Another Battle in the War Against Public Schools
Diane Ravitch is a historian of education at New York University.
UPDATED MARCH 18, 2012, 7:00 PM
The “parent trigger” must be understood within the current context of vilifying public education. Today, there is a national effort to privatize public schools by turning them over to privately managed charters. This movement is financed by some of the nation’s richest foundations -- the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, theEli and Edythe Broad Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation.
Collaboration — not hostile takeovers — is the most effective way to improve their public schools.
The demand for parent trigger legislation came from a California group called Parent Revolution. This group isfinanced by the Gates, Broad and Walton foundations. If these foundations were truly interested in parent empowerment, surely by now they would have underwritten the community-based parent groups in New York City and Chicago that oppose the closing of their neighborhood schools. But they have not.
A parent trigger — a phrase that is inherently menacing — enables 51percent of