The California State Education Board puts the parent trigger law on the chopping block. Mercury News of San Jose, CA has an editorial reporting on the new bureaucratic roadblocks being put in front of the parent trigger law. Highlights:
When education reformers won passage of the “parent trigger” law in 2010, it was hailed as a major victory in the fight against the entrenched bureaucracy. Parents would finally have the right to force big changes if their kids’ school was failing.
Superintendent of Schools Tom Torlakson said he would work with Assemblywoman Julia Brownley on “cleanup legislation,” claiming the existing law isn’t clear enough.
Torlakson and Brownley are backed heavily by the California Teachers Association, which has fought it tooth and nail. Both voted against it in the Assembly, so it’s hard to imagine their “cleanup legislation” hewing to the spirit of the trigger.
More than 60 percent of parents at one school petitioned to turn it into a charter, the first use of the parent trigger. The district first tried to intimidate parents into rescinding their signatures, then tried to disenfranchise them by requiring a cumbersome process to verify signatures. A judge issued a restraining order against the district while a lawsuit proceeds.
What [the state education board] can’t do is dilute parents’ ability to force schools to act. That power cannot be weakened.
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