Is Parent Revolution an Astroturf Group? | Mother Jones

Is Parent Revolution an Astroturf Group? | Mother Jones

Is Parent Revolution an Astroturf Group?

McKinley Elementary School parent, Oralia Velasquez. Photos: Kristina Rizga

I went to Compton to find out.

— By Kristina Rizga

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Thu Apr. 7, 2011 3:00 AM PDT

Like all the houses on this block of southern Los Angeles, education reformer Oralia Velasquez's bungalow has bars on the windows and doors. I ring her doorbell one night as her neighbors—men in blue uniform shirts, kids carrying soccer balls—enter a few of the pastel houses that line the street, greeted by barking dogs and the wafting smell of dinner. We sit near family photos and statues of the Virgin de Guadalupe and discuss the complex national education debate playing out now at her daughter's elementary school.

California's parent trigger law: Say an elementary school like McKinley fails to make "adequate yearly progress" for four consecutive years, according to state markers measured using standardized test scores. If 51% of the school's parents sign a petition, they can request significant changes: closing the school, bringing in a charter school operator to run their school, or replacing the principal, teachers, or other administrative changes. The current version of the law doesn't require that public forums discuss all of the rights and options before or during the petition process, either. This is the first of 75 "parent triggers" allowed to take place in California's schools, and Compton is the first district in the country where this law is going through a test run.

Until the nation's first "parent trigger" law passed in the school district, news coverage of Compton was often reduced to gang violence and drive-by shootings. But the flatlands are also dotted with graceful, dilapidated hom