Pulling the trigger on public schools

The Parent Trigger law (Parent Empowerment Act of 2010) is possibly the most anti-democratic piece of education legislation passed in California in the last 100 years. The law, which turns parent against parent in a community, gives a temporary majority, who are willing (often cajoled) to sign a petition, the power to hand their public school over to a private company. That company can then fire the principal and all the teachers as well as abrogate the district's collective bargaining agreement. It doesn't matter if next week, or next year, the majority shifts. The school can be privatized and there's little district parents and taxpayers can do about it.

This week a group of parents at "low performing" Palm Elementary School in Anaheim were able to do just that with the help of former State Sen. Gloria Romero's nonprofit consulting group. the California Center for Parent Empowerment. Romero, a Democrat, has become the darling of the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the Koch Bros. and receives funding from Walton, Broad and other powerful anti-union, pro-privatization foundations. She was once with the union-busting group Parent Revolution, which originally pushed the trigger law. After breaking with them, she joined up with the former pro-charter, pro-voucher organization DFER. But last year she broke with them to start her own parent trigger group.

While Romero likes to brag about her East L.A. origins and her former community activism, Diane Ravitch has been clear about her move to the right. "She's working for Wall Street hedge fund managers. That's where her interest lies."

GREASY DEASY... The latest on former scandal-ridden L.A. Supt. John Deasy is that he's hooked up with the Broad Foundation and now has joined Parent Trigger founder Ben Austin on the board of Students Matter. They're the anti-teacher, anti-union group, headed up by Silicon Valley billionaire David Welchm that brought us the Vegara anti-teacher-tenure suit.

Another new role 4 former LA schools Supt. John Deasy. He'll be a board member/advisor 4 Students Matter, which pursued Vergara suit.
— Howard Blume (@howardblume) January 15, 2015

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

In Sanford, Fl  the police chief threatened to stop the game if Robinson did not leave the field

Chris Lamb

"A specter of Jackie Robinson" haunts the city of 53,000 people to this day. People want to forget it and it shouldn't be forgotten." -- Racist past haunts Florida town where Trayvon died

Judy Rabin

"Like Pharoah, Duncan's heart is hardened and although members of United Opt Out met with him last week and he has heard the cries of the people, he refuses to let them go." --  Schools Matter

 Karen Lewis

"In all of my 22 years of teaching I have never seen a climate as hostile as the one created by Rahm Emanuel, his hand-picked school board and his handpicked leadership of Chicago Public Schools." -- CTU Net

Eric Zorn

"Parents, who were shut out of the key decision here, deserve a greater voice and individual schools should be able to customize their schedules based on what’s best for their student populations, not for someone else’s sweeping reform agenda." -- Change of Subject

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Parent Trigger fails in Florida Senate vote.

Rita Solnet

“This was a victory for true parent empowerment. By working together with my colleagues in PAA and other grassroots parent groups, including Save Duval Schools, 50th No More, the Florida state PTA, Fund Education Now, and Testing is Not Teaching, we managed to beat the richly-funded corporate reformers.” -- Parents Across America hails defeat of Florida’s Parent Trigger bill

Arthenia Joyner, Tampa Democrat

"With every fiber of my being, I will fight to see that my schools will not be taken over by private enterprise." -- Huffington 

Andy Ford, FEA President

"Gov. (Rick) Scott and the Florida Legislature have done more to unify the Florida labor movement in the state of Florida than anybody else could have ever done.''  -- Bradenton Herald

Julia Preston, N.Y. Times

In a bright hall next door to the law enforcement conclave, dozens of technology vendors were offering the latest military-style tools to make the border even more secure. Contractors large and small displayed radar devices that can see through walls, thermal imaging cameras mounted on mobile masts that retract in seconds and unmanned droneboats to scout rivers too perilous for human navigation. -- "Immigration Decreases, but Tensions Remain High"

Read more here: http://www.bradenton.com/2012/03/08/3925623/unions-unite-in-tallahassee-power.html#storylink=cpy

Jeb Bush attacks SOS, League of Women Voters, over "Parent Trigger"

Former Florida governor and Bush family scion Jeb, has for some reason found it necessary to launch an  attack on Save Our Schools (SOS) as part of his campaign to import the Parent Trigger into his state.

Patricia Levesque, executive director of Bush’s Foundation, sent out a blast e-mail to supporters this week, asking them to contact their senators to urge them to vote for the so-called Parent Empowerment Act which comes up for a vote today. The proposed legislation would allow any group of parents at any public school to have their school closed and turned over to private charter school operators. It is a divisive act designed to pit parent against parent and open the way for total privatization of Florida schools.

Blogging at the Palm Beach Post, Dana Karn writes:

The controversial “Parent Empowerment” proposal isn’t just causing a bipartisan kerfuffle in the Senate where critics say the measure is a cash cow for for-profit charter schools and private management companies.

But the “parent trigger” measure could also make hay for Gov. Jeb Bush’s non-profit Foundation for Florida’s Future. Bush is backing the bill, pushed by Los Angeles-based Parent Revolution and education reformer Michelle Rhee and fiercely opposed by a teachers’ unions and a Florida coalition of parent-led groups, including the PTA.

Levesque's memo fires a shot at SOS and other groups opposing the Parent Trigger bill, calling them "vitriolic" agents of the "status quo."

You will not find the vitriol... surprising. Despite incredible successes over the past 10 years, those who seek to protect the status quo are as passionate as ever. This includes the League of Women Voters, AFL-CIO, Florida Education Association and local affiliates such as Fund Education Now and Save our Schools.”

I'm not sure what "success" Levesque is talking about. Florida's school system under the Bush regime, was a nightmare and the Parent Trigger has failed to do anything positive for California's schools since its conception two years ago.

How ironic then for Bush to label parent groups and grass-roots school activists as "status quo." His 8-year rule over the state's education system became notable for widening the so-called achievement gap. Bush gave his schools A or B grades, even while they were getting F's by his own brother's standards under No Child Left Behind. The state has become a prime example of testing madness, teacher bashing, and privatization of public school under current Gov. Rick Scott whose chief education adviser is Michelle Rhee.

The Parent Trigger is seen by Bush, Scott and Rhee as an essential tool in privatizing the state's public schools and breaking the back of the teachers union. Back in March, Scott, signed into law one of the first and most damaging of the current wave of anti-teacher, anti-union bills passed by any state legislature. Among other things, the new law took away teachers' collective bargaining rights and has them working for "merit pay" based on their student's FCAT scores. The bill was crafted with Rhee's help.

Bush may also be firing at SOS, the League of Women Voters, the unions, and parent groups in order to appeal to his conservative base and to gain T-Party backing for his own presidential run.

Surprisingly, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who also has presidential ambitions, has found it convenient to jump into the middle of the Florida "kerfulle." Rahm's pushing of the Parent Trigger in Chicago has long been met with vocal opposition from local national parent and community groups.

*See "Jeb's Florida 'miracle' coming to a state near you?" by Teacher Q in the June 30, 2011 Daily Kos. .

Hoping 2012 will see a rebirth of parents movement

Thinking back to Chicago's dynamic school reform movement of the late '80s and early '90s (before mayoral control) and wondering if it's possible to capture that democratic spirit for change we all felt back then. That movement was sparked by parents who desperately wanted greater opportunities and equity for their children within the public schools system.

The last decade of conservative No Child Left Behind policies accompanied by the growing influence of corporate reformers and power philanthropists,  has also produced a movement of conservative parent groups focused on banning books, school re-segregation, and attacking the teaching of evolution and multiculturalism. The coercive and divisive Parent Trigger laws enforced policies allowing a group of parents to hand over public schools to private management companies.

In  New Hampshire, the Tea Party dominated Legislature on Wednesday overrode the governor's veto to enact a new law allowing parents to object to any part of the school curriculum.

But after 10 years, NCLB and the conservative accountability wave has proven to be a disaster for public education by any credible measure. Privately-run charter schools, which offered false hope for many parents, have been shown to under-perform even traditional public schools.  Parent opposition also appears to be growing in reaction  to school closings in under-served communities and further instability and  loss of opportunity for their children.

Hopefully, the conservative wave will be reversed as we head towards the 2012 elections. The birth of the Occupy Movement, Save Our Schools, and the emergence of progressive parent groups like Parents Across America offer a good opportunity to rebuild.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Steven Brill tells Ravitch

"I don't have an agenda." -- C-SPAN

Marian Wright Edelman

"When Dr. King died calling for a Poor People's Campaign, there were 11 million poor children in America. Today, with 15.5 million poor children, millions living in extreme poverty, I've no doubt he'd be calling for a new Poor People's Campaign with a sense of urgency. He's not coming back. It's up to us to pick up the mantle of justice." -- Children's Defense Fund

Larry Ferlazzo

"Brizard announced his home visit plan within days of the Chicago School Board retracting its promise to increase the salaries of teachers while increasing the salaries of its Central Office staff... Again, without any teacher consultation. That’s a picture perfect model of how not to initiate a teacher home visit plan." -- Larry Ferlazzo

Ben Joravsky

"In other words, the do-not-hire designation intended to protect students from "bad" teachers is effectively protecting them from "good" teachers as well." -- Laid off from teaching--forever

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Sound familiar?

Lucas watched angrily. Before the election she had worked hard trying to persuade friends to back the Liberal Democrats. At 26, still paying off student debt, unable to get onto the housing ladder, she had thought the Lib Dems offered hope.  (U.K. Guardian, "Riots, fire, anger at tuition fees protest – and a defining political moment")

"Parent Trigger" triggers parent revolt

"They told me the petition was to beautify the school," said Karla Garcia, whose two children attend McKinley. "They are misinforming the parents, so I revoked my signature."  (L.A. Times)

Boehner says no deal

While expressing an interest in "common ground," Boehner refused to entertain the idea of compromise. "I reject the word," he said. (60 Minutes)

Duncan likes T-bagger Kline but Kline won't play nice

T-Party fave and new House Ed Committee Chairman John Kline, finds lots of areas of agreement with Arne Duncan. No surprise there. But John still won't play ball with Arne. He says Duncan's "Blueprint" for the rewrite of NCLB has been dumped in the circular file. He also threatens to hold hearings on how Mr. Duncan decided to give chunks of the $4 billion in Race To The Top $$$ to some states and not to others. 

“I’d like to have somebody come explain to me how that worked, because there are a lot of questions out there.” (NYT)

Nixon's genetic theories

“Bill Rogers has got — to his credit it’s a decent feeling — but somewhat sort of a blind spot on the black thing because he’s been in New York,” Nixon said. “He says well, ‘They are coming along, and that after all they are going to strengthen our country in the end because they are strong physically and some of them are smart.’ So forth and so on.

“My own view is I think he’s right if you’re talking in terms of 500 years,” he said. “I think it’s wrong if you’re talking in terms of 50 years. What has to happen is they have to be, frankly, inbred. And, you just, that’s the only thing that’s going to do it, Rose.” (Nixon Tapes, NYT)