History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
Parent-trigger regs delayed – for good reason
- 01-10-2011
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Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess
In order to come up to speed, the new members of the State School Board have put off acting on most items on this week’s agenda. The decision to delay final adoption of “parent trigger” regulations has set off critics, led by the law’s author, former Sen. Gloria Romero, and its biggest booster, ousted State Board member Ben Austin. The editorial board of the Los Angeles Daily News, dismissing Brown’s new appointees as “political hacks and educational has-beens,” said that “the future of education reform in California and the state’s reputation as a national leader in education is at risk.” Such apocalyptic predictions inflate the importance of the parent trigger, ignore the flaws in the proposed parent-trigger regulations, and prejudge the new State Board through the narrowest of lenses. The parent trigger, which the Legislature adopted a year ago to try to add pizzazz to a weak Race to the Top application, enables parents to force drastic change in low-performing schools. Even though organizers in only one school – McKinley Elementary in Compton Unified – so far have pulled the “trigger” by submitting signatures of a majority of parents, the parent trigger is hot. Legislators in several states are crafting their versions, and former Washington, D.C., Chancellor Michelle Rhee has made the parent trigger one of four cardinal strategies of her new national organization Students First. (more…)
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