Proposed school report card (California Department of Education).

*UPDATED

A contingent of LA parents, armed with a petition of about 420 signatures, will ask the state Board of Education this week to adopt a summative rating to evaluate schools in addition to a number of proposed measures that move beyond ranking schools solely based on test scores.

The Board of Education is expected to vote Thursday on its rubric that will be used to evaluate California public schools under the new federal education law, Every Student Succeeds Act. The state must approve this evaluation by Oct. 1 to comply with federal law.

The new law is aimed at moving away from solely evaluating schools based on standardized test scores as has been done in public education from 2002 to 2015 under ESSA’s precursor No Child Left Behind. In California, all schools were given a ranking called an Academic Performance Index, or API, which was a number between 200 and 1,000.

Under the new federal law, which will go into effect in 2017-18, states must evaluate schools based on a number of “indicators” in addition to performance on state tests and growth over time.

After months of public comment, meetings and discussion, the state board has decided on several indicators that will be evaluated and compared over time. Those indicators will be finalized Thursday. The federal law requires that states use academic achievement, academic progress, graduation rate, progress on achieving English proficiency and school quality or student success.

The state has proposed using English language arts and math standardized test scores in grades 3 to 8, science test scores when available, an English learner indicator, high school graduation rates, suspension rates, chronic absenteeism, college and career readiness, school climate, parent engagement and school conditions as part of its evaluation.   

But a number of parent activist groups and others are pushing the state board to adopt a summative rating for schools based on the chosen indicators and that without it, it will be difficult for families to compare schools or know how well their school is educating their students. They also point to the “sea of colors” on the proposed school report cards covering 17 categories, each of which is rated by one of five colors.

“In the absence of a summative rating for a school, it becomes very difficult for families to hold schools accountable for what happens within the walls,” said Seth Litt, executive director of Parent Revolution, an organization that helps parents push for better educational opportunities in their neighborhoods including using the “parent trigger” law to take over low-performing schools.

His group, as well as Families in Schools, Innovate Public Schools, Speak UP and Students for Education Reform have launched a petition asking the state Board of Education to adopt an overall rating system.

Litt said even though schools’ API scores haven’t been updated for two years, parents are still relying on them to evaluate a school because it’s something they can understand.

Litt said he is encouraged by some moves the board has made in choosing specific indicators, such as evaluating schools based on climate and how many students are being suspended.

“We just think the state board needs to finish the job and provide an overall summative rating,” he said.

A summative rating might be a number or a letter, or it could be a categorization of a school based on a color (green, yellow or red), or an assessment, such as low, improving, quality or excellent, Litt said. The group is not advocating for a return to the API score.

It doesn’t appear the state board will move in that direction, though, unless it is forced to do so by the federal government. Under its proposed regulations, the federal government is considering forcing states to give schools a summative rating.

In an Aug. 1 letter, California State Board of Education President Michael Kirst and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson urged the U.S. Department of Education not to adopt a single summative rating saying it “undercuts the value of a multiple measures system.”

“A summative rating, in contrast, necessarily glosses over differences in performance across indicators and inappropriately draws school leaders, stakeholders and the public focus on the single rating rather than a more robust reflection of performance demonstrated by the individual indicators,” they wrote.

“Importantly, reducing a student group’s performance down to a single rating on all indicators could mask serious disparities that should be addressed for that student group, for example, English learners or students with disabilities.”

Parent Revolution, in addition to 13 other California education advocacy groups, like United Way, California Charter Schools Association, Students Matter and The Education Trust-West, submitted their own joint letter to the U.S. Department of Education supporting the proposed regulations.

“Providing a summative measure does not have to conflict with the multiple indicator approach that California has adopted and can build on it, to ensure that parents have a clear entry point to interact with the richer performance data and the state can clearly identify those LEAs and schools with wide achievement gaps and in need of extra attention,” the letter says.

The federal law requires that states provide help to the schools that are performing at the bottom 5 percent in the state. Litt said since the state will have to develop some kind of rating to determine which schools are lowest-performing, it should extend that rating to all of the schools.

He said if there are a variety of measures without a summative rating, parents will likely default to using test scores to determine how a school is doing.

Chris Hofmann, a fourth-grade teacher at KIPP Raices Academy in East LA, will also attend Thursday’s state Board of Education meeting. A Teach Plus Teaching Policy Fellowship alum, Hofmann has been following the state’s process on its accountability system over the past several years.

He said he hopes the state board will clarify how they will identify schools that need additional support.

“At this current moment, it’s not necessarily very obvious what the clear next steps will be for how to address the problems highlighted,” Hofmann said.

“I still strongly believe that the most fundamental aspect of schooling is what students learn and how they grow,” he added. “My hope would be whatever system of intervention is adopted, it still strongly focuses on that aspect of schooling.”

The board must submit its plan by March.

*This article has been updated to explain that the summative rating being sought is not a single number.

Principal Richard Ramos with Dominga Verduzco.

Haddon Elementary Avenue School is so in demand that families want to drive their children across the San Fernando Valley from Granada Hills to attend the Pacoima school.

Haddon is not a charter school, it’s not a new pilot program and it’s not a magnet school (yet). It’s a traditional Title 1 district school in a low-income Latino neighborhood that has been there since 1926.

But it wasn’t always growing. And in fact it had to fight district rules that prohibited families from moving to the school.

Five years ago, parents were so fed up with the school that they initiated a “parent trigger” to try to take over the school from the district. The trigger was never pulled, and a new principal came in who brought programs students wanted, like a Mariachi class, a robotics program and an award-winning speech and debate team.

“We are certainly an anomaly in the district, and I’m learning now that part of my job is to figure out how to be competitive and promote the school,” said Haddon Principal Richard S. Ramos, who has worked with the charter school group Partnerships to Uplift Communities and on dozens of successful electoral campaigns, most recently for Robert Gonzales to the San Fernando City Council in 2012. “We have to figure out better ways to get the word out about what we’re doing that’s good in our schools.”

Soon students were clamoring to transfer to the school — a welcome change especially as without the new enrollment, the school faced a loss of teachers.

Then came the curve ball. District administrators said “No!” to the families who wanted to transfer to Haddon.

The district wouldn’t allow students to transfer because it wasn’t a pilot or magnet or charter school. Families weren’t allowed to leave their home schools to attend Haddon. One family was pleading to get in because their daughter loved robotics, and the parents were willing to drive nearly an hour every day to bring her to the school.

“They have parents wanting to come in, and I don’t understand why it’s not allowed?” school board member Monica Ratliff said at a board meeting this spring after she heard about the issue.

District administrators listened to Ratliff. They worked it out so that applicants could say they wanted to transfer to the school because similar programs were not offered at their home schools. Parents’ requests needed to include a waiver form that explained the programs offered at Haddon were not offered elsewhere.

Removing that roadblock resulted in unprecedented growth for the school unlike any other school in the area. The principal noted that Haddon has had increased enrollment for the past two years. In fact, he said that 39 of the new students he has this year are transferring from charter schools.

“We are in a time now where the entire district is seeing declining enrollment,” Ramos said on the first day of the new school year on Tuesday. For the past decade, the school enrollment was on a steady decline. The school now has an enrollment of more than 900, with a capacity of 960.

Mariachis at Haddon. (Courtesy: Haddon)

Ratliff, who was at Haddon on Tuesday for the first day of school, said she was a bit irritated about the district’s initial response late in the school year.

“It should not be up to a board member to have to bring this up at a meeting to promote that a school is doing well,” Ratliff said. “Everyone on the administrative level should be helpful in a situation like this,” Ratliff added. “I’m glad the district was listening and no one stymied the efforts of this great principal.”

Ratliff pointed out that many principals at traditional district schools have great programs that no one hears about, and the district should be better at promoting those programs. She said charter schools do their own promotion and have learned to become competitive for students, so the district schools should too.

Monica Ratliff greets volunteers on the first day of school.

“Our principals haven’t had time to promote their programs,” Ratliff said.

One solution for Haddon is that the school will apply to become a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) Magnet Academy. That proposal will come before the school board in January. Ratliff said she would be stunned if it doesn’t get approved. When it becomes a magnet school, the school will have open enrollment and anyone can apply from within the district.

Superintendent Michelle King repeatedly brings up sharing best practices and touting and promoting district school successes. The LA Unified Communications Department launched LAUSD Daily last year and LAUSD Shines, which shares school successes. They place posters in schools and throughout the district to encourage principals, teachers, parents and students to share their stories.

“I am realizing I have to be competitive with our school,” Ramos said. “People don’t hear about our great programs unless they hear about it in the laundromat or at a soccer game.”

Before Ramos came to the school, parents at Haddon organized a parent union chapter to initiate a parent trigger and began gathering signatures in 2011, aided by Parent Revolution, which helps with parent trigger movements at failing schools.

But in January 2013, parents voted to put the process “on pause.” The following month, teachers at the school voted to institute a series of reforms by becoming a Local Initiative School, a reform model that allows some autonomy from district policies, such as in hiring.

“We were unhappy, and the district brought in a new principal and the parents are now happy,” said Dominga Verduzco, who was president of the parent chapter. “They implemented new programs and a curriculum and brought in a principal who puts kids first. We like what he is doing,” Verduzco said Tuesday as she helped give out school supplies donated by the nonprofit Rainbow Packs.

Haddon’s speech and debate team. (Courtesy: Haddon)

This is the last year at the school for Verduzco’s fifth-grader, and she is proud of the changes she helped create.

The teachers voted 29 to 2 in favor of the STEAM program to come to the school, and Ramos said they all stepped up to improve the school curriculum. Test scores are still not up to par, with the latest scores showing English and math at 18 and 11 percent meeting or exceeding standards, respectively, and 5 percent chronically absent. They expect to see improvements soon.

“Some of the special programs we have are electives that kids don’t see until middle school,” Ramos said.

Not only are the Mariachi classes a big draw, but the students can choose gardening, cooking, computers and photography thanks to the nonprofit Woodcraft Rangers, which offers after-school activities and clubs that align with Common Core standards. Do It Yourself Girls also comes to campus and helps introduce girls to professions such as engineering, construction and other traditionally male professions.

Another plan Ramos has for the school is to make it a dual language school.

“Although most of the students are bilingual, it is not a good Spanish, it is more colloquial and they could benefit from a dual language program,” Ramos said.

He wants to get the school’s test scores up, but the principal said he already notes some major changes. The attendance rate is increasing, chronic absences are down, and even teacher attendance increased from 69 percent to 79 percent.

This year, the school has a new director for the parent center, and the school was picked to be part of the Early Language Literacy Plan that works to make sure students read by third grade. The school is also starting a new Eureka math program — and explaining all the changes to parents along the way.

“People are wanting to come to school, and that’s a good thing,” Ramos said.

Meanwhile, Ratliff, who is running for Los Angeles City Council and will be leaving the school board, said she hopes the district will take note of the successes at Haddon.

“People do a lot of head nodding at the district level, but all administrators should be on the same page with helping schools like this succeed,” Ratliff said.

Former Superintendent Ramon Cortines with 20th Street families last summer. (Photo by Omar Calvillo)

After two legal attempts by parents to take over a South-Central LA elementary school they said was failing their children, an agreement has been reached for the school to join the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools. The deal averts a threatened lawsuit and ends a two-year “parent trigger” battle.

The agreement moves 20th Street Elementary into the Partnership family of 17 schools in South LA, Boyle Heights and Watts. The organization takes over low-performing schools while working in conjunction with the district to manage the schools and retaining union contracts.

The plan was announced Tuesday by parents at the school, the Partnership and LA Unified in a district press release, which said LA Unified and the Partnership signed a five-year Memorandum of Understanding for the organization to manage the school, starting with the upcoming school year.

The parent group, known as the 20th Street Parents Union, has been supported by Parent Revolution, a nonprofit group that helps parents take over failing schools through the state’s Parent Empowerment Act — known as the “parent trigger” — which allows parents to enact changes at a school if a majority of them sign a petition. The changes can include replacing administrators or converting the school into an independent charter school. In this case, 20th Street will remain a traditional LA Unified school but with some changes.

“I really think we have reached a place where the families that have led this campaign over the last two years are ready to work with all the other families, ready to work with the school and ready to work with the Partnership and have everyone on the same team moving forward,” said Seth Litt, CEO of Parent Revolution. “It’s an important part of the progress of this school, not just signing the MOU but that the whole community comes together to support the school, and I think this is a moment where everyone is focused on that.”

Parents at 20th Street, a K-5th grade campus serving nearly 600 students, first enacted a parent trigger during the 2014-15 school year but withdrew it when LA Unified changed principals at the school and made a number of assurances. But parent leaders were unhappy with the progress, and in January they enacted another parent trigger petition.

Omar Calvillo, a 20th Street Parents Union coordinator, said he is pleased that the Partnership will now manage the school.

“We are very excited to work with the Partnership organization, our school staff, and all parents at the school to work for the education our children deserve,” said Calvillo in a statement. “We want to thank both LAUSD and the Partnership for coming to a collaborative agreement that addresses our concerns and offers a strong path forward for our community. Now it is time for all of us – parents, teachers, and the Partnership team – to come together and work as one team on behalf on our children.”

Academic performance has been at the heart of the parents’ grievances. The most recent 20th Street school report card showed 37 percent of 5th-graders passing the California Standards Test compared to a district average of 47 percent. The school also scored a 46 out of 100 on the new CORE accountability system, while the the district average was 60.

In March, the district rejected the second parent trigger and said the school didn’t qualify for one, and that no district school qualified under the state parent trigger law because the state has no current accountability system since the Academic Performance Index was canceled in 2013. The state is currently working on a new system.

In 2014, former Superintendent John Deasy declared that the district was exempt from the parent trigger due to a federal waiver it had received from the federal No Child Left Behind law. Deasy resigned in October 2014, and the following month his replacement, Ramon Cortines, reversed the decision. Michelle King took over as superintendent in January after Cortines retired, and in March essentially reversed district policy on parent triggers.

“L.A. Unified, The Partnership, parents and Parent Revolution share the vision of providing high-quality learning opportunities for the students of 20th Street Elementary,” said King in a statement. “With this collaborative new partnership, we can continue to strengthen the academic supports, social-emotional learning opportunities and parent-engagement programs that are essential to this school community.”

At a meeting in May with district leaders, parents at the school outlined their grievances, which included a lack of progress in making academic changes in the classroom. A press release from the 20th Street Parents Union outlined a number of changes the Partnership said it is going to bring to the school, including additional funding to hire an assistant principal and a Title III coordinator to support English learners, a plan to implement the Eureka math curriculum and for 20th Street to become part of the district’s per pupil funding pilot program.

“We are excited to welcome 20th Street Elementary to our family of schools and look forward to building on the unique strengths of the school staff and community,” said Partnership CEO Joan Sullivan in a statement. “Our goal is to partner together to empower all students with a high-quality education.”

LA Unified school board member Monica Garcia, who has worked closely with the 20th Street Parents Union, endorsed the plan.

“This school community wants excellent services and outcomes for all youth and the Partnership is aligned with this mission,” García said in a statement. “Together, courageous parents, committed teachers and bold administrators will model for other schools, communities and districts on how to create learning environments for children and adults, with a focus on student learning, educator development and parent engagement.”

Information table for Parent Revolution’s Choice4LA school choice program. (courtesy)

Parent Revolution announced Tuesday that it has helped 321 students apply to new, higher performing schools through its Choice4LA pilot program launched in January.

The program is aimed at helping low-income families navigate a complex system of school choice by providing information on all types of schools, helping parents choose the right school for their children and providing support through the application process. In total the group has engaged with 734 families as of last week.

The group also announced it has received a $50,000 grant from the California Community Foundation toward the effort.

Choice4LA has been focused on a pilot area in South Los Angeles where it has partnered with community groups to reach out to parents who are interested in finding other school options for their students.

Seth Litt, executive director of Parent Revolution, said there are many barriers for families to applying to high-performing schools, including a lack of transportation and sometimes no internet access at home.

Many parents don’t have the type of jobs where they can take time off to tour new schools, he said.

“A lot of families are effectively shut out of choice,” Litt said.

Many parents do not even know about the options available, he said.

“Either school choice information doesn’t reach them through traditional methods, or the process is so complex that they don’t actually exercise those choices for their children,” Litt said.

Of the families that have applied to new schools, 63 percent have applied to both charter schools and district schools, according to statistics provided by the group. Twenty-six percent of families have applied only to charter schools, and 11 percent have applied only to district schools.

Litt said for families, it doesn’t matter what kind of school it is.

“Families are just like, ‘Where is the best school for my child?’” Litt said.

Parents complete an average of four applications per student, he said.

Parent Revolution’s Choice4LA school choice clinic. (courtesy)

One major barrier to parents being informed about different schools is that there is no central directory of schools, Litt said. Another challenge is that schools have their own applications and unique deadlines. And, finally, it is difficult to compare schools because right now there is no overall rating for schools. (The Academic Performance Index has been eliminated and the state Board of Education is still determining a new accountability system, which may include an overall rating.)

Parent Revolution is working on developing an online directory of schools, Litt said. He said he is encouraged by LA Unified’s interest in simplifying its application process, but said that should include charter schools.

“The simpler we can make this for families, the better,” Litt said.

He said he doesn’t believe the system is purposely complex but has developed that way accidentally and haphazardly over time.

The group has partnered with 45 community groups, including churches, government agencies like the Department of Children and Family Services, food banks and others to connect with families.

He said the group plans to expand the program based on where it has community partnerships.

Parent Omar Calvillo at Monday’s meeting at 20th Street Elementary School.

Parents may be on the verge of settling a two-year “parent trigger” battle at 20th Street Elementary School without a lawsuit, which both sides hoped to avoid.

Nearly 200 parents, students and teachers attended a Monday evening meeting at the school and heard about a unique alternative in which 20th Street would win greater autonomy but be neither an independent charter nor remain solely a traditional district school. The meeting became heated at times, with an equal amount of debate in English and Spanish.

Joan Sullivan, CEO of the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, which was brought into the situation at parent organizers’ request, told the gathering Monday that the Partnership was willing to work with the school and the district to solve the issues that parents have with the teaching and student scores at the K-5th grade campus that serves nearly 600 students in South-Central LA.

“There are a lot of impassioned parents here who are concerned about their children’s education with very different ideas of how to get there,” Sullivan said. “Change is hard, there needs to be healing. You need to look forward and making this a school that every child wants to come to every day.”

Coordinator Ana Garcia, right, with other 20th Street teachers and staff.

The parents who initiated the parent trigger said they heard for the first time Monday some promising compromises by the school district. Local District Central Superintendent Roberto Martinez attended and dispelled some of the concerns that the parents had about a deal with Partnership.

“The superintendent (Michelle King) will be making the final decision, but we are looking at a standard contract with Partnership,” Martinez said. “We would accept Partnership running the school.”

In March, the district rejected the parent trigger saying the school didn’t qualify because it wasn’t failing, but by that rationale no school in the state would qualify because the state API test scores had been suspended. The district did acknowledge that the parents had gathered enough signatures to trigger a take-over.

The most recent 20th Street school report card showed only slight improvements, with 37 percent of 5th-graders passing the California Standards Test compared to a district average of 47 percent. On the new CORE accountability system, the school scored a 46 out of 100. The district average was 60.

Omar Calvillo — one of the parents who filed the parent trigger which allows parents to take over a failing school and possibly create a charter school — said he was relieved that the district would allow a standard Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) rather than a more restrictive one that was previously presented to them when they met with King last month.

“We need to get this in writing, there is still a lot of lack of trust, so we want to see it from Miss King herself,” Calvillo said. “We like the Partnership model. It could work out.”

Local District Central Superintendent Roberto Martinez.

But Sullivan said all the legal wrangling has to end before Partnership will get involved with the school. “Partnership will not enter into an agreement if litigation is still active, and unless all parties agree,” Sullivan said.

The parents are supported by Parent Revolution, a nonprofit group that helps parents organize and take over a failing campus through the state’s Parent Empowerment Act, and is funded by groups that support independent charter schools. The parents are represented at no charge by the law firm Kirkland & Ellis, and Mark Holscher, a partner at the firm, said litigation is usually costly on all sides. He said the Anaheim School District put aside $1 million in a parent trigger battle over a school in that district which the school ultimately lost, and it’s similar to the 20th Street case.

About 200 parents attended the meeting Monday.

“Everyone wants to settle this and avoid a lawsuit and get on with educating our children,” Calvillo said. “But this has come only a few weeks before the end of the school year, and once again, it is too late.”

Most of the three dozen teachers and staff, all wearing yellow school spirit shirts, came to the meeting and protested the Partnership plan.

“What you are proposing is what we are doing now,” said kindergarten teacher Vanessa Romo. “People are comfortable with the way we are doing things now, we don’t need another disruption.”

One of the young girls in the audience shouted, “We love our principal!”

Principal Mario Garcielita, who is just finishing his first year at the school, was brought in during the parent trigger to initiate changes. By November, the parents said they had no confidence in the changes being made and re-filed the trigger option in January. In the meantime, Garcielita announced a grant from a group called People for Parks to keep the school’s playground open on Saturdays, and that the school’s library would be getting a facelift and new books. For most of Monday’s meeting, the principal just rushed around the room holding a microphone allowing the parents and teachers to speak.

After the meeting, school coordinator Ana Garcia told LA School Report, “It is never enough with some of these parents, we will never satisfy them.” She said that eight weeks at the beginning of the school year wasn’t enough time to turn the school around, and the parents were being unrealistic. “We don’t need more changes to the school.”

Lupe Aragon, one of the parents who initiated the trigger, said she has seen some improvements at the school and in some of the homework her daughter is bringing home. The school has also improved by painting murals on the walls, planting trees and gardens and fixing up the library, “but many of these things are cosmetic, and it’s more important to have better education,” Aragon said.

Some improvements have been made at the school.

The Partnership runs 17 schools in South Central LA, Boyle Heights and Watts and typically take the lowest-performing schools in an area. Sullivan said the Partnership will provide support and professional development for the teachers, employ the principal for the entire year including over the summer and connect the school with other resources to help with technology and teaching programs that are different from those offered through the district.

“We also provide extensive workshops for parents that will help you understand how to figure out your child’s reading level” and provide other information including how to apply for scholarships to college, Sullivan said. At Partnership schools, teachers continue to have the same UTLA contract and district seniority, but the curriculum allows for more flexibility.

The Partnership piloted the idea of the school report card that every school now has, which assesses what students, parents and teachers feel about the school.

Two years ago only 17 percent of the parents and 2 percent of the staff at 20th Street even filled out the survey to rate the school, and last year 65 percent of the parents and 45 percent of the staff participated. Although the recent survey shows significant improvements, scores still rank below the district average. Martinez noted that the school’s reclassification rate for English learners nearly doubled this year, from 23 students to 44, which is a “vast improvement,” he said.

Martinez also pointed out that the district already is improving the Parent Center at the school with a $69,000 grant.

Sullivan concluded Monday’s meeting by saying that she thought the Partnership model would fit nicely at the school, but decisions still have to be made by everyone involved. She said, “Every campus has good things to build on, and I know we can help, even if I’m a little bit scared of all the divisions.”

20th Street Elementary School

The LA Unified school board broke into a surprise closed session for several hours Tuesday afternoon in the middle of their public meeting in order to head off a potential “parent trigger” lawsuit over 20th Street Elementary School.

All morning, the school board was in closed session to discuss employee actions, contract renewals and pending litigation. Then, in the middle of the 1 p.m. public meeting, school board secretariat Jefferson Crain said they were going into closed session again to discuss the potential litigation involving the elementary school.

Board member Monica Garcia, who has worked with the 20th Street parents to try to solve the issues, said Wednesday that the closed-door session wasn’t merely to stop the threatened lawsuit.

“We are making every effort to listen to all of the concerns, the dreams and aspirations of all the players and give energy into making that a better school,” Garcia told LA School Report.

Gabe Rose of Parent Revolution — a nonprofit group that helps parents organize and take over a failing campus through the state’s Parent Empowerment Act — said the attorney representing the parents “made it very clear that there’s pending litigation and that’s why in the closed sessions they went in to see what the settlement would look like. The parents expressed clearly there’s no plausible deal without a significant shift in who’s managing the school.”

But the district didn’t offer enough, Rose said. “The parents need autonomy and without the necessary changes, they will go the legal route and be successful. The district never did any of the things they promised, so of course there’s a lot of hesitation on the part of the parents.”

One of the parents, Omar Calvillo, who helped file the trigger against the district, said the parents are trying to work on a deal with Partnership for Los Angeles Schools that could offer a hybrid of a charter and traditional school as an option, which they have done in 17 schools in the South Central LA area.

“We like the Partnership, but the deal the district offered still had them completely in charge of our school,” Calvillo said. “The attorneys are negotiating, and that’s probably what is going on in the closed session.”

No one seems to want to go to court. “We don’t want a lawsuit, it’s not good for the district or school or community,” Calvillo said. “We care for LAUSD, there are some great teachers. We want to work with the district.”

After a March meeting with Superintendent Michelle King and other district officials at the school, Calvillo said some things have improved. “They fixed the fence and the yard and have some professional development for the teachers, but we haven’t seen much in the classroom. We need something more concrete.”

Even the most recent school report card showed only slight improvements, and the 5th-graders passing the California Standards Test was at 37 percent while the district average is 47 percent. On the new CORE accountability system, the school scored a 46 out of 100. The district average was 60.

“We are very nervous about what the district promises because we have been promised things before and they never happened,” Calvillo said. “We just want the best quality education for our kids.”

In a recent letter to the parents, David Holmquist, the district’s general counsel, acknowledged that the parents collected more than 50 percent of the family signatures required for a parent trigger takeover.

“Based on our review, the district will not contest a claim that 50 percent signature threshold was met,” the letter stated.

Garcia said that no decision has been made at the district level, but she thinks that the Partnership program could work for the school. She said there are exciting schools in the area.

“There’s a very successful parent energy at this school site, and we want to meet the needs of parents without them having to go elsewhere,” Garcia said. “I understand that people are not satisfied with the pace of change, I understand that, and it is the responsibility of the district to to change that.”

Shirley Ford

By Shirley Ford

I realized there was a problem as early as elementary school. I always knew that my boys were smart – they started reading me the newspaper in the evening when they were 6 years old – but they were clearly bored and not being challenged in school. Like so many young African-American boys, they were quickly labeled with alleged “learning disabilities” when they starting committing normal, minor infractions in class. At a young age, they started to become disengaged and apathetic about school.

I quickly started to become desperate. I knew that my sons needed a great education if they were going to be successful, and I realized it was my job to make that happen – nobody else was going to do it for me.

So over the next few years, I tried everything I could to get them into a better public school. When that didn’t work, I applied for financial aid at a local private school, but was denied.

As my sons started to make their way through middle school, falling further and further behind, I began to feel angry and hopeless. I began to blame myself – was I a bad mother? In my worst moments, I began to blame them. As high school began to approach, I was terrified of what would come next for them.

One day, I came home to find a flyer on my door that said something about a new “charter school” opening in our community. I had no idea what a charter school was, but I was out of good options, so I decided to go check out their upcoming meeting.

It was that standing room only meeting in the basement of a nearby church that changed my life and the lives of my sons forever. What we heard that night gave us new hope. The leaders of Green Dot Public Schools shared their vision for a school in our community that would help all children succeed and be prepared for college. They believed that with a great school, all kids could succeed, regardless of their income, race, or zip code. And they were going to prove it to us by opening a new high school for the kids in our community.

Over the next four years, I saw firsthand that Green Dot was serious about delivering on their promises. The way our high school supported my sons was the exact opposite of my prior experiences – our new school refused to let them fail. Every single one of their teachers believed in them – some teachers even came to my house and sat at our dining room table to help tutor my sons. College preparatory classes were the expectation for all students, rather than a privilege reserved for a select few. Parents were welcomed into the school to help solve problems rather than pushed away as a nuisance.

Eight years later, when I saw my oldest son walk across the stage and become the first in our family to graduate from college, I knew that the promises made in that church basement had been kept. That high school, Animo Inglewood, is now a California Distinguished School and has been featured twice on the US News and World Report list of Best High Schools in America.

As the conversation continues about the need for more quality schools here in Los Angeles and around the country, I think back often to that night in the church basement. Until a good charter school option came along, I was completely stuck, out of options for my sons. Wealthier families could afford private schools – we couldn’t. Wealthier families had the money to buy expensive houses in neighborhoods with better schools – we didn’t.

Unfortunately, it seems like a lot of the conversation around new quality options and the new Great Public Schools Now organization is completely disconnected from the reality faced by families in communities like mine. I cannot understand why some people are so dedicated to denying families like mine the simple ability to have a real choice between different public schools.

For the last 10 years, I’ve been working to support other families in their struggles for better schools. I co-founded the organization Parent Revolution and have worked here in Los Angeles and all over the country to improve schools by empowering families. There are still so many children being failed by low-performing schools that it makes me wonder whether black lives and brown lives really matter in our country. Many of the same schools that were failing kids in my neighborhood 20 years ago are still failing yet another generation of children today.

Fifteen years ago, I was blessed when a school flyer randomly landed at my door, but the educational destinies of children like mine shouldn’t depend on luck. To end that unjust status quo, we need two things. The first is a dramatic increase in quality options for families in low-income communities and communities of color. The second is to help all families have a greater awareness about their options and remove many of the barriers that currently prevent some families from accessing school choice.  That is why we at Parent Revolution recently launched our new Choice4LA campaign, aimed at supporting families in LA’s most underserved communities to understand all their options (traditional district, magnet and charter schools) and select the right school for their child.

And that is why we are supporting the families of 20th Street Elementary School as they use the Parent Empowerment law to finally win the major school improvements they have been fighting for over the past two years.

The lesson of my story is not that charter schools are right for every family, or that charter schools are always better than district schools. The point is that all families deserve to have good options for their kids – no matter the size of their bank account or the color of their skin. Families in low-income communities are desperate for better schools – we should be doing everything we can to get them better options rather than playing politics with the future of their children.

Shirley Ford is the co-founder and director of community partnerships for Parent Revolution

For the first time, a Parent Trigger has been threatened twice for the same school. The parents of the 20th Street Elementary School in South Central Los Angeles are fed up with the lack of response from LA Unified after their first attempt two years ago to take over the school and on Monday filed a new petition with the district.

It all started when Guadalupe Aragon saw the report card that rated her daughter’s elementary school and showed that only 43 percent of the students at the school were performing at grade level. She decided to do something about it.

Parents signed a petition to take over the school through the state’s Parent Empowerment Act, often called a “Parent Trigger,” which allows parent groups to push for sweeping changes and even create a charter school. The LA Unified district administrators changed principals at the school, held meetings, made assurances. But that was two years ago.

This week, the Parents Union gathered yet another petition of 58 percent of the parents in the school of 591 students and called for another Parent Trigger. This time they’re not waiting for promises to be fulfilled.

The Parent Union of 20th Street Elementary. (Photo courtesy of Guadalupe Aragon)

“We had so many meetings and they told us they were going to do things, but nothing ever happened, we won’t wait anymore,” said Aragon, who was one of two parents signing the Feb. 1 letter to Superintendent Michelle King stating their case for the Parent Trigger and presenting the petition. The petition states that the parents are demanding a “restart,” an option that would allow them to create or bring in a charter school to operate 20th Street.

“The parents shelved their petition the first time around and agreed to work with top district officials, but there was no change at the school, it’s as if the petition never happened,” said Gabe Rose, the chief strategy officer of Parent Revolution, a group that helped write the Parent Empowerment Act in 2011. “Now we’re forced to file again.”

The act allows communities to jumpstart changes at chronically low-performing schools. It requires a majority of the parents to sign a petition that could force a district to bring in new leadership and staff, or convert a school into a nonprofit independent charter.

At LAUSD, nine schools have been threatened with Parent Triggers, and the district made changes to six of them before petitions were filed, according to Rose. Three schools at LAUSD — Weigand Avenue Elementary in Watts, 24th Street Elementary in South Central and 20th Street — resulted in filing petitions with the district to date.

In the state, there were three other schools where Parent Triggers were filed, in Anaheim, Compton and Adelanto school districts. Although it started in California, similar Parent Trigger laws have since been passed in Connecticut, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Indiana and Ohio. They are being considered in other states.

Guadalupe Aragon, a frustrated parent. (Al Jazeera)

“These parents have been patient, they have followed the law and expected strong leadership to help turn their school around, but it didn’t happen,” Rose said.

The parents say that the school’s Academic Performance Index score failed to meet the expected 800 in more than 15 years. Last year, 20th Street Elementary test scores had only 19 percent of the students at grade level in English, and only 20 percent were at grade level in math. The school was ranked among the bottom 20 percent of elementary schools in the state, and the bottom 30 percent for schools with similar demographics.

The school is 94 percent Latino, 4 percent African-American and has 92 percent low- income families. Nearly half, 49 percent, are English learners. Charter schools and pilot schools exist in the area, but parents say they want their children to go to the school closest to them.

“I want my daughter Amy to go to a school that is easier and more accessible to our home,” Aragon said. “She had a chance to go to a charter school, but I wanted her to go to the local school, maybe I made a mistake. We are a poor community, many immigrants, right near downtown LA, and many of us don’t have a choice.”

Aragon and the other parents were concerned that their children were getting assignments that were too simple. In fourth grade math, Amy was bringing home addition problems for homework, when the district standards call for multiplication and some geometry.

Gabe Rose from Parent Revolution. (Al Jazeera)

“I was surprised that they didn’t offer tutoring,” Aragon said. “Parents got so frustrated that they weren’t taken seriously so they stopped attending the meetings.”

The parents met with their board member, Mónica Garcia, and she tried to work things out, but the parents weren’t satisfied. Garcia’s office wasn’t available to comment on the Parent Trigger petition.

David Holmquist, LAUSD general counsel, stated that the district’s legal team is reviewing the documents and has “no further comment at this time.”

Among the promises that the parents say were broken:

• School leadership: Parents were promised that a strong and experienced school leader would take over the school. Instead, the district installed a first-year principal with no prior experience leading a school turnaround effort. Parents were never allowed to interview principal candidates or be part of the process.

• Professional development: Parents were promised that teachers would get professional development before the start of the 2015-2016 school year, which never happened. Parents were also promised ongoing professional development for teachers to help them improve.

• School climate: Parents were promised a new and renewed school climate. Many parents still report feeling disrespected and unwelcome at the school. 

• Sense of urgency: Parents were promised that the district would implement its plan with a sense of urgency and with the full buy-in of school staff. Instead, the district refused to even acknowledge that the plan was finalized until three months into the school year.

Families discuss 20th Street petition drive. (Photo courtesy of Gabe Rose)

By law, LAUSD has 40 days, until March 12, to say whether the petitions are valid and then lay out a plan to do what the parents requested, Rose said. If not, the parents are ready to go to court.

“It’s not the desired outcome to go to court, but there is a law firm willing to take the case pro bono,” Rose said. “However, LAUSD has been more cooperative than other districts that tried fighting the Parent Trigger and had to be sued. LAUSD has been good about trying to avoid the lawsuits, and we just want them to start helping the school.”

Seth Litt

Parent Revolution has announced that Seth Litt is taking over as its CEO. The news comes a full nine months after the organization’s former executive director and founder, Ben Austin, stepped down.

Parent Revolution was formed in 2009 by Austin and played a role in creating California’s “parent trigger” law. It also offers guidance and help to parent groups wanting to implement the law at their school.

Litt brings a long career in education to Parent Revolution: he was a teacher in middle school in the south Bronx, a Teach for America corps member, a union chapter leader and charter high school principal.

“I am excited to join Parent Revolution and lead the organization through its next chapter of impact for students and families,” Litt said in a statement. “Families in every community deserve more than hope or a roll of the dice – they deserve information, access to the system, and real power to make changes for their kids and their communities. For too long parents in communities like the south Bronx, south Los Angeles, and elsewhere have been on their own. They deserve the power to take action and effect change in their children’s education and lives.”

Alison Laslett, Parent Revolution’s Chief Operating Officer, has been serving as interim executive director while the board searched for a permanent replacement, a role now changed to the title of CEO.

Parent Revolution and the parent trigger law have proven to be a controversial and polarizing presence in California. Under the parent trigger law, which was passed in 2010, parents at a chronically underperforming school that meets certain criteria can call for reform if a majority of them sign a petition requesting a specific change. The changes could include converting the school into a charter school or changing the administration.

The Los Angeles Times editorial board, which originally supported the parent trigger law, recently called for an end to it, in part because it was rarely used.

“There have been only four schools in which parents filed petitions that succeeded in forcing a change. Parents at five more schools used the petition process as leverage to negotiate changes, a much less disruptive process, without ever filing an actual petition,” the Times wrote.

Undeterred, Parent Revolution has pointed to a recent California Superior Court judge’s ruling that a parent trigger campaign could move forward at an Orange County school as a victory.

“The Palm Lane decision is very empowering and uplifting for all parents in California,” said Mehul Patel, communications manager for Parent Revolution, according to The Heartland Institute. “The judge’s decision to side with parents shows that justice can be on the right side.”

Writing in the Huffington Post, Austin said that LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines‘ decision not to fight the implementation of the parent trigger law in the district was a major reason he decided to step down in December.

“We have normalized the idea of parent power and institutionalized parent trigger into our legal and political framework,” Austin wrote. “That’s a paradigm shift from when we launched six years ago. It also changes the nature of our work. It’s now about long term movement and institution building. That requires a different kind of leadership.”

Members of Parent Revolution

Parents of students at 20th Street Elementary in Central LA have unanimously approved a district proposal to turn around the low-performing school, starting next year. As a result, the local parent union is dropping plans for a school-wide take over under the state Parent Trigger law.

The deal with LA Unified ensures that all of the current staff will remain in place at the school, and it is the first agreement of its kind to set concrete performance targets. Teachers are expected to increase the number of students scoring at or above grade level in reading, math and state language tests for English learners, by 25 percent over the next year. For 2013, the most recent year available, these were the percentages of students proficient in reading and math:

• Second grade: 38 and 33
• Third grade: 36 and 59
• Fourth grade: 54 and 56
• Fifth grade: 43 and 52

District officials also agreed to transform the struggling school by aligning curriculum and instructional techniques with that of Julian Nava Learning Complex, which houses two high-performing pilot schools — a middle school and a high school — in the area. Finally, 20th Street will become a second feeder elementary school into the competitive Nava schools. The other is Nevin Elementary School.

“Our goal all along was to connect the 20th Street to Julian Nava,” Lupe Aragon, whose fourth grade daughter attends 20th Street, told LA School Report.

Aragon is a key figure among the parent union calling for swift changes on campus. While she had always been content with the quality of teaching and learning her daughter received at the school, “everything changed  in the fourth grade,” she said.

“All of a sudden she was brining home first grade level math homework,” she said. “It’s been a real disappointment. Our kids are getting out of elementary school and going into junior high, and they don’t even know the basics.”

According to Aragon, the overhaul of academic standards at 20th Street will be implemented under the guidance Tommy Welch, who is currently a principal at Julian Nava but is expected to be promoted to Instructional Director. If or when that happens, Welch will oversee 20th Street Elementary, Nevin Elementary, Julian Nava’s middle and high schools, as well as Jefferson High School.

“[Welch’s] method of developing high academic standards have worked at other schools,” she said. “That’s how we know that what has been promised us will be fulfilled.”

The 16-page proposal does not specify any consequences if teachers fail to meet their targets. Also absent in the district plan is the budget impact of the changes and additional staff requirements.

For months, the parent union tried to persuade the school’s administration to adopt many of the same goals outlined in the plan, according to Gabe Rose, Chief Strategy Officer of Parent Revolution, a group that works with parents to improve their schools. But it was only after gathering signatures from 51 percent of parents, the minimum required to force major changes and win the right to replace its staff and teachers, that Superintendent Ramon Cortines and other district officials agreed to meet with the community.

“They were trying to get a plan without the petitions, and that didn’t work,” Rose told LA School Report. But with the signatures in hand, he added, “It took some cajoling but they were able to get a fair and stronger plan in place.”

Parent Revolution, a non-profit organization aligned with the education reform movement, has been the key architect in pulling the so-called Parent Trigger in California. Since 2012, it has helped parent unions take over three schools, including two in LAUSD — 24th Street, which was converted into a charter school for grades 5 through 8, and Weigand Avenue Elementary, where parents replaced the principal. Two other campuses — West Athens and Haddon Avenue elementary schools — used the petitions as leverage to negotiate changes.

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 Cortines lifted the ban in November.

Former LA Unified Supt. John Deasy testifying at the Vergara trial

The non-profit behind the Vergara lawsuit, Students Matter, is adding two former LA Unified lightning rods to their ranks. Ex-Superintendent John Deasy and founder of Parent Revolution, Ben Austin, are joining the advocacy group.

Students Matter successfully sued the state of California and its public school teachers unions, overturning five laws governing tenure, seniority and dismissal that the student plaintiffs argued kept ineffective teachers in their classrooms. The state and the unions have appealed, vowing to defend the statutes challenged in the case.

It’s the second job-related announcement this month for Deasy, who will be serving on the Students Matter advisory board. He was recently named a consultant for The Broad Center for the Management of School Systems as a “superintendent-in-residence.” Austin will serve as head of policy development and advocacy for Students Matter, leading the organization’s “Courtroom to Classroom” campaign.

“By hiring Ben Austin and adding Dr. John E. Deasy ’s expertise to our board, Students Matter is expanding its commitment to fighting for political change that focuses on the needs of our kids,” David Welch, the group’s founder and a Silicon Valley entrepreneur said in a press release today.

Austin stepped down last month as executive director of Parent Revolution, a group he founded six years ago to aid parents pushing for change in their children’s poorly-performing schools.  Under his leadership, the organization played a role in creating California’s parent trigger law and, later, helping three area schools use it. Three other schools used the threat of it to force changes.

Prior to that he served as a Deputy Mayor of Los Angeles under Mayor Richard Riordan and worked as a senior advisor to Rob Reiner and First 5 California. In 2010, he was appointed to the California State Board of Education.

Deasy resigned from LA Unified in October under pressure due to mounting criticism of his managerial style and several bungled technology initiatives. Since resigning, criticism of his three-and-a-half year tenure has continued, fueled by a federal grand jury investigation into his $1.3 billion iPad program.

It’s unclear whether he would be held accountable by the grand jury for any aspect of the iPad program, which sought to put an iPad in the hands of every LA Unified student and teacher.

During his years as superintendent, graduation rates rose along with student test scores, and dropout rates fell.

Parent Revolution’s Gabe Rose (left) and Ben Austin

Ben Austin is stepping down as executive director of Parent Revolution, a group he founded six years ago to aid parents pushing for change in their children’s poorly-performing schools.

Parent Revolution played a role in creating California’s parent trigger law and, later, helping three area schools use it. Three other schools used the threat of it to force changes.

“Over the past six years, we have invented an idea, passed it into law, implemented it, built an organization and scaled a movement,” Austin said in a statement. “In the wake of the successful Parent Power Convention and the recent agreement with the LAUSD to work collaboratively on Parent Trigger, we are at an inflection point. We have normalized the idea of parent power and institutionalized Parent Trigger laws into our legal and political framework.”

He added, “It’s now about long term movement and institution building. It’s time to let new leadership and new energy take the reigns and help shape this next chapter.”

Parent Revolution said Alison Laslett, Pasrent Revolution’s Chief Operating Officer, will serve as interim executive director while the board searches for a permanent replacement.

California became the first state to pass a parent trigger law, in 2010; since then, at least six other states have followed suit.

Despite its victories, Parent Revolution has endured withering criticism from teacher unions and others who charge that schools are using parent trigger to skirt employment protections for public school teachers. The group has also been attacked for its sources of funding, including the Gates Foundation, and for doing the bidding of charter school operators.

“As one of Superintendent Cortines’s first moves, it’s a sign that the district will be respectful of the law,” Ben Austin, founder of the group that helps parents organize and enact the take-over of a failing campus, told LA School Report.

“It indicates that Cortines wants to work collaboratively with parents and parent unions,” he added.

The state Parent Trigger law allows parents to make changes at their children’s school if a majority of parents sign a petition demanding improvements. So far, it has been used for only a handful of schools in California.

Superintendent Ramon Cortines and Deputy Superintendent Michelle King met with Austin last week to discuss the moratorium. In an interview with LA School Report a day later, Cortines confirmed the district’s change in policy.

“I believe in parent choice, and I mean parent choice. There is no ban,” Cortines said, adding that he had already notified the author of the law, former Senator Gloria Romero, about his position.

However, several district officials said they know of no such change. When asked about it last week General Counsel David Holmquist said he had been unaware of Cortines’s decision.

Former Superintendent John Deasy had argued that the district was exempt from the Parent Trigger by a federal waiver from the federal No Child Left Behind law, allowing LA Unified and seven other California school districts to create their own metrics for academic performance in the temporary absence of statewide standards.

The statewide tests were eliminated last year, in anticipation of computerized tests based on the Common Core State Standards, which begin this spring.

In Deasy’s view, the law could not be used this year because of the change in statewide testing; use of the Parent Trigger laws requires that a school demonstrate poor academic performance two consecutive years, based on the same metrics.

At the time of Deasy’s decision, Romero said she expressed anger that the district would undermine parent empowerment by invalidating the law, and Parent Revolution called the district’s legal logic “laughable.” In the meantime, the U.S. Department of Education, which granted the waiver and was asked to clarify its conditions, says neither the federal government nor any other entity can override a state law.

In a letter written almost a year ago, Assistant Secretary of Education Deborah Delisle wrote, “The requirements to determine whether schools have made adequate yearly progress (AYP) and to identify schools for improvement, corrective action and restructuring have not been waived, and any State laws or regulations, including those related to AYP or school improvement status, are not affected by the waivers granted to your district.”

Romero appealed to Cortines to overturn Deasy’s edict, embracing the spirit of the law in his first school board meeting last month.

But when asked about Cortines’ decision, Romero said, “Legally, there is no ban. What they’re lifting is a false exemption.”

Gloria Romero

* UPDATED

Parent Revolution, an organization that helps parents petition for change at poor-performing schools, is disputing an LA Unified legal opinion that says the state law that gives parents that right is invalid this year.

The conflict came to light in an LA Times story this morning, citing an opinion from a district lawyer sent to Gloria Romero, the former California lawmaker who wrote the 2010 “Parent Trigger” law.

Romero, who founded the California Center for Parent Empowerment last year, said in an interview this morning she felt “angry and betrayed” by a legal decision that was reached last fall by the district but not shared with her until she learned about it three weeks ago.

“I’m not saying LAUSD is wrong on the legal interpretation; I just don’t know, and that’s why I’m seeking another legal interpretation from the state,” she said, “But LAUSD’s decision violates the spirit and intent of the law.”

“What I want to know,” she added, “is why did they keep this quiet all this time.”

The district’s opinion stems from a Federal waiver granted LA Unified and seven other California school districts, allowing them to to create their own metrics for academic performance in the temporary absence of statewide standards — measures used to determine whether a school is failing.

LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy said in an interview that the metrics used by LA Unified and the other districts granted the waiver still give parents the right to use the Parent Trigger law, so long as a school has been deemed in need of improvement for two consecutive years, ending with the 2014-2015 school year.

Under the waiver, he said, “We are completely aligned with the state law.”

California’s previous statewide standards were set aside for two years — 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 — while districts phase in the Common Core State Standards curriculum.

Romero said the district’s position was clarified in a letter she had requested and finally received two days ago from Kathleen Collins, a district lawyer.

Parent Revolution called the district’s legal interpretation “laughable,” insisting that a district has overridden state law. “The only entities that are capable of altering or invalidating California’s Parent Empowerment Act are the state legislature or a judge. Neither has done so,” the group said.

Parent Revolution also cited a letter to Deasy from the Department of Education in Washington, which granted the waiver, that says neither the federal government nor any other entity can override a state law.

In her Nov. 22 letter (starts on page 6), Assistant Secretary of Education Deborah Delisle wrote, “The requirements to determine whether schools have made adequate yearly progress (AYP) and to identify schools for improvement, corrective action and restructuring have not been waived, and any State laws or regulations, including those related to AYP or school improvement status, are not affected by the waivers granted to your district.”

Romero said the confluence of federal law, state law and a district decision might ultimately lead to a lawsuit to clarify who has the ultimate authority in the matter. Such a lawsuit would require plaintiffs, presumably parents whose efforts to use the Parent Trigger law would be blocked by the district.

Gabe Rose, a spokesman for Parent Revolution, said his organization is currently working with several groups of parents who are “considering options for improving their children’s schools, including the use of Parent Trigger.”

* Adds explanation from LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy

The advocacy group, which pushes for Parent Trigger laws across the country, plans to hold a one-day “Parent Power Convention” in October, the first meeting of its kind. It’s timed to coincide with the countdown to the fall elections and “will incorporate vital discussions on the type of laws” the group seeks to enact.

In California, the parent trigger law creates a pathway for parents to make changes at their schools by collecting signatures of a majority of parents who want change. It has been used so far in only two schools, 24th Street Elementary in LA Unified and Desert Trails Elementary in Adelanto.

“It should be clear that in the wake of the historic decision in Vergara, Parent Union leaders immediately grasped the opportunity and the responsibility to build upon their hard won seat at table around school site decisions into a seat at the table in Sacramento to advocate for the interests of all children in California,” Ben Austin, executive director for Parent Revolution, said in a statement.

Organizers expect candidates in the final days of their respective campaigns will be eager to gain the endorsement of Parent Union chapters, which they claim are a rising and expanding political constituency in California.

Few details about the event are available at this time, but a spokesperson confirmed it will “definitely be interactive.”

The co-sponsors — Parent Revolution, the Los Angeles Urban League and Students for Education Reform — said today that five of the seven board candidates and two of the three people running for the state position will appear.

The board candidates who have agreed to appear are Genethia Hudley-Hayes, Alex Johnson, Rachel Johnson, Hattie McFrazier and George McKenna. Two others are not listed as participants — Omarosa Manigault and Sherlett Hendy-Newbill, but no reason was given.

“Parents across the city and state recognize they need to have the ability to protect their children’s right to both a quality education and opportunity for a successful future,” the organizers said in a news release. “Recent parent successes have come from parents initiating improvements, becoming real partners with educators and community leaders in charting a course of success for their children. Parents need public elected leaders who are truly invested in crafting paths to provide all children in the state with a great education.”

Marshall Tuck and Lydia Gutierrez, the two candidates challenging the incumbent state education chief, Tom Torlakson, are scheduled to appear, but not Torlakson.

See details of event here.

Two other District 1 candidate forums are scheduled for May 7 and May 14.

Ben Austin

LAUSD School Board Member Steve Zimmer’s recent commentary “Standing with Beatriz” hit the nail on the head on one key issue: for our children, the stakes are high.

Let me acknowledge first that Mr. Zimmer is a good person who is doing what he feels is best for the children of LAUSD. On this issue, however, we have a principled disagreement about what that is.

Mr. Zimmer portrays himself as a grassroots underdog taking on a phalanx of nefarious billionaires who aim to “privatize” public education. What he fails to mention, is that he was also supported by over one million dollars in campaign contributions from the biggest and most powerful special interest group in the state. That fact doesn’t make him right or wrong, but it does make him part of the system. It isn’t a coincidence that the same adult special interests that bankrolled his campaign are now bankrolling the opposition to Vergara.

Mr. Zimmer wrote about the “Vergara fiction,” that the status quo is broken. But this harsh reality is unfortunately not fiction for the children who lose their talented, dedicated and loving teachers to layoffs each year just because they were hired last. And it’s not fiction for the children who have been molested and for those who were literally forced to eat semen by a teacher who was paid $40,000 to retire, with full benefits!

Vergara shifts the focus from the interests of adults to where it should have been all along: children.

Putting children first must be the “north star” by which all decisions are made in our public education system. Ninety one percent of likely California voters support a children-first agenda, but far too often the interests of powerful adults trump the interests of children.

This is not a coincidence.

It’s because kids don’t have a political action committee, and kids don’t have lobbyists.

Beatriz Vergara and the millions of children attending California public schools can’t vote.

When I served on California’s State Board of Education, every time I cast a vote there were lobbyists for teachers unions, administrator unions, charter schools and a plethora of other special interests sitting right there in the front row. Lobbying me. Watching me. Keeping track of every vote. They do the same with Mr. Zimmer.

But the seat for kids is always empty. Because kids don’t have lobbyists.

Sadly, the ordinary political process has failed our children, especially our low-income children, children of color and undocumented children. It has left a broken status quo in its wake. Extraordinary measures are now required.

The landmark Parent Empowerment Act – also known as the Parent Trigger – provides parents with a real seat at the table to advocate for the interests of their kids. That’s the theory of change undergirding the work of Parent Revolution.

Another innovative theory of change comes through the Vergara lawsuit, recognizing and enforcing a child’s constitutional right to a quality education because the normal political process has failed to do so.

As an LAUSD dad, I witness firsthand the inequity of the system every single day. Far too many children are sentenced to a high or low quality school based solely on their zip code or neighborhood.

I am fortunate to live in a nice neighborhood in West LA. On many mornings, I drop my daughter off at our neighborhood LAUSD school and walk past empowered parents who are getting what they need for their kids. I pass dedicated and effective educators who love our kids and are invested in their development.

After dropping off my daughter, because of my work at Parent Revolution, I often drive to schools like 24th Street Elementary School in the South LA/West Adams neighborhood. I hear stories from parents that kids and teachers were getting sick from noxious fumes and no one knew why, but no one took action to figure it out.

Once Parents Union members began to organize and collectively demand a better school, district officials took action and discovered the dead animal carcasses rotting in the air vents!

If there were dead animals on my daughter’s campus, there would be a S.W.A.T. team surrounding the remains before a parent or child even noticed it.

Same city. Same district. Same age kids. Same type of neighborhood school.

But nothing about those schools felt the same.

At 24th Street, the parents used their power under the Parent Empowerment law and now things are different.

Now the interests of children are represented at the bargaining table. Now the dead animals are cleaned up and the school has a culture of high expectations. But that’s not the case in over a thousand failing schools across the state of California.

As a parent, it is obvious to me that California children’s constitutional right to an equitable education is being violated every single tragic day, because these children are forced to accept conditions I would never accept for my own daughters.

Even if the ordinary political process doesn’t (or can’t) provide children a seat at the table when it comes to decisions that impact their future, this judge has the power to acknowledge the harsh reality of the status quo, and can make the common sense judgment that constitutional liberties exist to serve this exact purpose: to protect discrete and insular minorities who can’t protect themselves in the ordinary political process.

In the case of Vergara, that means protecting children like Beatriz and thousands of other children across the state.

A ruling in favor of the plaintiffs would embrace a bedrock principle as old as America itself: our children are our future and we must place their interests above our own.

Ben Austin is Executive Director of Parent Revolution and a board member of Students Matter, the organization bringing the Vergara case.

The results were included in a poll of 807 likely November 2014 voters, conducted in English and Spanish by Goodwin Simon Strategic Research between Dec. 8 and 15. Parent Revolution is a group that works with parents to make changes in their children’s schools, in accordance with California’s Parent Empowerment Act, the state’s so-called ”parent trigger” law.

The overarching message from the poll is that most Californians want the state public school system reworked and that parents must be included in the process. Latinos polled consistently higher in support of the need for real parent empowerment and decision-making in their children’s community schools.

These were among the poll’s other findings:

• 91 percent of California voters believe every decision about schools should be based on what’s best for the children in the classroom, not what is best for adults who work for the school. And 72 percent of Californians “strongly” agree with this statement.

• 82 percent of all voters and 88 percent of Latinos believe that parents should have the ability to force school districts to re-organize a school that has been failing for four years in a row or more.

• 76 percent of all voters and 82 percent of Latinos oppose weakening or repealing the Parent Empowerment Act.

Previous Posts: Parents using the ‘Trigger‘ law help get a pre-k for 24th street; UTLA voted to find a state lawmaker to change the parent trigger law; Morning Read: Parent Trigger School Opens a New Era.

Twenty-Fourth Street School

By the first of the new year, 24th Street Elementary School in West Adams will open a new pre-kindergarten program, a victory for parents concerned with how children were performing in grades beyond.

The change came about through California’s new Parent Empowerment Act, the so-called Parent Trigger Law, which lets parents implement changes that include replacing staff, adding programs, shutting down the school altogether and handing control over to a charter.

The law has been used in a small number of schools this year, drawing controversy in each case for its impact on union teachers and the parents of students who did not sign petitions seeking change.

Efforts for change at 24th Street began several years ago. Parent Maria Eloisa Alcala said the school was functioning poorly on a number of levels, with bathrooms that weren’t working properly, rats found in vents and, worse, low student achievement.

“Children at 24th were performing way below grade level,” said Alcala, who has two kids at the school. Children were testing badly, she adds, in both reading and math.

For that reason, she said, parents decided a pre-K program could make a difference. The school’s previous pre-K program was one of more than a dozen that the district had closed because of budget cuts.

“Studies have shown across the U.S. that early education efforts dramatically improve outcomes for children,” said Derrick Everett, a spokesman for Parent Revolution, an organization that works to support parents who want to use the trigger law. “It gives kids a head start on life, and that’s all that the parents wanted.”

Alcala, who was heavily involved in the effort to add a pre-K, said that despite ample research showing the benefits of early education for kids, there were no other pre-K programs in the area. “We really made clear that we wanted pre-kindergarten,” she said.

With the help of Parent Revolution, about 50 parents collected signatures on a petition to return pre-K to 24th Street. Last January, they gave the petition to LA Unified officials, and after a lengthy discussions with with a number of suitors, they handed the reins of the pre-K over to a local program called LA Up.

Now, as officials prepare to open to the program, over 90 kids – mostly around age three – are on a waiting list. Parents aren’t yet sure how many will be admitted, but are pleased with the amount of interest in the program.

“This makes things better for the kids,” says Everett. “For far too long, kids at 24th Street were not getting what they needed and deserved.”

Previous Posts: UTLA voted to find a state lawmaker to change the parent trigger law; CA Has a Plan for Using Test Scores — Even With No Tests (Updated); Haddon Parents Abandon Trigger, Still Get Changes

Gloria Romero, from her days as State Senate Majority Leader

Gloria Romero is stepping down from her position as Director of California Democrats for Education Reform (or DFER) to start a new organization, the Foundation for Parent Empowerment.

“I am thankful for the opportunity to have worked with DFER, but believe that it is time to move past party politics and focus my skills and organizing with parents who form the true base of any education reform movement,” she said in a statement.

In 2010, as a California State Senator, Romero authored the country’s first “parent trigger” law, which allows a majority of parents to replace a school’s leadership. But the fiercely independent Romero hasn’t always agreed with the tactics employed by Parent Revolution, the non-profit that has helped organize every parent trigger campaign in California to date.

Romero’s new organization will focus on empowering parents to affect change at their children’s schools.

“A myriad of federal and state laws exist which, when combined, offer parents greater opportunities to become more actively involved in helping their children pursue the American Dream via education,” she said.

Romero’s independence and unpredictability have earned her many enemies. Last year, she even broke with DFER’s national organization to support LA Unified and seven other California school districts in their quest for a No Child Left Behind waiver.

Nevertheless, DFER Executive Director Joe Williams lent a quote to Romero’s goodbye press release, saying, “We are extremely grateful for all the great work Gloria has done for children and families in California as an elected official in the California Legislature as well as her leadership of DFER in California.”

Previous posts: Reform Group Splits over Federal Waiver for LAUSD; Mayor Overreached Against Zimmer, Says Reformer; How Prop. 32 Could Affect LAUSD