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‘Parent trigger’ may be pulled at 20th Street Elementary

Craig Clough | April 3, 2015



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Parent-Revolution

Members of Parent Revolution, which supports the “parent trigger” law in California

Parents have launched a petition at 20th Street Elementary to take over the school, force major changes and win the right to replace its staff and teachers, the Los Angeles Times reported today.

If a majority of parents sign the petition, it will be the latest effort in the state to use the so-called “Parent Trigger” law, and it would be the first time it has been enacted at LA Unified this school year.

Former LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy had previously argued that the district was exempt from the Parent Trigger this school year by a federal waiver from the No Child Left Behind law. But Deasy resigned in October, and interim Superintendent Ramon Cortines lifted the ban in November.

Before Deasy’s ban, the Parent Trigger law had been implemented in LAUSD at only a handful of schools. The parents at 20th Street announced their intent to use the state law in a letter Friday Cortines.

“Our children are not well-prepared to go to middle school or the next grade level,” said parent Omar Calvillo, according to the LA Times.

The Parent Trigger law was passed in 2010, and the the action at 20th Street comes as movements are underway statewide to increase the law’s reach. However, other experts are saying the law has run its course, according to Ed Source.

John Rogers, an associate professor in UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies and co-author of a research paper about the law, said it was a byproduct of the 2008 recession, but the state’s new Local Control Funding Formula law requires parental input, making the Parent Trigger unnecessary.

Rodgers said the law “taps into a real frustration at the core of many parents’ experiences, but it deflects from the real cause of that frustration,” according to Ed Source.

 

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