Archives for category: Parent trigger
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

News You Can Use

By dianeravitch
September 27, 2012 //
2

Bill Moyers is releasing a documentary this weekend about ALEC, the far-right group that writes model legislation to promote the parent trigger, charters, vouchers, alternate certification, virtual schools, and anything else you can think of that will privatize public education.

Here is a newsletter about his show with useful links:

Subject: The Origami: Parent Triggers, NFIB Exposed, the Fiscal Cliff and the NFL

This is the Progressive States Action Origami newsletter. (Remember, we take all of the state policy and political news and fold it into something beautiful for you to look at and use!)

On to the latest in state politics and policy…

“Parent Trigger” Laws In Spotlight

On September 28th, a slick Hollywood film called “Won’t Back Down” will be released nationwide. The film purports to show “so-called ‘Parent Trigger’ laws” as a way to help our country’s public schools. In reality, the film completely distorts the facts about the controversial policy, which is no surprise since the film was produced by a conservative billionaire aligned with the Koch Brothers, distributed by Rupert Murdoch and backed by Michelle Rhee.

Update on ALEC

This week on Moyers and Company: “The United States of ALEC.” Find out when the show will air in your local market (if you go to the website of this organization, you will find a link that will allow you to see when the show will air).

At http://www.alecexposed.org you will be able to find the other companies affiliated with ALEC as of 2011 and the corporations that have recently cut ties with the “shadowy corporate front group.”

If you like http://www.alecexposed.org, you should check out the newly launched http://www.NFIBexposed.org and learn about how the so-called “voice of small business” has deep financial ties to Karl Rove and other extreme conservatives.

Election Updates of the Week

While “twelve states already have tuition equity laws on the books” and ten more moved proposals forward this year, voters have never been able to directly vote on the issue. In November, Marylanders will be the first to do so and two recent polls show overwhelming support for the issue from both white and African-American voters.

Americans’ level of trust in their state governments is at its highest level since the beginning of the financial crisis, but it varies significantly by region and partisan affiliation.

Governor Sam Brownback and his allies are continuing their efforts to make Kansas into the “conservative utopia” that we’ve told you about before. This week they held a fundraiser with several lobbyists “with close ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council.”

Missouri Representative Stacey Newman won her primary election on Monday. Newman was also the winner the first time the election was held last month, but a “do-over” was ordered after it was discovered that some voters in the district received the wrong ballots from election authorities.

Legislative Session and Policy News

With apologies to our friends in Seattle, the atrocious call in Monday’s Seahawks-Packers game has prompted New Jersey Senate President Steve Sweeney to introduce legislation banning replacement referees from NFL games in the state. We think Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker might actually agree with that idea, after he called “for the return of the NFL’s locked-out unionized officials” earlier this week.

State Legislators to Congress: Don’t solve the federal deficit by slashing state budgets

Conservatives in the United States Senate are already planning ways to undermine any deal to avoid the coming “fiscal cliff.” It’s now more important than ever for state legislators to take action.

State legislators are signing a letter to urge Congress to find a better solution. Legislators can read and sign on to this letter here. Legislators can also join us for a webinar – featuring the White House and pollster Celinda Lake – on how the fiscal cliff will affect state budgets and what state legislators can do about it.

Where we’ve been and where we’re going

We’ll be in Kentucky later this week.

Weekly college football prediction

As you may have noticed, we’re huge college football fans at Progressive States Action. This week we’ll be watching Ohio State play Michigan State in Lansing. If the Spartans can find a way to score, they may upset Braxton Miller’s Buckeyes.

As always, you’re encouraged to join our daily updates on Twitter @PSAction.

PROGRESSIVE STATES ACTION
1800 Massachusetts Avenue NW, 5th Floor
Washington, DC 20036

Categories ALEC, Charter Schools, Parent trigger, Privatization, Vouchers

A Political Analysis of a Propaganda Film

By dianeravitch
September 26, 2012 //
24

Liza Featherstone wrote a fascinating analysis of the anti-union film “Won’t Back Down.”

To whet your appetite, read this:

“Despite scapegoating teachers’ unions, ‘Won’t Back Down’ is not an anti-teacher movie. Most of the teacher characters—especially Nona, played by Viola Davis—are heroic. That’s because one of the film’s messages is that busting teachers’ unions is better for teachers. In one scene, a meeting to discuss the possible takeover, Nona argues that losing the union will be worth it, “because we’ll be able to teach the way we want.” (The movie is vague on Nona’s pedagogy and why the union prevents it. In real life, charter teachers certainly don’t have any more control over curriculum than public school teachers do.) It is a ruling-class wet dream: workers who are happy to help destroy their own institutions. By giving up the organization through which they wield power, the fictional teachers reason, they will gain more power.

We have wandered deep into the swamp of Upsidedownlandia. Yet the same paradox colors the film’s view of parent power. The movie celebrates parents rising up and taking control of their children’s education—in order to rid themselves of all representation. Though the film does not discuss such pesky governance matters, a “takeover,” in real life, usually means that the school is run by a private organization with limited accountability to the public. While the state does decide ultimately which charters to shut down, there is no oversight by the school board, nor the city government, and certainly not the parents.

Categories Education Reform, Parent trigger

An Ironic Story

By dianeravitch
September 26, 2012 //
39

Viola Davis, the film star who appears in the anti-union, pro-charter movie “Won’t Back Down,” recently appeared on the Ellen DeGeneres show.

Davis is a graduate of Central Falls High School in Rhode Island. This is the school that was targeted for closure in 2010, where there was a pitched battle between the district/state leadership and the teachers in the school. When Davis won an Academy Award in 2010, she gave a shout-out to her alma mater, Central Falls High School, and that gave the teachers there a big boost.

So now she is a star in a movie that encourages parents and teachers to “seize control” of their public school and turn it into a privately managed charter school. This is known as the “parent trigger” and is advocated by the rightwing group ALEC, which developed model legislation to encourage privatization of public schools.

When she appeared with Ellen, she was fund-raising for the Segue Institute, a charter school in Central Falls, not for the high school that educated her. Ellen gave her a check for $10,000 for the charter school.

The film will be shown in Central Falls, cosponsored by the charter school and the Central Falls Drama Club, to benefit the charter school.

One more irony: Ellen, who is openly gay, is promoting a film produced by Walden Media, owned by Philip Anschutz, an evangelical and fervent conservative, who funded anti-gay campaigns in Colorado and California.

So many ironies.

Categories Parent trigger, Unions

Conservative Think Tank Promotes Parent Trigger

By dianeravitch
September 25, 2012 //
19

It sounds so easy.

Take a vote. Get control of your school. Hire a new staff. Next year, your school is a great success.

The Heartland Institute recommends it for everyone.

This think tank in Chicago helped to write the ALEC model legislation to encourage state legislatures to pass a “parent trigger.”

This is meant to privatize public schools across the nation.

The only thing that the Heartland website doesn’t admit is that there is not a single school in the United States or anywhere in the world where a parent trigger has actually happened.

There is no example of a successful (or unsuccessful) parent trigger.

Please note there is no parent trigger for charter school parents.

Once the trigger is fired, there is no going back.

This has got to be one of the most idiotic of all “reforms” on the table.

No evidence, no experience, just privatization ideology as their guide.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Reform, Parent trigger, Privatization

The Pattern on the Rug

By dianeravitch
September 23, 2012 //
6

A reader sees how the pieces of the reform movement fit together:

I think that all the double-speak is just to divert attention away from the major process of dismantling education that has been taking place across the country, and the smoke and mirrors is to conceal the intention to ultimately declare brick and mortar schools obsolete and teachers expendable and unnecessary. Effectively, the goal is to not have teachers anymore.

One online teacher I work with put it this way recently, “We’re just glorified graders now.” Honestly, for a teacher, there is no glory when your job boils down to just grading. But politicians, corporate reformers and companies like Pearson and K-12 seem to think that education can be reduced to presenting material on a screen and testing, and that they can train virtually anyone to be graders.

Actually, online, you can set it up so that tests are self-administered and automatically generate grades, so currently instructors are grading papers, class discussions, group projects, participation, etc. and I can see how that might one day be considered superfluous to the powers that be.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, On-Line Education, Parent trigger, Privatization, Race to the Top, Stand for Children, Teach for America TFA, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Technology, Computers, Unions, US Education

Who Owns the Public Schools?

By dianeravitch
September 22, 2012 //
3

When the issue of the “parent trigger” first arose, my first question was why the parents of a school should be given the power to “seize control” and give the school to a private corporation? Should the tenants of a public housing project have the same power to privatize their building? How about the patrons of a public library? The riders on a public bus?

I wrote nearly a year ago:

“To me, a public school is a public trust. It doesn’t belong to the students who are currently enrolled in it or their parents or to the teachers who currently teach in it. All of them are part of the school community, and that community needs to collaborate to make the school better for everyone. Together, they should be able to redesign or create or discontinue programs and services. But collaboration is not the same as ownership. The school belongs to the public, to the commonwealth. It belongs to everyone who ever attended it (and their parents) and to future generations. It is part of the public patrimony, not an asset that can be closed or privatized by its current constituents.”

Who “owns” a public facility?

My assumption is that the public owns it, not the consumers or patrons or the users at a given time. The public paid for it, built it, and owns it.

But how can anyone change it for the better?

This article suggests a far better use of a parent trigger: “…how about passing a law that a group of parents can sign a petition that forces the state to allocate the appropriate level of funding to fix a building, supply nurses and librarians, books, provide special education and ELL services, give teachers classroom assistants and teacher leaders to do high quality professional development and to provide schools with teacher leaders to do high quality professional development and planning with teachers to implement best practices.”

Categories Education Reform, Parent trigger

A Parent Trigger in Nashville?

By dianeravitch
September 21, 2012 //
14

Parents in an affluent section of Nashville are exploring the possibility of using the state’s “parent trigger” law to leave the school district and form their own charter. The councilwoman for the area is leading discussions.

This appears to signal the next phase of the charter movement. For years, as the charter movement grew, advocates utilized rhetoric about “saving” poor black and Hispanic children from their “failing” schools.

In this Nashville area, the children are not poor, not black and Hispanic, and their schools are high-performing.

The rhetoric now switches to “choice” and consumer values as desirable goals. The result, as this new phase unfolds, will be the dissolution of public education and of any sense of community responsibility that reaches beyond “people like us.”

This neighborhood, if it secedes, will have a publicly-funded private school. Don’t expect opposition from the Governor or the state commissioner, whose hearts belong to the private sector.

Categories Charter Schools, Parent trigger, Tennessee

A Parent Activist Saw the Anti-Union Movie

By dianeravitch
September 20, 2012 //
2

Leonie Haimson, founder of Class Size Matters, saw the anti-union movie “Won’t Back Down.” She saw it so you don’t have to. Here she tells you the details of the movie and describes a panel discussion that follows.

Leonie has been fighting for better public schools for years. She believes that parents and teachers should work together. Not to seize control of their school, but to press for smaller classes and an experienced staff. She knows what does not work: privatization and high stakes testing.

Categories Parent trigger, Parents

A Future Teacher’s Review of That Movie

By dianeravitch
September 20, 2012 //
6

Stephanie Rivera is a junior at Rutgers in New Jersey who plans to teach. She has tangled with Students For Education Reform about education issues, both on Twitter and her blog. Here is her review.

I must say, the more I read about the movie, the less I want to see it. I can’t stand the idea that film makers manipulate your emotions to sell political propaganda. This sort of emotional manipulation can persuade people to go to war or to vote against their self-interest. In this case, it is being cynically used to undermine a vital democratic institution. No thanks.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Parent trigger

Parent Review of “Won’t Back Down”

By dianeravitch
September 20, 2012 //
0

A New York City parent went to a screening of the new movie “Won’t Back Down,” which promotes the parent trigger idea. Various privatization advocates are pushing parent trigger laws that enable parents to “seize control” of their public school and hand it over to private corporations.

The parent stayed afterward for a panel discussion involving Leonie Haimson, leader of the pro-public school group Class Size Matters (I am one of her board members), and two others who are not public school parents.

Here is the report:

From: nyceducationnews@yahoogroups.com [mailto:nyceducationnews@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Marge
Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2012 11:03 AM
To: nyceducationnews@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [nyceducationnews] Screening of Won’t Back Down Last Night

Thanks to Leonie spreading the word, I attended the free screening of “Won’t Back Down” last night in Union Square.

The movie was not that great, though I generally like the three main actresses, Maggie Gyllenhall, Viola Davis and Holly Hunter. The Pennsylvania Teachers’ Union was shown as Machiavellian and the fact that the school was converted to a charter was never mentioned (only that the teachers would no longer be unionized).

On the panel afterward were Leonie and a woman named Christina from NYCAN, which is currently pushing new parent trigger legislation for the Buffalo area (which would not only allow parents to vote for charter conversions, but also closure and turn-around). The third woman, Kate, the parent of a 5-year-old, is on the board of a proposed new 6-12 charter school (Great Oaks) hoping to be approved and sited on Governor’s Island.

It continually amazes me when someone whose only experience of public school is that they have a 5-year-old is invited to speak on panels such as these. I daresay Leonie’s little finger knows more about public education than ten parents like this woman. Her main objective in opening a charter school is that there aren’t enough seats in lower Manhattan, so instead of lobbying the DOE to build more, her first thought is to open a charter school? Also, the source of her involvement seems to stem from the fact that her child was shut out of his/her local zoned school (probably PS 234) and now attends a private school. (I guess she couldn’t dream of accepting a seat in another near-by school, calling that “no choice at all.” She also complained that the principal wouldn’t let her walk in whenever she wanted to observe class, though not sure why that came up if her child is not enrolled in the school. And, I don’t know of any school that’s going to let parents in whenever they want to “observe.” By the way, ever heard of open school week?)

I really appreciated receiving the Parents Across America FAQ from Leonie. This pointed out that the movie is produced by 20th Century Fox (Rupert Murdoch) and Walden Media (Philip Anschutz, who also made “Waiting for Superman”). It explains that the Parent Trigger law has been misused in California (and the schools chosen were set upon by outside operatives who, in one case, got parents to sign multiple petitions – one calling for smaller class sizes and other reforms and a second calling for the school’s conversion to a charter – way to confuse people).

Leonie actually offered a prescription for parent involvement that differs from these parent trigger laws – a robust School Leadership Team which can make decisions affecting the school, including firing the principal, and parent involvement in decision making on a district, city-wide and state-wide level.

Leonie, thanks again for letting us know about last night’s opportunity. I’m glad I didn’t have to pay to see this movie!

Categories Charter Schools, Parent trigger, Parents
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »