The Tampa Bay Times printed a flattering story of how “parent groups” stopped the Parent Trigger legislation in Florida recently. Unfortunately, the reporter completely bought the labels of this “grassroots” “coalition of disparate, but determined parent groups.” Indeed, it’s reflected in her lead:
It was one of the hardest-fought battles of the legislative session.
On one side: a coalition of disparate, but determined parent groups.
On the other: former Gov. Jeb Bush and the powerful school choice lobby.
I did have to laugh that she considers the school choice lobby powerful, but makes no mention or comparison of their power compared to teacher unions, their most consistent and much better (publicly) financed foe.
The Wall Street Journal is out with a video editorial discussing the Parent Trigger on it’s first birthday—and the Heartland Institute’s contribution to chronicling and explaining the parent empowerment law.
At about the 1:48 mark, David Feith and Jason Riley discuss (but don’t name outright) this recent Heartland Policy Study on California’s experience with the Parent Trigger.
We couldn’t be prouder of our own Bruno Behrend, who recently drove up to a Tea Party Rally in Sheboygan, WI (otherwise known as “real America”) to talk about school reform — getting the crowd excited about breaking up the government education complex.
If you had asked me earlier this week if I thought Indiana’s SB 496, the Parent Trigger Act, would face any difficulty in conference, I would have said, in so many words, “Ain’t nothin’ gonna stop us!” And most observers probably would have replied, “Sure looks that way!”
Famous last words…
State Sen. Dennis Kruse (R-Auburn) inserted language into a conference report late yesterday that effectively neutered the bill.
I was graciously given 6 minutes to defend educational freedom on a recent appearance on WPWR’s (Channel 50) “Perspective” program. The discussion was around a voucher bill, along with other issues confronting education.
Of course, with three people defending the existing system, and only one person (me) describing it accurately as failing, it’s not like we don’t have our work cut out for us.
You may be interested in the other guests, as they make their conventional case for dumping more money into a failed system. If not, my stint starts at the 11:22 mark. [click to continue…]
Rock-Paper-Scissors is a game most any child can grasp. Rock breaks scissors, scissors cut paper, paper covers rock. California’s landmark Parent Empowerment Act—a.k.a. the Parent Trigger—is a little bit like the child’s game, with a concept so simple even a child could understand it and only an educrat could foul it up.
The point of the Parent Trigger is to empower parents of children at failing schools to surmount local bureaucracies that often stand in the way of meaningful reforms. If half of parents at a failing public school sign a petition, the local district must undertake one of several reforms prescribed by law. (You can read all about it here.)
If you’ve never done so, take an occasional gander at StudentsFirst blog. Michelle Rhee‘s organization puts some interesting posts up about the issues she’s confronting in education reform.
As expected, her detractors are making sure that she gets an earful for every post. It’s one of the few blogs where most of the commentators are negative, and StudentsFirst should get credit for leaving them up there. (Show me a pro-teacher union blog that allows comments of detractors, and I’ll give you a shiny new dime.)
Regardless, the blog’s latest post highlights the plight of a young teacher who fell victim to the “Last in, First out” insanity of our current education system. My comment, after reading the pointless debate of the commentators, is below.
The Heartland Institute was at CPAC last week, where we all had a great time spreading the gospel of liberty — even if yours truly came back with the CPAC Plague as an unwanted souvenir.
Heartland President Joseph Bast (at left in the photo) and I hosted panel discussions at the event, and we’ll be posting the video when/if it becomes available. Meanwhile, you can listen to the podcast audio in this post to hear Bast talk about The Heartland Institute, school reform efforts across the country, and The Parent Trigger — the best tool parents have to save their schools and children from the bureaucrats.
As a proud side note: ABC News’ “The Note” blog called Heartland’s Liberty & Freedom Playing Cards one of the Top 10 collectibles at CPAC. You can get some of your own at Heartland’s online store.
If you’ve read Marc’s post below, you know that the Parent Trigger is going to be well represented. Of course, I couldn’t help post something similar, but I take a slightly different tack on some of the points.
Before I go any further, please help Marc and me become the best advocates we can for this idea. Comment away on your thoughts. Throw the kitchen sink at us. Also, please come back and visit this page often to find out who’s doing what on the trigger. [click to continue…]
Former Senate education staffer and journalist Alexander Russo made our Parent Trigger the subject of his popular education policy blog “This Week In Education.” He addresses 9 of the reasons he feels people are fighting back against the Parent Trigger. Perhaps an exercise in throat-clearing, I figured I’d take this opportunity to defend my baby and pick through his “nine reasons that everyone hates the Parent Trigger.”
To get started on the right foot though, let me briefly offer this disclaimer:
The Heartland Institute supports the Parent Trigger in concept, but not all iterations of it are befitting the greatness of Heartland. The California Parent Trigger bill fails to live up to its billing as a truly parent-empowering piece of policy. Certainly it is the case in California that we are seeing a bit of beta-testing, if you will. The first attempt at drafting such a transformative policy, especially in California (no offense), is likely to be fraught with kinks and bugs. California still deserves an “atta-boy” for being inventive and ballsy. [click to continue…]
The Tampa Bay Times printed a flattering story of how “parent groups” stopped the Parent Trigger legislation in Florida recently. Unfortunately, the reporter completely bought the labels of this “grassroots” “coalition of disparate, but determined parent groups.” Indeed, it’s reflected in her lead: 
