"Parent Trigger Law" Could Trigger Change Around The Nation

by Megan Cottrell · 2010-12-09 08:46:00 UTC
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Parents at McKinley Elementary are fed up. Their children have gone to a dismal school for years, they say, and the district has done nothing about it. So they're taking matters into their own hands with help from a new California law that allows parents to take control of a failing school.

It's called the "Parent Trigger law," and it was narrowly passed by the California legislature earlier this year. It applies to the lowest performing schools in California, allowing parents to make drastic changes to a school if they can get over 51 percent of all the parents to sign a petition.

Marlene Romero is one of those parents who's trying to change McKinley, where only 19 percent of 3rd graders read at grade level.

"We are completely fed up," said Romero. "We’ve been told to wait every year and nothing changes."

Sixty-one percent of McKinley's parents voted to have the school taken over by a local charter school, just one of the options the Parent Trigger law allows. In addition, parents can vote to have the school closed, have it "transformed" by hiring a new principal, do a "turnaround" where much of the staff is hired and replaced, or just create bargaining power to force small changes on the school.

Parents at McKinley are being backed by a group called Parent Revolution, led by former Clinton White House aide Ben Austin. Parent Revolution is helping parents around California organize to end the cycle of dismal public schools. Take a look at their video on the Parent Trigger law:

Other states are perking up their ears to the idea. Chicago mayoral candidate and former White House chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel says he would support the idea if elected as mayor of Chicago.  Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, West Virginia and Maryland are all interested in introducing similar legislation.

The Parent Trigger law does something that many school reform efforts fail at: cutting right to the heart of the problem and giving people with the most knowledge about what needs to happen the power to change something. Unlike sweeping reforms made by legislatures, each parent trigger school can decide what works best based on what they know their students need.

Even the Wall Street Journal lauded the parents at McKinley.

The biggest obstacle to education reform has long been overcoming the inertial forces of unionized bureaucracy," wrote the WSJ. "Parent trigger is a revolutionary shortcut, and bravo to the parents in Compton for making the leap."

Photo credit: Visions Service Adventures via Flickr

Megan Cottrell is a reporter and writer living in Chicago.
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