Triggering School Reform—and Union Dirty Tricks
David Feith in the WSJ with a GREAT article about the union's dirty tricks in CA to deny the will of parents:
Where's the toughest battlefield in American education these days? Certainly New Orleans and Harlem host controversially high concentrations of charter schools, while New Jersey and Louisiana boast governors who challenge teachers unions with verve. But for downright nastiness, Southern California is ground zero.
SoCal earns this dubious distinction largely because of the educational establishment's rage over "parent trigger," a reform that's been on California's books since January 2010. It's a "lynch mob provision," declared Marty Hittelman, president of the powerful California Federation of Teachers. Why? Because it gives unprecedented rights to parents whose children are stuck in failing public schools. If more than 50% sign a petition, they can force a school closed, shake up its administration, or turn it into a charter.
The first parent trigger was pulled in December 2010 at Compton's McKinley Elementary School. Immediately, McKinley teachers began leaning on parents to rescind their signatures—first at a PTA meeting, then by pressuring their kids during school. Soon the school district insisted that parents validate their signatures by appearing at McKinley with official photo identification—naked intimidation of those who were undocumented immigrants and a violation of the First Amendment, said Los Angeles Superior Court. Yet the district persisted, soon rejecting every parent's signature on technicalities that are still tied up in court a year later.
Which brings us to the latest brawl, in the small Mojave Desert town of Adelanto, 80 miles northeast of L.A. That's where a second group of California parents recently submitted a trigger petition—for Desert Trails Elementary, where two-thirds of sixth-graders failed state exams in English and math last year. The 450-plus parents looked poised to succeed until Tuesday night, when the educational empire struck back.
At a public meeting, the Adelanto school board announced that, upon review, the trigger petition represented only 48% of parents—not the 70% that petitioners claimed when they filed last month. The loss of nearly 100 signatures, it turns out, was the result of a systematic and legally questionable pressure campaign waged against parents.
"About two weeks ago, the California Teachers Association flew in a cadre of paid operatives from Sacramento," says Ben Austin of Parent Revolution, the liberal activist group that conceived of parent trigger and has supported the campaigns in Compton and Adelanto. "Suddenly parents were accosted in the parking lot by CTA operatives blocking cars from moving until the driver agreed to take a flier plastered with lies." Operatives also went door-to-door across Adelanto.
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Triggering School Reform—and Union Dirty Tricks
In California, parent power brings out the worst in the education establishment.
By David Feith // February 25, 2012
posted by Whitney Tilson at 6:24 PM
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