Hostile takeover: Parents seek control of failing school in education reform
By Stephanie Simon | Reuters – 7 hrs ago
Adelanto Mayor Cari Thomas (R) speaks during a Adelanto …
Chrissy Guzman (L) speaks in frustration during a Adelanto …
(Reuters) - Desert Trails Elementary School in the impoverished town of Adelanto, California, has been failing local kids for years. More than half the students can't pass state math or reading tests.
On Tuesday, the school board will discuss a radical fix: a parent takeover of the school.
For the moms and dads, it's a local, and intensely personal, debate. But their little school at the edge of the Mojave Desert has also become a flash point in a high-stakes national struggle over the future of public education, one that pits powerful teachers unions against some of world's wealthiest philanthropies.
Desert Trails, with children in kindergarten through 6th grades or roughly aged 5-12, could be the first school in the country to invoke the concept known as "parent trigger."
A 2010 California law permits parents at the state's worst public