Parents Across America Fact-Checks Won't Back Down

Parents Across America Fact-checks Won’t Back Down, the Parent Trigger propaganda flick.

"Inspired" by real events? The new movie by Walden Media (makers of Waiting for Superman) about parent triggers, is apparently "inspired" by the parent trigger movement in 2010 launched against McKinley Elementary School in Compton, Calif. That movement, unlike the one in the movie, failed.

Simply put, parent trigger laws allow 51% of parents of a given public school the right to close a "failing school" or replace it with a privately managed charter. So you can guess who is in favor of the laws...Charter Management Organizations, Corporate Reformers and politicians who are pushing charter schools on America despite the lack of research showing that charters offer any advantage over regular public schools.

The evildoer in the movie is, as expected, the teachers union. NEA responds...

It’s no coincidence that “Won’t Back Down” is funded in large part by Walden Media, the same company that bankrolled “Waiting for Superman.” Walden Media is owned by Phillip Anschutz, a right-wing billionaire who has a long history of supporting conservative politicians and causes.

Won't Back Down, like Waiting for Superman, describes another battle in the war against public education in America. Diane Ravitch explains why parent trigger laws are the wrong way to help struggling schools.

Public schools don’t belong to the 51 percent of the parents whose children are enrolled this year. They don’t belong to the teachers or administrators. They belong to the public. They were built with public funds. The only legitimate reason to close a neighborhood public school is under-enrollment. If a school is struggling, it needs help from district leaders, not a closure notice.

Parents in Florida got it right earlier this month. By organizing, they stopped a parent trigger law. No Florida-based parent group supported it. By their actions, they recognized that collaboration — not hostile takeovers — is the most effective way to improve their public schools.

Ravitch asks, should "51 percent of people using a public service have the power to privatize it?" Perhaps corporate reformers might answer "yes" to that question. However, the right thing to do is to improve public services -- not throw them away.

Parents Across America provides a comparison of the film version, as shown in the trailer (see below), to the reality of the Compton CA action.

Film version: The trailer shows parents, led by the Gyllenhaal character, mobilizing valiantly to take over their school — and only much later contacting an outside organizer for extra support.

• Reality: The Parent Trigger attempt at McKinley Elementary School was entirely orchestrated by outsiders – the staff of Parent Revolution, the Los Angeles organization that first proposed the legislation that created the Parent Trigger. Parent Revolution looked around the state for a school to target, chose McKinley and pre-selected a charter school operator called Celerity to take it over. Parent Revolution sent paid operatives door to door in Compton with petitions. Only then did any parents at McKinley even hear about the petition drive, according to the Los Angeles Weekly, which covered the story in detail.

Film version: The trailer shows parents determined to take over the school, against all odds.

• Reality: In Compton, there was no discussion of parents taking over the school. The Parent Trigger attempt was intended from the beginning to turn the school over to the Celerity charter school operator.

Film version: The trailer shows parents uniting in support of the purportedly parent-led cause.

• Reality: In Compton, after Parent Revolution turned in the petition signatures, hundreds of McKinley parents turned out to a school board meeting to oppose the Parent Trigger. Many parents protested that they had been misled into signing the petition and that they didn’t want their school to become a charter school, according to the Los Angeles Weekly.

Film version: The trailer shows a movement destined to triumphantly turn a hellhole into a successful school.

• Reality: In Compton, the charter operator, Celerity, ended up opening a school near McKinley rather than taking it over. The vast majority of McKinley parents kept their children at McKinley. Only 20 percent of the McKinley families transferred their children to the new charter, according to the Los Angeles Times. “

There has since been a second Parent Trigger attempt, also led by Parent Revolution, at another California school, Desert Trails Elementary in Adelanto, in early 2012. That effort divided the school community into factions, and is currently mired in court battles.

None of this is to say that struggling schools are acceptable and that we shouldn’t be working to improve them. But the Parent Trigger is not an attempt to improve struggling schools; it’s an attempt to divert public money into private pockets. It’s about empowering opportunistic entrepreneurs, not parents. No star-powered propaganda vehicles can make that reality go away.

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Equity and the Fight Against Competition

Diane Ravitch has posted a profile of a tireless advocate for public education and equity.

Ravitch, who is a powerful and vocal advocate for public education in her own right, describes Jan Resseger, a lay minister for Public Edcuation and Witness for the United Church of Christ, as

a fearless and tireless advocate for public education and for equity. She has a passion for justice and a deep and loving concern for people. She understands in a visceral sense that a decent society must sustain vibrant public institutions.

Resseger's focus for this year, according to an email she sent to Ravitch and others on her list, is to fight the concept of competition in public education.

My biggest beef is with the Administration’s transformation of Title I from a formula program that delivers federal funds (admittedly so small relative to the need that these dollars don’t accomplish what I wish they did) to schools with large numbers of or concentrations of students in poverty. The goal of this program is to help those schools meet the students’ needs. Title I was created back in 1965 as the cornerstone of the War on Poverty. Its context was expanding civil rights for children who had been shut out or left out or left behind. The current Administration and Congress have frozen the Title I formula program in the last two budgets and re-directed the money into competitive programs like Race to the Top and School Improvement Grants in which the states or districts with the best grant proposal writers can help their states or districts be winners. That means, of course, that a lot of states and school districts and schools are the losers. If you have winners, you always have losers and I don’t think any state or school district or school that serves children in poverty ought to lose the chance to serve those children. You may think this particular issue is way too deep in the weeds of policy to worry about, but for me it is a big, heartfelt worry—and let me warn you, I’ll be mentioning it again and again this year as part of my personal campaign against competition.

You can read more from Jan Resseger here and here.

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New PAC supports public education

(from ICPE)

A new bi-partisan political action committee, Hoosiers for Public Education, deserves your support. It is researching and endorsing candidates from either party who support public education. The lobbying ICPE does is essential, but it is effective only when we have legislators who are willing to listen.

The PAC has identified 10 key Indiana General Assembly races in 2012 where there is a good chance of electing a legislator who will stand up for public education.

Hoosiers for Public Education will make financial contributions to new candidates in key races as well as incumbents who have been great friends to public schools.

Hoosiers for Public Education welcomes participation and financial contributions from ICPE members and other supporters. We believe public education advocates will have a more effective voice to elect candidates if we combine our resources and concentrate them where they will have the greatest impact.

To learn more or to donate, visit the website at www.HoosiersForPublicEducation.org. Tell your friends!!

ACTION ALERT: Your Comments Needed on REPA II PROPOSAL

Horace Mann at The Huntington Teacher posted this important information about the new proposal for teacher licensing.

ACTION ALERT: Your Comments Needed on REPA II PROPOSAL (Deskilling Teacher Licensing)

The Proposed Rule known as REPA II, scheduled to be heard June 21st, is 53 pages long and complicated, but at its core are rule changes to teacher licensing that will deskill the profession of teaching and dismantle public education. Basically, REPA II could potentially mean all one needs is to pass a test and become a licensed teacher in Indiana.

Consider that a "walk-on" could pass a basic test and be licensed to teach special education. Also consider that with the RISE evaluation, a teacher with 20 years experience in special education could be riffed, have to reapply for their job in the fall, and find they have been replaced by the walk-on who passed a basic test. (If you have wondered how Mitch Daniels and our State Government has created a budget surplus, but didn't understand the loss of service to Indiana students, this deskilling of a work force example explains how.)

Please visit this page where the REPA II public comment form can be found on the IDOE website to make your voice heard.

Please check out this document that gives ideas of what to post on the comment section of the IDOE website.

UPDATE:

The availability of the public comment site for REPA 2 has been extended until June 29 at 4 p.m. The original deadline was June 22.

If you wish to comment online, you may do so 24/7 at the following link:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/9VYXCQ3

May 24, 2012: Question of the Day

Did you know that Indiana tax dollars spent on testing In Indiana in the last five years has increased from approximately $26 million to $43 million?

Did you know that Indiana tax dollars spent on helping Hoosier students who are having academic difficulty in the last five years has decreased from approximately $14 million to $3 million?

Where does your Indiana tax money for testing go? Click HERE to read about Indiana Tests.

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Click the question mark below to see all our Questions of the Day or click the link in the sidebar.

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How Much Testing?

The Assistant Superintendent of the Vigo County School Corporation put together a list of all the evaluations Indiana public schools are required to conduct throughout the school year. Click the image below for the document.

GEM Puts Documentary Online

The Grassroots Education Movement has placed their documentary, The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman online. They describe the film...

One year ago, The Grassroots Education Movement premiered a new documentary, written and directed by New York City public school teachers and parents, created in response to Davis Guggenheim’s highly misleading film. Waiting for "Superman" would have audiences believe that free-market competition, standardized tests, destroying teacher unions, and the proliferation of charter schools are just what this country needs to create great public schools.

The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting For "Superman" highlights the real-life experiences of public school parents, students and educators to show how these so-called reforms are actually hurting public education. The film discusses the kinds of real reform – inside schools and in our society as a whole – that we urgently need to genuinely transform education in this country.

Since the official premiere of GEM's film at the Assembly Hall of The Riverside Church in Harlem on May 19, 2012 featuring historian Diane Ravitch as our honored guest, our free offer of the DVD and permission to copy and distribute copies of the film have produced an estimated 15,000 copies in circulation. Requests have come in from all 50 states and 6 continents. Screenings have been set up by unions, parent groups, college professors and libraries all over the nation, in India, Turkey, England, New Zealand and Australia. Demand has been so great, we are currently working on a Spanish language version of the 67 minute film.

For more information about the film, visit: waitingforsupermantruth.org.

The film is online at http://vimeo.com/41994760

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