What are people saying about the Parent Trigger?
Thanks to the tireless efforts of thousands of parents and education advocates across our state, newspapers throughout California have been buzzing about the “Parent Trigger” and California’s “Race to the Top” education reform efforts. Unfortunately, the state Assembly last week to pass a watered-down version of reform, made most clear by their patronizing attempts at “parental empowerment.” They took the original Parent Trigger, which gives 51% of parents at a given school the power to force transformative change at their schools through community organizing, and instead empowered parents to force the school district to hold a worthless hearing.
What did California’s newspapers have to say about that?
The San Jose Mercury News stated bluntly, “The state Assembly failed California’s schoolchildren Wednesday… Whatever happens next, Race to the Top legislation must incorporate several key provisions if California is to have any hope of qualifying for the federal funding, which could be up to $700 million. The bill must allow parents to trigger major reforms at their schools…”
The Sacramento Bee editorial opened with the headline “Assembly drags down Race to the Top.” The LA Times reminded readers that “empowering parents is one of the best ways to involve them in education.” And the SF Chronicle weighed in with the following:
SBX5-1 is controversial because it would allow students in the state's lowest-performing schools to transfer to any school in the state, or allow their parents to petition for specific strategies to turn the school around. Teachers' unions and their allies hate the provisions because they would allow students, and the money they bring with them, to flee a failing school without going through an arduous permission process.
Sad. Empowering students and parents with ways to improve their education is a positive and necessary reform.
As important as this last week has been for education reform and parental empowerment, this week is even more so. We know that those defending the status quo will continue to pressure our legislators to water down or kill reform, and we know that behind closed doors, deals are being cut. We must speak up and keep the pressure on our elected officials to ensure the parents of Los Angeles and all of California get the power they need to help fix their local schools.
