Parent Trigger - False Promises, Divided Communities and Disrupted Young Lives

Thank you for this thoughtful and informative video exposing The Heartland Institute, Parent Revolution, and ALEC's corporate charter trigger law. We're hopeful that videos like this will counter the lies the trigger proponents promulgate, and that communities will resist when these outsiders come to steal our schools. — rdsathene

The video tells the story of Adelanto, California where a well-funded, outside group "Parent Revolution" came to town and instead of working to improve the schools tricked parents with false promises, bitterly divided the community, and disrupted the education of young children.

"The video makes clear that that parent trigger laws, pending in 14 states, are not a magic wand that improves education -- there is no magic wand," said Roger Hickey of the Education Opportunity Network. "Schools need better resources, engaged parents, good teachers and a supportive community. What schools do not need is divisive campaigns that mislead parents and disappoints parents," he said.

The Education Opportunity Network is part of a new movement that is building in America aimed at assuring that all children and youth have the opportunity to learn. The Education Opportunity Network is a project of the Institute for America's Future, in partnership with the Opportunity to Learn Campaign.

"We need to work together for student success. Let's give our teachers and students the tools and resources they need to succeed," said Jeff Bryant -- education writer and editor of the Education Opportunity Network. "We also need to invest in the priorities that build the foundation for student learning: small classes, early childhood education, up-to-date textbooks and computers, and classes like history, art, PE and music," he said.

Parent Trigger laws are about pitting parents against each other instead of everyone in the community working together on real solutions for educating all children," said Bryant.

ALEC/DFER's Gloria Romero Stands Her Ground on Won't Back Down

"The idea of “choice” has been manipulated by the corporate reformers and spread by groups like ALEC, who seek to use methods such as the Parent Trigger to turn public schools over to privately-managed charters. This is not real choice; nor is it parent empowerment." — Parents Across America.

My commentary in response to: Gloria Romero: 'Parent Trigger' fight hits the big screen

Photo by Mark Warner (CC BY-SA 2.0)

The corporate charter trigger film is a shameful farce, and it isn't just film critics that have realized that the Murdoch/Anschutz financed propaganda piece is a joke. Daniel Barnz's Won't Back Down holds the dubious distinction of having the WORST opening weekend for a wide release (2,500-plus screens) in the last 30 years. Audiences aren't interested paying to see such strident and insulting nonsense.

Ms. Romero, who discusses "special interests," should be taken very seriously on that issue. She is an expert in special interests after all. As a politician she enjoyed a constant flood of campaign funds from the lucrative charter school sector to craft pernicious legislation like SB 592, which hands public school property over to private corporations.

Romero and Austin's corporate charter trigger law, which she forgets to mention had plenty of input from Bill Lucia of Reed Hastings' EdVoice (one of Romero's favorite corporate contributors by the way), and Friedman acolyte Arnold Schwartzenegger. These fringe-right forces made sure the trigger law would be amenable to The Heartland Institute and The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). The former is the trigger law's biggest promoter, the latter turned the commons robbing idea in ALEC template legislation.

When her billionaire special interest backers couldn't buy her the State Superintendent job, they gave her the next best thing: a quarter million dollar a year gig with the hedge fund supported DFER. In other words, Romero went from taking money from special interests while she was in Sacramento, to being one of the deep pocketed special interests influencing her former colleagues to push through more revenue streams through school privatization.

Public Education Being Set on Fire

Colleges of education can no longer hide the truth about what's in store for future public school teachers.

Barbara Madeloni at UMASS Amherst led the fight against Pearson but the corporate control over schools of education continues. Who will want to teach in the new Walmart version of education?

A Student and Future Teacher’s Voice about “Teachers Rock”

POSTED BY STEPHRRIVERA ⋅ AUGUST 17, 2012 ⋅ LEAVE A COMMENT

FILED UNDER  BLOG, EDUCATION, EDUCATORS, MEDIA, NEWS, OPINION, PERSONAL, TEACHER, TEACHERS ROCK

I don’t know if I’ll be able to go into a full length post about “Teachers Rock” at the moment, for my mind is still trying to keep itself together. But, for right now, I will say I am incredibly saddened this is happening, and that so many are being fooled into believing this is something positive.

Of course I am going to keep battling on to work towards a better world, a place for educational equity…but I have to be honest, I am heavily discouraged right now. When people\current teachers would tell me, “I can’t believe you’re still going to be a teacher,” or when I’d receive e-mails and messages saying, “Do not go into the teaching field,” I never understood. Now I’m seeing why.

For the first time, I am struggling to get out of this idea that I have no chance against these big organizations that are able to keep flourishing and damaging our education system. Public education is being set on fire, and it is so sad how many people are just watching it burn and are absolutely ok with it. This just isn’t fair, it isn’t moral, and it makes me sick. It is not fair how many students of not only today but of our future are going to receive the impact from these constant attacks.

I know this doesn’t tell much about my reasoning why, but I just had to express my genuine feelings at the moment. I rarely get all touchy-feely-I-have-emotions-and-stuff on here, but I feel this is absolutely necessary.

Keep fighting on,

Stephanie

Parents, Teachers and Citizens Organize to Save Public Education

With three months before the election, parents, teachers and citizens join in fight to save public schools and end the reign of high stakes testing as a weapon of mass destruction.  Instead of just one tool, or measurement of ability in a particular area, the tests have produced a steady stream of cash for those who sell them and track the data and a way to close down failing public schools and replace them with for profit private charters or religious schools.

Isn't it time to invest in all children and their teachers, mentors, guidance counselors, librarians, nurses, mental health professionals, and school buildings instead of the tests? The answer seems to be a resounding yes, but is anyone listening?

Parents Across America, United Opt Out National and Save Our Schools, along with many other activists and organizations are doing great work in tracking legislators and candidates on education policy and educating the public. The information is there to be used and shared to make phone calls, visits and write letters to you local, state and national representatives. Demand a town hall on education.

It's time to hold legislators and policy makers accountable for the destruction being wrought on public schools, teachers and children for a profit. It's clear the way to privatization has been paved by draining precious resources from public schools and funneling too much to for profit corporations interested in increasing price per share, net income for shareholders. Meanwhile,  it's garbage in and garbage out for teachers and students whose parents can't afford to send them to a private school or those rare semi private charters where they cream the best students from the regular public school. Those private schools where real books are actually used and there are libraries, tennis courts, gyms track fields, and sushi in the cafeteria. Music and trips around the world to different countries.

Parents, teachers, and citizens, even those who have no children, see the obvious result of 10 years of testing mania and data driven madness under No Child Left Behind. With 20 percent of all children and closer to 40 percent of minority or children of color living in poverty, these kids don't need more testing. That's why the parents are finally standing up and saying no more. They have joined together because they are no longer willing to drink the poison that's killing their kids futures by labeling them failures at an earlier and earlier age. Just like it's time to go back and reinstate Glass Steagall, it is also time to reinstate the NAEP and go back to recess, gym, music, dance, art and a collaborative community environment with the only focus is on helping kids become well rounded, functioning, healthy, well-adjusted people who are able to recognize bullshit, like these standardized tests, when they see it.

This was sent out to SOS to the thousands of supporters who marched on Washington in 100 degree heat last summer.

Action Alert to Supporters of Save Our Schools

and Public Education 

Dear SOS Members and Supporters,

On Friday, August 17th, CBS will air “Teachers Rock 2012” a live broadcast of a star studded concert promoted as a celebration of teachers and education.  While SOS welcomes media events that honor teachers, we believe that this concert and special WILL NOT benefit the teaching profession or public education. First, proceeds from the special will, in part, benefit Teach for America, an organization that sends underprepared, temporary “teachers” into our most needy, poverty stricken public schools, displaces career professionals, and pumps non-union staff into private charter schools.

Second, the sponsors of “Teachers Rock 2012,” Walmart and Walden Media, will use it to publicize the upcoming movie “Won’t Back Down,” an emotionally charged and manipulative account of a fictional event that will be used to whip up public support for passage of a “Parent Trigger Law” in every state.  Save Our Schools, along with Parents Across America, opposes this law that supposedly promotes parent empowerment, but is really a thinly veiled scheme to hasten the takeover of public schools by private charters.  Walden Media brought us the 2010 film, “Waiting for Superman,” which demonized unions and promoted private charter schools. The Walton Family Foundation, the owners of Walmart, has given over $159 million in support of charter schools and vouchers  and is one of the most anti-union corporations in America. 

We need your help in spreading the word about the real goals of “Teacher’s Rock 2012” and the truth about Teach for America!

In 2010, when Walden Media released “Waiting for Superman” we were not prepared with a plan of action to counter its promotion of charter schools and its demonizing of teachers’ unions. This time, Save Our Schools is prepared with a two step campaign to counter the dangerous messages of both the CBS special and the upcoming film.  The first step of the campaign is to counter the messages of the “Teachers Rock 2012” CBS special. We are calling on all SOS supporters to take immediate action to inform your local communities, media, elected officials, parent groups, and fellow teachers about the failures of Teach for America and the need for well-prepared, certified, career professionals in our classrooms. To support your efforts, we are attaching information, model letters, and a press release that you can adapt to your own local actions.

You will be receiving another action alert shortly regarding the second step in our campaign timed around the release of “Won’t Back Down” and targeting the Parent Trigger Law.  Together we can change the dialogue on public education!

For complete information visit our website at saveourschoolsmarch.org

The Walmart Model for Education

In These Times

Wamart, Right-Wing Media Company Hold Star-Studded Benefit Promoting Education Reform Film
by Josh Eidelson

(My bolds)

Asked over e-mail how AFG expected Won't Back Down to influence education policy debates, Weil said the movie "explores many different approaches to issues that parents face every day as they selflessly advocate for their children to receive the promise of a great education." Weil adds that the film does not "advocate any specific approach," and that, "If anything, we hope the film will inspire parents to be aware of and involved in their children's educations." 

Vilson describeds Walmart’s involvement in "Teachers Rock" as evidence of an agenda “to Walmart-ize teachers" by securing the power to “totally strip collective-bargaining rights and health benefits," and exercise discretion to replace teachers at will. As David Moberg has reported, Walmart has had a hostile relationship with organized labor for decades. None of its U.S. stores are unionized.

Walmart was a member of ALEC until May, when it ended its membership following pressure from activists after the killing of Trayvon Martin. A Walmart vice president wrote, in a letter reported by the Los Angeles Times, that ALEC had lost its proper focus on advancing "Jeffersonian principles of free markets." According to the Center for Media and Democracy, the Walton Family Foundation has historically been a major donor to organizations seeking to privatize public schools. Walmart declined a request for comment.

Vilson says he was particularly disappointed by Viola Davis' participation, given The Help star's past comments about wanting to elevate the voices of often-ignored domestic workers.  

"You should also see the alignment between that and what's going on with teachers," says Vilson, "and the bad tone that's being sent throughout the country."  

"I'm sorry," Davis told the New York Times, "I just know if you don't have a strong advocate for a child, they're not going to make it."

The New York Times reported that the trigger law portrayed in Won’t Back Down differs from its real life counterparts in a key respect: Unlike standard parent triggers laws which require just a majority of parents’ signatures to trigger a turnaround, the law in the movie requires support from a majority of a school’s teachers as well. Asked why, Weil told In These Times, "It was important that the law used be fictional because the film is not based on a specific actual law," but instead "draws on many situations throughout the country."

Asked whether "Teachers Rock" would address education policy, including teacher layoffs across the country, Weil said it would not. "It's a celebration of a group of unsung heroes of our society - our teachers," he says. "It is not intended to be a political event."

An Anti-Union Lightning Rod

Won't Back Down will reach theaters next month amid increasing national traction for parent trigger. In June, the policy received a unanimous endorsement from the U.S. Council of Mayors. Its supporters scored a key legal victory last month, when a Superior Court judge found that the Adelanto School District had erred in allowing parents to rescind their signatures on a trigger petition. Without the rescinded signatures, the petition lacked a majority.

According to the Los Angles Times, the pro-trigger group Parent Revolution accused opponents of trying "to bully and trick parents into rescinding their signature." The school board's president told the Times that the pro-trigger organization Parent Revolution and another group misled parents into signing the trigger petition by presenting it along with another petition calling for reforms, and telling them that the trigger petition would serve as leverage to support the other one. He said he will reccomend an appeal.

“If you want to transform the system so that it gets better results,” National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel says, “collective bargaining is a must. … There’s got to be a way for professionals who are in the classrooms with the students to have a voice.”  Van Roekel, who leads the nation’s largest teachers union, describes trigger’s backers as a mix of people who “have good intentions,” and others “who are privateers who are trying to find ways to make money off the education process.”

Parent Revolution national advocacy director Michael Trujillo acknowledges that parent trigger could lead to the elimination of union recognition at a school, but says ending collective bargaining is not the goal: “It just adds the love of a mom and a father to that [bargaining] table.” He describes parent trigger as a reform that “hands raw power to moms and dads, giving them the power to be the change in their child’s failing school.”

Fund Education Now co-founder Kathleen Oropeza contests the claim the trigger empowers parents. Once the trigger is pulled, she says, parents like her are “not going to be in there telling these for-profit charter developers how to run their school.”  Oropeza’s organization was part of the successful campaign to defeat a trigger law in Florida's legislature. “Parents are being used as a tool,” Oropeza charges, by people trying “to create a revenue stream for corporations. And the children are losing.”

Vilson accuses parent-trigger advocates of seeking to “take advantage of an often misinformed public” in order to “get their own sort of reforms in those otherwise unbreakable schools.” He names Parent Revolution as a group whose sponsors are “anti-union and frankly anti-professional,” and seeking to rebuild schools “in the hands of the one or two people who have the funding.”

As David Sirota has noted, several studies have found that charter schools perform worse overall than other public schools. Teachers at charter schools are far less likely than their other public school counterparts to have union contracts. Van Roekel says that education reforms should include measures to improve teacher retention: "We lose 47% of teachers hired in America within five years. There is no business large, small, or medium in America that could survive with that level of turnover."  

Vilson cited New York City as a school district that has seen an improvement in test scores due to improvements in teachers’ professional development, rather than restriction of their rights. “Unfortunately,” he says, “that doesn’t get a lot of attention.”

But Vilson says he expects the fundraiser and the film to be a boon for parent trigger supporters: “A lot of people are going to take it as fact.”