The Parent Trigger fails in California
By Caroline Grannan, San Francisco
Parents Across America founding member
The Parent Trigger is a school reform idea that was hatched here in California, has won glowing press and is still being discussed around the nation as a school reform panacea.
The Parent Trigger supposedly allows 51% of the parents at a school to petition for “transformation” at the school, in one of four ways: turn the school into a charter, close the school, fire the principal, or restructure in more complicated ways.
It appears that some voices around the country are discussing the Parent Trigger as though it had been used successfully at schools throughout California. But that’s not true. The Parent Trigger has never succeeded at any school in California. There have been two known attempts to use it; both have failed. And Parent Revolution, the billionaire-funded Astroturf (fake grassroots) organization that created the Parent Trigger, appears to have basically abandoned it as a strategy.
In December 2010, Parent Revolution was acclaimed far and wide for its Parent Trigger
