After reading about how ALEC could enter the education debate in Rhode Island, I read this headline with particular interest: “U.S. mayors back parents seizing control of schools.”
Hundreds of mayors from across the United States this weekend called for new laws letting parents seize control of low-performing public schools and fire the teachers, oust the administrators or turn the schools over to private management.
The U.S. Conference of Mayors, meeting in Orlando, Florida, on Saturday unanimously endorsed “parent trigger” laws aimed at bypassing elected school boards and giving parents at the worst public schools the opportunity to band together and force immediate change.
Mayor Taveras, it’s worth noting, is part of the U.S. Conference of Mayors and a member of the Jobs, Education and the Workforce committee.
Parent trigger laws, popular with education budget hawks, allow parents to wrest control of public school from elected officials and either shut them down or outsource operations to a private charter school company. Lately, such laws have caused controversy in California and there’s a new movie about the concept, in the same vain as Waiting for Superman coming out in the near future. The parent trigger act is piece of ALEC model legislation (cached ALEC doc). RI Future correspondent Aaron Regunberg wrote about parent trigger laws this weekend for GoLocalProv.
Giving parents so much control over a school’s destiny is, frankly, nuts, as Diane Ravitch put it. Parents, of course, don’t own the public schools and more than picnickers own Central Park .
A parent trigger — a phrase that is inherently menacing — enables 51 percent of parents in any school to close the school or hand it over to private management. This is inherently a terrible idea. Why should 51 percent of people using a public service have the power to privatize it? Should 51 percent of the people in Central Park on any given day have the power to transfer it to private management? Should 51 percent of those riding a public bus have the power to privatize it?
Public schools don’t belong to the 51 percent of the parents whose children are enrolled this year. They don’t belong to the teachers or administrators. They belong to the public. They were built with public funds. The only legitimate reason to close a neighborhood public school is under-enrollment. If a school is struggling, it needs help from district leaders, not a closure notice.
Let’s hope this idea receives the reception in Rhode Island it deserves.
Key line in the story you linked to Russ:
”Though it has not yet been shown to work, parent trigger has support from many of the big players seeking to inject more free-market competition into public education, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation.”
So who cares if it works….this is about politics and power. We have two parties that refuse to challenge to status quo of monied special interests.
and in case you don’t subscribe to Diane Ravitch’s great education blog, she wrote about this very subject, with a Rhode Island connection this morning:
Beware! Sneaky Reformer Trick in L.A.
by dianerav
On August 14, there will be a benefit concert in Los Angeles to “honor” teachers.
The concert is a promotion for a new “Superman”-style film that vilifies public schools and promotes privatization.
The film celebrates the “parent trigger” law, which gives parents the power to seize control of their school, fire the staff, and turn it over to a charter chain. The parent trigger was promoted by charter advocates and billionaire foundations Broad, Gates, and Walton.
Strange way to “honor” teachers–by firing them and giving the school to a non-union private entity to manage, which may hire only young teachers willing to work a 50-60 hour week at low wages. More “honors” like this and there won’t be a teaching profession in America, just teaching temps.
The concert is sponsored by Walmart (the Walton family) and Walden Media. The Walton Family Foundation gave out $159 million last year for charters and vouchers.
Walden Media was one of the producers of “Waiting for ‘Superman.’” Billionaire Philip Anschutz, who owns Walden Media, funds rightwing groups, is anti-environment and bankrolled anti-gay referenda.
It’s sad to see Viola Davis involved in this sneaky push for privatization. I remember when she won the Academy Award in 2010 and announced that she was proud to be a graduate of Central Falls High School, right at the time that all the corporate reformers were gloating about the threat to shut it down.
dianerav | July 30, 2012 at 6:22 am
A parent trigger would require some more extensive changes to RI charter law: www.tuttlesvc.org/2012/07/the-parent-trigger-and-ri-charter-law.html
Hey all, and thanks Russ for linking to the piece I wrote about this issue: http://www.golocalprov.com/news/aaron-regunberg-parent-trigger-laws-are-not-the-answer/
I mostly agree with Ravitch’s 51% logic, but honestly, I don’t think it’s the biggest problem with the parent trigger. In my mind, public schools should, to a significant degree, belong to the parents (as well as teachers and students) involved in the school, and so I don’t think the issue is that it’s bad to be giving them control of their schools.
To me, the problem is that parent trigger laws don’t actually give parents any real control of their schools. They simply open up a hole where charter operators can pour their money into non-legitimate astroturf organizing that is fertile ground for fraud and manipulation. And I think the best way to show the dishonesty of their claims of being about parental empowerment is to ask why they don’t call for more parental involvement than simply signing their name.