Sentences with phrase «trigger laws»

Children shouldn't be stuck in failing schools, but parent trigger laws are not the answer for improving their situation.

Parent Trigger laws can help advance systemic reform by addressing an aspect of education that many reformers, especially those from white households, don't have to consider.

«John is a courageous advocate for kids and the best superintendent of America,» said Ben Austin, executive director of Parent Revolution, a California - based group that supports parent trigger laws nationally.

In fact, without No Child, there would have never been an expansion of school choice and Parent Power — including the passage of Parent Trigger laws in six states and the expansion of school voucher programs — over the past two years.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 16, 2011 Contact: Leonie Haimson (NYC): 917-435-9329; [email protected] Julie Woestehoff (Chicago): 773-538-1135; [email protected] Bill Ring (LA): 310-600-2015; [email protected] Andrea Mérida (Denver): 303-550-0677; [email protected] Caroline Grannan (SF): 415-412-5758; [email protected] Julia Sass Rubin (NJ): 609-683-0046; [email protected] Parents Across America: We oppose Parent Trigger laws Reform should rely on proven solutions that involve parents from the ground up and improve rather than privatize schools With California's so - called Parent Empowerment Act drawing national media attention as a school reform panacea,... →

And the unwillingness to consider Parent Trigger laws and other measures to give parents real power in education is also shameful.

Other national groups also propose parent trigger laws as part of agendas that favor charter schools, eliminating teacher tenure, and restricting teachers» unions.

Like Woestehoff, many education activists believe other alternatives offer more parental control than parent trigger laws.

Trigger laws are sweeping the country as a new strategy for bringing in charter schools.

Parent trigger laws, according to their proponents, give parents power.

The Heartland Institute has been at the forefront of promoting parent trigger laws to legislators, Tea Party groups, and school reform advocates across the country, according to communications director Jim Lakely.

The father of two children, including a fifth - grader at Desert Trails Elementary School, he helped lead the effort for local parents to use California's parent trigger laws, which allows parents who gather sufficient signatures to wrest control of their school away from officials and, in this case, turn it over to a Hesperia charter school operator at the end of this school year.

Parent triggers are presented as a grassroots way to give parents control — and have been romanticized in the film Won't Back Down — but Diane Ravitch, an education historian and former U.S. assistant secretary of education in the first Bush Administration, characterizes parent trigger laws as a «clever way to trick parents into seizing control of their schools and handing them over to private corporations.»

However, it's far from clear that parental trigger laws actually empower parents — many cases have left groups of parents feeling manipulated.

In Deasy's view, the law could not be used this year because of the change in statewide testing; use of the Parent Trigger laws requires that a school demonstrate poor academic performance two consecutive years, based on the same metrics.

From opposing the expansion of high - quality charter schools and other school choice options, to its opposition to Parent Trigger laws and efforts of Parent Power activists in places such as Connecticut and California, to efforts to eviscerate accountability measures that hold districts and school operators to heel for serving Black and Brown children well, even to their historic disdain for Black families and condoning of Jim Crow discrimination against Black teachers, both unions have proven no better than outright White Supremacists when it comes to addressing the legacies of bigotry in which American public education is the nexus.

And as far as the movie itself goes, Won't Back Down is an attempt to portray these Parent Trigger laws as a simple way for parents to take over their schools.

There are no actual cases where parent trigger laws have been used to improve schools.

ALEC has promoted mass school closures through parent trigger laws and A-F grading systems for schools, while simultaneously promoting charter school expansion.

If so, you didn't miss much — except a revealing glimpse into the Hollywood - style fantasies of education reformers who believe they have found a new panacea for saving public education: parent - trigger laws.

But many who back parent - trigger laws don't realize that the effort has become a stealth means to privatize public schools.

Heartland, which owns the website theparenttrigger.com, has crafted model legislation for trigger laws that apply to all schools — not just those that are failing.

The one good thing this film will do is bring discussions of parent trigger laws and the privatization of public schools into the mainstream.

In short, Parent Trigger laws are a «clever way to trick parents into seizing control of their schools and handing it over to private corporations,» according to Diane Ravitch, an education historian and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education in the first Bush Administration.

It's kind of funny that Michelle Rhee is for parent trigger laws.

The film portrays Parent Trigger laws as a successful way of inspiring and uniting teachers and parents and the community.

As the trends grows and more states pass similar parent trigger laws, it is worthwhile to review some lessons learned from California.

While in reality most teachers do not sign the petitions and teachers are likely to get fired under Parent Trigger laws, «Won't Back Down» has teachers uniting with parents to sign the petition and transform the school.

(2) Parent Trigger Laws: In 2010, the California State Legislature signed into law the «Parent Empowerment Act.»

And Parent Trigger laws can empower poor families to take over and lead the overhaul of failure mills in their own communities (and help them take the next step of taking on other challenges in their own neighborhoods).

It was surprising to see the Parents Across America position paper on Parent Trigger laws derided as «hysteria» in an April 29 editorial, misleadingly headlined «Parent Power.»

Rhee also supports the parent trigger laws highlighted in the propaganda flick, Won't Back Down.

Their views about how to leverage Parent Trigger laws also differ.

Parent trigger laws are being pushed by organizations like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which Walden Media owner and oil billionaire Philip Anschutz helps fund.

When the law was passed in 2010, Former California State Sen. Gloria Romero, its author, compared it to the civil rights movement five decades before, and envisioned bipartisan support for parent trigger laws spreading to state legislatures across the nation.

Since 2010, parent trigger laws have also passed in one form or another in Mississippi, Texas and most recently, Louisiana.

Conservative groups like The Heartland Institute and American Legislative Exchange Council, along with Students First, the pro-school choice advocacy group run by former Washington, D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee, have advocated for trigger laws.

Similar parent - trigger laws are now in seven states, with various forms of the legislation in the works in some 20 others since California narrowly passed its Parent Empowerment Act in 2010.

But teacher union leaders and critics like the Chicago - based advocacy group Parents Across America blast «Won't Back Down» as propaganda and they question whether people throwing their support behind parent trigger laws understand the ramifications of the complex policy.

Tell that to the school choice activists who have successfully passed voucher measures in more than 13 states, the children who attend the 1,091 new charter schools opened between 2010 and 2013, and families in cities such as Adelanto, Calif., who have taken over failing schools using Parent Trigger laws passed as a result of the competitive grant competition.

The movement appears to have public support: 70 percent of likely voters said they'd support parent - trigger laws in a March national poll by StudentsFirst, a pro-school choice advocacy group run by Michelle Rhee, the controversial former chancellor of the Washington, D.C., public schools.

In the majority of state legislatures, though, parent - trigger laws have not generated the major education movement that former California state Sen. Gloria Romero envisioned in 2010 when she authored the nation's first law dubbed the «parent trigger,» with help from Parent Revolution Executive Director and former Clinton administration official Ben Austin.

For traditionalists, Parent Trigger laws are even more an affront because it violates their belief that only supposed «experts» such as themselves can actually what kids can learn and who should teach them.

This means the expansion of vouchers, tax credit plans, and charters, as well as the passage of Parent Trigger laws, the embrace of homeschooling, and the creation of DIY schools that serve their children and those of their neighbors and even fellow parishioners.

Parent - trigger laws are now on the books in various forms in at least eight states and under consideration in several others.

By last year, groups such as the Connecticut Parents Union (on whose advisory board your editor serves) had sprouted up throughout the country, and, along with long - established groups such as the Black Alliance for Educational Options, were agitating for the enactment of Parent Trigger laws, pushing for the expansion of charters and vouchers, and weighing in on such issues as overhauling teacher evaluation systems.

Parent trigger laws are a controversial and drastic step when schools are failing, but are being increasingly talked about.

The waiver gambit also failed to coax states into expanding choice and didn't push them into passing Parent Trigger laws that would allow families to take control and overhaul the failure mills in their own communities.

Drawing on $ 5.5 million in funding from donors including the Walton Family Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the group, which has 33 staff members, has been training mom - and - pop activists in states that don't have trigger laws, including Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Florida.

Austin said the trigger laws are increasingly popular across the country «in the face of some of the most intense and powerful opposition in America.»