What’s next for ‘parent trigger’?
In legislation passed in January to strengthen the state’s Race to the Top application, the Legislature included landmark reforms that potentially could give parents a lot more control over their children’s education.
This week, three parent advocate groups sent letters to the powers that be in Sacramento asking the right question, So what now?
If the “parent trigger” and open enrollment – the two measures contained in SBX5-4 – are to avoid protracted litigation, the process for implementing them must be well-defined. So far, there is no process, only broad concepts. The bill lacked details.
The three groups – the state PTA, Public Advocates and PICO California – are calling for the Department of Education to create a working group to draft guidelines and to propose a bill resolving confusion if necessary. That’s a good idea.
Under the parent trigger, if the majority of parents at a low-performing school sign a petition, the school board will be required to adopt a restructuring strategy that could include inviting in a charter school. The bill limits the parent trigger to the first 75 schools that are petitioned. It will apply to 1,700 schools that have failed to meet their targets under the federal No Child Left Behind law for at least four years —a large universe.
Some of the questions needing answers: Can there be paid signature collectors? Will each parent or each family get a vote? Since families of students feeding into the school will be included, how will their eligibility be determined? How will parents get fair and impartial information about the choices and information about their school? Who will oversee the petition drive?
An example of what to avoid was Los Angeles Unified’s advisory elections in January, in which parents and community members were invited to vote on proposals for running 30 schools of choice. They proved to be a farce, with double voting and heavy lobbying by teachers.
Parent groups are reportedly starting to organize parent-trigger petition drives, so it’s time to get cracking on regulations.
Open-enrollment questions
Open enrollment will present other challenges. Under the new law, students in low-performing schools will have the right to attend a better school in any district where there is room.
It’s already too late for this fall, so there is time to prepare for 2011-12. Surrounding districts will have latitude to determine space needs and can also deny outsiders based on an adverse financial impact, such as having to enlarge class sizes or hire new teachers. But special education students and English learners must not be discriminated against because they cost more to educate. And clearly under-enrolled schools should open their doors to outsiders. How to determine if they must needs to be clarified.
The three parent organizations raise another, immediate issue: how to involve parents in the 188 failing schools that the state Board of Education this week will designate as needing to be restructured, starting next fall. The state law that set the criteria for listing the schools also required that parents be consulted before deciding which form of restructuring – closing a school, firing teachers, bringing in a charter – is made.
Those decisions must be made by June. School districts must involve parents in coming weeks.
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SVEF is the education foundation advocating for the needs of school districts across Silicon Valley. SVEF seeks to improve public education through establishing partnerships with the private sector and the education community ..
Instead of petitioning for dramatic disruptions and unproven reforms, or takeovers by charter operators that have a whole host of their own baggage and problems, wouldn’t it be nice if parents could petition for the flexibility and resources that would enable real education reform? The provisions in this law are not about education – they’re about governance and management and grand, symbolic responses to frustration.
And with all the disruption that accompanies the slashing of staffing and budgets, how are schools supposed to improve performance? This is like blaming the players on a professional team if they aren’t contenders, despite the fact that the team owners run a shoddy training camp, fail to provide enough coaches or practice time, cut back on athletic trainers, don’t use film sessions or scouts to study opponents, fail to plan for the draft, etc. etc.
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David: I am confident you will not find parents in Palo Alto doing a parent trigger; there’d be no reason for it. But if you taught in Los Angeles Unified, you might even welcome a parent petition to liberate you from the conditions you work under. My guess is that you wouldn’t find the activist parents disagreeing with you about the need for more money in the system. However, they don’t control what goes on in Sacramento (who does?); they can now have more of a say in their neighborhood school, as a result of the new law.
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Since word was widespread in Los Angeles that Parent Revolution — an “astroturf” (fake grassroots) organization run by charter operators, not an actual parent group — was handing out Carl’s Jr. gift cards in exchange for signatures on school takeover petitions, it’s a little one-sided to claim that teachers unfairly influenced the voting. … In reality, it just seems unlikely that many parents are willing to dismantle their kids’ schools in quest of some unknown future reform model. Both surveys and anecdotes tell us that many parents will agree that “public schools are failing” overall, but that they like their OWN kids’ schools, even when those schools are struggling. And parents often mobilize to fight plans to close even “failing” schools, as is happening in NYC right now. … Of course, the fact that people outside those school communities can vote to dismantle the schools is a wild card. The potential for ugly divisiveness, intimidation and other unpleasantness is sky-high. And of course all of this invites even more of that perennial favorite pastime of the “reform” crowd, teacher-bashing.
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David: Schools and school districts already have the ability to appeal to the State Board of Education for waivers from most of the education code. The SBE is also sympathetic to these requests and it doesn’t require a formal process on behalf of parents. Unfortunately, very few schools or districts try this route.
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Caroline, the idea that we pass out Carl’s Jr cards to get parents to sign a petition is just so far beyond ridiculous I don’t know where to start (and as a lifelong vegetarian, this rumor offends me even more than your previous fabrications). There’s a rumor out there that Obama is a Muslim born in Kenya sent to destroy America, but most responsible people (especially those who claim to be “reporters”) show a basic ability to separate baseless innuendo on YouTube from actual facts.
Every time people start talking about carl’s jr gift cards or all this other nonsense, they just further prove that you don’t have any more intellectual arguments to make in defense of the status quo. If you do, let’s hear them, rather than wasting everyone’s time trying to distract people from the real issues at hand (like a 600,000+ student District that can barely graduate half their students from high school).
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Well, Gabe, after initially getting chided for spreading rumors, I agreed, apologized and decided not to mention the Carls Jr. gift card rumor again. Then two things happened: First, a charter advocate who had chided me for spreading the rumors apologized and told me that he had learned that the rumors about Parent Revolution buying signatures were true. But I STILL wouldn’t have brought it up again — until there was this huge clamor from the charter/privatization/teacher-bashing forces and their allies in the press claiming that teachers had unduly influencing the vote. Their line is that it’s just a given that all the votes were improperly influenced and dishonest. … Well, you can’t have it both ways. If you’re going to scream and yell that the other side is cheating, and there are also rumors that you’re cheating, you can’t get all offended and indignant when the other side brings them up. … And of course this coldblooded campaign invites that kind of ugliness — almost guarantees it. The whole thing is destructive, dishonest and harmful to children and school communities.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNLkAjTLFoY
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I watched the YouTube video. It was an excellent example of why we as a community need trusted full time professional reporters who dig for facts. The speaker in the video claims that some parents were offered monetary compensation by Green Dot in exchange for signing a petition. The speaker also claims that a representative of Parent Revolution gave incomplete and misleading information to parents who were signing a petition at a local church. Unfortunately both accusations lacked relevant who, what, where, when, why, and how to lend credibility to the accusations. For example: How much money was offered? Who was offered the money? Was it illegal? If it is illegal, why? If it is illegal are charges being pursued? What information was misleading? Should a reasonable person expect complete information in the time of the communication? It’s these kind of details that make this blog worth reading.
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I agree that the claims about Parent Revolution’s tactics during the signature-gathering are in the category of rumor. … However, it’s being widely treated as received wisdom that teachers cheated and inappropriately influenced the vote. Why is it OK to treat that charge against teachers as God’s truth — even in supposedly impartial news coverage — and then get outraged when rumors about Parent Revolution’s tactics are repeated? That’s inconsistent and unfair.
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And, by the way, I’m not claiming to be a reporter. I’m an advocate and blogger. I agree vigorously that we do need trusted full-time reporters who dig for facts (and who do their best to be impartial)!
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Here is an incredibly simple reason why the rumors against us are different than the claims about teachers (and others) unfairly influencing votes and intimidating parents – the latter is supported by a mountain of actual evidence, including flyers, emails, and other documents. You can visit our blog, where we have posted many of them. We can produce tons of parents who can personally speak to this matter. You, on the other hand, have a random YouTube video and an anonymous “charter advocate.” Seriously, head over to our blog and check out everything we posted, online, for the whole world to see… we already did the hard work for you!
So we’re not having it both ways at all. Every single allegation that we’ve made a) we can personally support with tangible evidence, or b) has already been printed in the LA Times or Daily News. We happily invite any reporter, blogger, or anyone else to find proof of a single Carl’s Jr card (or other monetary compensation) we have handed anyone in exchange for their signature. This is just beyond silly. Let’s talk issues, not rumors and fast food joints.
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Pretty feisty for a professional lobbyist. Usually the pros don’t get quite so personal and hot under the collar. … And, by the way, I don’t fabricate, and I dispute and object to that slap, and it’s unprofessional for a paid spokesman to hammer on a longtime parent volunteer advocate. … I looked at items linked from your website. Clearly it’s wrong to threaten parents that they’ll be deported if the vote goes the wrong way. I saw an amateurish-looking flier in English and one, more polished, in Spanish — I read some Spanish but not enough to get all of it. But in both of those latter cases I saw some points that I’d question and some that I know are perfectly valid, such as the shunning of special education students by the charter operators vying for the schools. Some of the claims, as these are produced by amateurs, may well be innocent errors. … You’re going to get heated and ugly campaigns if you set up this kind of divisive, vicious, scorched-earth battle among factions of school communities. That’s an obvious problem with this destructive and predatory process. You set the fire; it’s hypocritical to yowl about getting burned.
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Hello John,
I happened to see your “Silicon Valley’s Great Divide” piece.
Somehow, I believe the responsibility for their own learning and achieving must be placed into the minds of the students.
I came from the other side (race-segregated) of the divide-graduated HS in 1961 in the separate (not equal) public school system of Temple, TX., reared by a widowed mom.
I took responsibility for my learning.
When I was working in Silicon Valley, my marriage ended. I got initial physical custody of two youngsters for the first 3 of 4 years …when my daughter Kim was 3 1/2; her brother Lance is 18 months older. We made learning a game.
I transposed the same skills I’d used managing high-tech engineers, scientists, and business innovators into fun practices then we three shared parenting.
They became responsible for their own learning since, they’d be transferring from school to school as a part of the custody. I designed into our games, the criterion that they become leaders-leaders create options. It was fun and worth it (not easy). My book tells how and why we did it.
If you can accept it as a gift, I’ll mail it or attach it to an e-mail as a pdf. I own all rights.
I kept them focused on enduring values which were fun. All three of us tweaked our systems daily-even when they were not “parent of the day”.
I share your urgency. Our nation’s health and security are at stake.
My contact info-916-863-0544 (h), 916-653-1227 (w), 916-718-9838 (c).
Thanks for the wake-up call.
ps: As a diplomat, US Dept. of State, Kim works in several foreign languages, Lance-has two earned Masters Degrees-Civil Eng; MBA Penn Wharton as a Leadership Fellow
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