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Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Are Parent Trigger Laws Our New 'Superman' – Or Union Kryptonite? | | AlterNet

Are Parent Trigger Laws Our New 'Superman' – Or Union Kryptonite? | | AlterNet:


Are Parent Trigger Laws Our New 'Superman' – Or Union Kryptonite?

Though they're being pushed by the biggest names in corporate education reform, and politicians of every stripe, there's little proof that parent trigger laws actually work.


Here’s a question for you: Which political party, Republicans or Democrats, supports expanding charter schools, test-based teacher evaluation, and most recently, parent trigger laws? (In school, this would be called a trick question.) The answer is: both.
The latest piece in the corporate education reform puzzle, parent trigger laws reveal just how desperately Republicans and Democrats are seeking ways to appease corporate America’s hunger for education reform -- without addressing the central issue of poverty that lies at the root of an overburdened U.S. education system.
These laws, which allow a majority of parents “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,” are packaged as free-market levers to empower parents with children trapped in poorly performing public schools -‑ a similar strategy to that being used to support the expansion of charter schools across the nation. As Stephanie Simon reported for Reuters, politicians are