The "parent trigger" regulations issued by the state Board of Education have imposed a modest standard of sanity on a malign reform law that allowed charter school corporations, under the guise of parent empowerment, to take over public schools.

But let's discuss parent trigger in the context of Stephen Colbert's "truthiness." Truthiness is a truth based on gut feelings without regard for evidence, logic or facts. In that sense, parent trigger can be seen as one example of educational "reforminess."

Diane Ravitch began the deconstruction of reforminess with her book "The Death and Life of the Great American School System." Ravitch was present for the "big bang" of recent school reform, traceable back to "A Nation at Risk," when she was part of the conservative think tank cabal. Their "truths" were market-based fantasies: competition and choice, including test-based accountability, charter schools and vouchers. This launched No Child Left Behind and the unholy alliance of neo-liberal and conservative school reform efforts -- that is to say, reforminess.