14 of 15 Green Dot schools are "failing," by Parent Revolution's definition
Ben Austin of Los Angeles-based Parent Revolution contacted me privately today to object to myrepeating rumors that his organization had paid parents at L.A.’s Garfield High School to sign the petition allowing the school to be turned over to charter operators -- and to dispute the rumors.
Fair enough. As I said, they were indeed only rumors, though I felt that even the rumors call into question the purity of these petition campaigns. Austin, by the way, is a paid organizer for this group, which is an “Astroturf” organization (fake grassroots) started by a group of charter school operators, not an actual parent group. The sponsors of Parent Revolution are led by the charter operator Green Dot.
My post was about the “parent trigger” portion of new California legislation designed to make our state eligible for the Obama administration’s “Race to the Top” education money. The parent trigger allows parents in a school and in its feeder schools to petition for dismantling the school entirely – firing the administration and staff, turning the school over to a charter operator or