Friends Don't Let Friends Get Fooled by "Won't Back Down": 5 Reasons Why
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1. Parent Trigger laws have nothing to do with parent empowerment and everything to do with privatization.
The fictional Parent Trigger law in Won't Back Down is based on very real legislation being pushed in states across the country, which, in turn, is based on model legislation from the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council. The entire debate surrounding these bills is focused on parents turning a public school into a privately-managed charter school.
(Notice how parents taking over a charter school and making it a public school is never presented as an option. Privatization is a one-way street for ALEC.)
2. No one has actually completed a Parent Trigger to turn a public school into a charter.
Parents in two school districts, both in CA, have tried and failed. In the Compton Unified School District, courts threw out a parent petition to turn one school into a charter. The group who facilitated the signature collection, Parent Revolution, is funded by a charter school operator. (We're sure it's a coincidence.) In the Adelanto School District, a similar petition has become mired in a lawsuit over the rescinded signatures of parents who say they were misled about the nature of the petition they signed. Given the Parent Trigger's track record so far, Won't Back Down is fictional in more ways than one.
3. Charters aren't a cure all, but they're presented as such.
Won't Back Down and proponents of Parent Trigger laws want you to believe that charter schools are the shining future of America's education system. In truth, charters only educate roughly 4% of American students, and studies have shown that most charter schools don't perform any better than their public school counterparts. The difference is they hire less experienced teachers, pay those teachers lower wages, and use selective enrollment practices or school policies that push struggling students out of the classroom. Charters, on the whole, don't represent the systemic change we need to ensure all students have an opportunity to learn, not just a tiny fraction.
4. Unions have a track record of working with communities to improve schools.
As Won't Back Down would have it, failing schools are the result of lazy teachers, bureaucracy and teachers unions. But as the recent teachers strike in Chicago shows, unions are fighting alongside students, parents and community members for the resources they need to teach and for their students to learn. The problems in our nation's education system stem from the policies and funding mechanisms that shut students out of the opportunities they need to succeed. No amount of teacher- and union-bashing is going to fix that.
more . . . http://www.otlcampaign.org/blog/2012/09/28/friends-dont-let-friends-watch-wont-back-down
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