Thursday, April 7, 2011

Is Parent Revolution an Astroturf Group? | Mother Jones

Is Parent Revolution an Astroturf Group? | Mother Jones

Is Parent Revolution an Astroturf Group?

McKinley Elementary School parent, Oralia Velasquez.
I went to Compton to find out.
Thu Apr. 7, 2011 3:00 AM PDT
Like all the houses on this block of southern Los Angeles, education reformer Oralia Velasquez's bungalow has bars on the windows and doors. I ring her doorbell one night as her neighbors—men in blue uniform shirts, kids carrying soccer balls—enter a few of the pastel houses that line the street, greeted by barking dogs and the wafting smell of dinner. We sit near family photos and statues of the Virgin de Guadalupe and discuss the complex national education debate playing out now at her daughter's elementary school.
Until the nation's first "parent trigger" law passed in the school district, news coverage of Compton was often reduced to gang violence and drive-by shootings. But the flatlands are also dotted with graceful, dilapidated hom