Trigger Law Allows Parent Takeover of Public Schools via Petition and Re-opening as Charter Schools

Parent Trigger: School Tests California Law That Allows Takeover via Petition

March 5, 2012

Washington Post - The national battle over the best way to fix failing schools is ripping through this desert town like a sandstorm, tearing apart a community that is testing a radical new approach: the parent takeover.

Parents here are trying to become the first in the country to use a trigger law, which allows a majority of families at a struggling school to force major changes, from firing the principal to closing the school and reopening it as an independent charter. All they need to do to wrest control is sign a petition.

The idea behind the 2010 California law — placing ultimate power in parents’ hands — resonates with any parent who has felt frustrated by school bureaucracy.

“We just decided we needed to do something for our children,” said Doreen Diaz, a parent organizing the trigger effort. “If we don’t stand up and speak for them, their future is lost.”

Her daughter attends Desert Trails Elementary, where last year two-thirds of the children failed the state reading exam, more than half were not proficient in math, and nearly 80 percent failed the science exam. The school has not met state standards for six years, and scores place it in the bottom 10 percent of schools statewide.

The children can’t wait years for improvement, Diaz said.

It’s just the type of situation that reformers had in mind when they crafted the trigger law, which applies to 1,300 public schools in California that under certain criteria are labeled as “failing.”

Others see the trigger law as dangerous, handing the complex challenge of education to people who may be unprepared to meet it. Critics also say the law circumvents elected school boards and invites abuse by charter operators bent on taking over public schools.

Trigger laws are spreading beyond California, passing or sparking debates in other states, including Maryland. Even Hollywood has noticed; a feature film, made by the producers of the 2010 documentary “Waiting for Superman,” is coming out this fall.

In Adelanto, the debate is destroying friendships, sowing suspicion and attracting powerful outside interests to this town on the edge of the Mojave Desert.

Parents trying to pull the trigger are backed by Parent Revolution, a Los Angeles organization funded in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation.

In recent weeks, a group of parents opposed to the trigger has formed, with help from the California Teachers Association, the state’s largest teachers union.

“We all agree we’d like to see some improvements, but would you rather blow everything up, start from scratch and hope for better?” asked Lori Yuan, who has two children at Desert Trails and is fighting the trigger. “That doesn’t sound very good to me.”

In a plotline worthy of a soap opera, each group has accused the other of intimidation, harassment and hidden agendas. The district attorney has been asked to investigate charges of fraud, and lawyers are lining up.

“This has never been done before, and it’s very confusing,” said Carlos Mendoza, the president of the Adelanto School District Board of Trustees, who is also a high school teacher and a union member. “If we can get all these outsiders out, we can work out something.”

The school board is set to decide Tuesday night whether the trigger moves forward.

The politics underlying parent trigger laws are complex, with support from an unlikely mix of progressives and conservatives.

“The left, particularly minority groups, see it as a way to shake up the school system,” said Jack Jennings, founder of the Center on Education Policy, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington. “They’re frustrated that their kids are getting such a poor education and not much is being done about it. On the right, it’s just another way for conservative forces to trim back the power of the teacher unions.”

Last year, similar trigger laws were enacted in Mississippi and Texas, and a milder version was approved in Connecticut. A Maryland lawmaker proposed legislation but withdrew it, saying he needed to build political support. This week, the Florida Legislature is voting on a parent trigger, and at least a dozen other states are weighing similar measures this year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The federal No Child Left Behind law requires failing schools to gradually face escalating penalties, including closure. Trigger laws put that process on steroids and let parents decide the schools’ fate.

In Adelanto, the 666 children who attend Desert Trails are mostly black and Latino, and nearly all meet the federal definition of poor. The school lacks a full-time nurse, a guidance counselor and a psychologist. About one in four students was suspended last year, nearly twice the district average. Desert Trails has had three principals in the past five years.

One is Larry Lewis, who helped launch the trigger effort out of frustration with teachers who, he said, resisted his efforts to improve classroom instruction.

“Adelanto is known as the armpit of the high desert,” said Lewis, who resigned in October for health reasons. “And Desert Trails is the armpit of Adelanto.”

Teachers, who filed a dozen grievances against Lewis, have a different view.

“We have a great school district, serve great kids that live in a great community,” said LaNita M. Dominique, president of the Adelanto teachers union.

Unions and others say putting parents in charge doesn’t guarantee better schools.

“I have my college education, but I still wouldn’t feel comfortable if someone said, ‘Here’s a school — run it,’ ” said Yuan, one of the parents opposed to the trigger.

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