Profit Empowerment Not Parent Empowerment
Posted: 1/10/12 05:01 PM ET
Why Parents Across America Opposes Florida's Parent Empowerment Legislation:
It represents neither real parent choice nor genuine empowerment.
Florida's new legislation is modeled after California's Parent Empowerment Act passed in early 2010. It is widely supported by backers of corporate reform.
The law creates a process known as the "Parent Trigger," which allows a majority of parents at a low-performing school to sign a petition to trigger one of a narrow set of options -- firing all or some of the staff, turning the school over to a charter operator, or closing the school.
None of these options improve the quality of the neighborhood