad, The Walton Family Foundation, the Wasserman Foundation, and other billionaires with unclean hands in the battle to charterize and privatize all public education in order to turn American’s public schools into free market profit-driven investment opportunities.
Austin now works full time with the notorious John Deasy (who is being investigated by the FBI and the SEC for his role in spending close to a billion dollars of taxpayer money on his rotten and possibly fraudulent decisions as former Supt. of LAUSD), for Eli Broad and his Broad Academy, as the field puppets to get Vergara suits going nationwide in order to kill due process for teachers and to concurrently kill off the unions.
Meanwhile in LA County, a loose coalition of some few parents, academics, citizens, and muckrakers, leaned in to keep the public informed for the past few years, and finally Austin failed in his attempt to open vast numbers of LAUSD charters. So now (with Broad as his backer), he and his successor at PRev, urged on by former State legislator, Gloria Romero, who wrote the flawed bill, have trekked down to Orange County to attempt to fool similar mainly uniformed Latino parents into charterizing. Teachers and parents hopefully will stand strong and keep this from happening. Some of us have been active in advising them, and also in writing articles for their local paper. The key issue is that they have no understanding that once their schools turn charter, they have totally lost their voices to the corporations which run the charters.
Parent trigger is one more of the hydra headed long term plans of these Wall Street oligarchs which require all of us to address…and keep chopping off their self serving heads.
Anyone who wants to have a good laugh can view the two Hollywood charter school propaganda films from a couple of years ago. “Waiting for Superman” was even feted at the White House by Barack Obama. The equally obnoxious “Won’t Back Down” — which promoted parent trigger and libeled the teacher unions — was a box office flop. But people who missed the two Hollywood attacks on public schools, and on behalf of charters, should try and get to see these movies for free. “Superman” (a propaganda flick on behalf of charters featuring the Harlem Children’s Zone) was even shown to delegates to both the Republican and Democratic conventions. “Won’t Back Down” (a melodrama promoting parent trigger) was such a critical flop that it was more generally ignored by charter fans… But to see what we are up against, those who’ve arrived recently to this show should take the time to watch these films…