Parent Trigger = Parent Tricker
This is a must-read EdWeek article by Diane Ravitch with regard to the trickery behind the “parent trigger” law, and the recent decision by the U.S. Conference of Mayors to endorse a boilerplate bill pushed in four states by a hard-line right-wing group (ALEC). She notes that not one of the charter laws in CA, CT, MS, and TX has resulted in the success conversion of a public school into a charter:
I wonder how the mayors would react to a similar proposal to allow citizens to seize control of the public housing projects they live in or their local firehouse or police station, if they are dissatisfied with them. Perhaps they should also be permitted to take control of the sanitation trucks and give the jobs to one another.
It is frankly bizarre to pass a law allowing 51 percent of the present users of a public facility or public service to seize control and hand it off to a private corporation. The public paid for it, why should the people who use it this year claim the power to give it away? What about the rights of