Seeking Something Better Than the Trigger
California’s State Board of Education will be revisiting the “parent trigger” law in their meeting this week, and newspaper editorial boards up and down the state are opining in favor of keeping the law in place. Their uniform opinion is generally uninformed in a few key regards:
1. It’s wrong to assume that we can identify which schools are underperforming with enough precision.
2. It’s not real parent empowerment.
3. The solutions don’t address the problem, or offer better chances of success.
Before tackling those three ideas in greater detail, I must say I have great sympathy for parents who might be looking for greater input in their children’s schools, and who might be frustrated at the lack of options. My opposition to the parent trigger idea shouldn’t be construed as a teacher siding against parents. (I have two sons in public elementary schools). The main source of my opposition is the conviction that most teachers and