Parent Trigger Premieres in Adelanto, not Hollywood

While Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis may be playing the roles of parents taking action to close failing schools on film, it's a group of parents in Adelanto, California who are actually doing it in real life.

A California judge ruled that parents of students attending Desert Trails Elementary School had met the requirements under California’s revolutionary parent trigger law—a law championed by former state Senator Gloria Romero that allows parents to petition a poorly performing school to close.  Under the law, if 51 percent of parents sign a valid petition, the school must undergo major reforms including reopening as a charter school or sending students to different public and private schools, through school vouchers. And while California might be the first state where parents have moved to reform a school, parent trigger laws also exist in Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

The Adelanto Elementary school district serves more than 8,000 students—24.8 percent of whom live in poverty and 81.6 percent of whom receive free and reduced-price lunch.  Reuters reports that only one in four students are proficient in math, reading, and writing when they graduate.  In math, only 10 percent of eighth graders are proficient.

Education reformers around the country have talked about enacting the legislation and whether it’s a good idea.  But now, we’re going to see if students attending Desert Trail Elementary School in Adelanto will perform better as a charter school or using scholarships to attend other schools.

“This is a huge milestone in our struggle for our children to receive the basic education they are entitled to and deserve,” said Doreen Diez, a parent who led the petition charge.

School Choice Now! and families across the country will keep watch on the developments in Adelanto. It will be exciting to see the transformations in the lives of the students thanks to parent empowerment.

- American Federation for Children | Alliance for School Choice, MSG

Parents Take the Reins on Education Reform

Something amazing is happening in education reform; and it doesn’t have to do with enacting new programs or expanding existing ones.  

It’s about who is leading the fight for these reforms.  For years, special interests have hijacked education policy for their own needs as our education system has fallen more and more behind.

But looking at the news stories about education, one group is continuing to exert its influence: parents.  Once parents could only work through PTAs; but today, parents are voicing their ideas and advocating for real policy changes.  Here are some of the standout ways parents are taking control of education reform:

Parents Know Best: A campaign recently launched by the American Federation for Children that works to stop the attacks on parents because we believe that parents—not bureaucrats—know what’s best for their children.  The Parents Know Best campaign seeks to empower parents to take control of educational choice for their children.  With a video that’s spreading across the internet, this campaign says it all, because parents DO know best.

Kelly Williams-Bolar: The face of parents fighting for education reform starts with Kelly Williams-Bolar—a mother who was jailed and convicted for trying to send her children to a safer school.  Catching the attention of the national media, this mother not only demonstrated the great lengths parents go to provide a quality education, but also showed that too many parents do not have real educational choices for their children.  The idea that a mother would be jailed for trying to provide a safe place for her children shocked the nation.

Parents Unions: In an effort to combat the powerful teachers unions, several “Parents Unions” have popped up across the nation.    Active in Connecticut, Ohio, Texas, Washington, and New York, these organizations advocate for a variety of reforms and serve as a unified force of parents.  Parents—including Williams-Bolar—are coming together to join in the fight for educational choice.  In an Education Week article, Sean Cavanagh writes “If there is a common thread linking the parents’ organizations, though, it’s the belief that parents’ voices have been shut out of policy debates for too long.”