By Ben Austin

Last month, my organization, Students Matter, issued its support of California’s AB 934 – a state bill that, though imperfect, honestly attempted to address the grave defaults in the state’s teacher tenure, dismissal and layoff laws challenged by the student plaintiffs in Vergara v. California. (A 2014 ruling in that case sided with the students but was overturned by an appellate court earlier this year; the plaintiffs are now appealing to the California Supreme Court.)

Students Matter worked with California Assemblymember Susan Bonilla’s office for months to craft commonsense legislation that supported effective teachers and prioritized quality across California’s public education system. When introduced, the bill drew praise from parents, educators, community leaders and newspaper editorial boards across the state.

All that progress was eliminated last week with the strike of a pen.

Late last Tuesday night, Students Matter got notice of a new version of AB 934, revised in advance of an upcoming vote before the California Senate Education Committee. Watered down and gutted beyond recognition, the new AB 934 preserves the unconstitutional and unjustifiable disparities in students’ access to effective teachers caused by the current laws.

• Read more: Parents want legislature to act on teacher tenure

Rather than bring California in-line with the states making strides toward educational equity, AB 934 continues California’s decades-long tradition of robbing students of the quality education they deserve. In an about-face betrayal of California’s students and hardworking families who depend on our public schools, AB 934 now abandons California’s 6 million public school students and hard-working public school teachers by embracing a harmful, unpopular and unconstitutional “business as usual” mindset.

So what happened? A backroom deal that was manufactured by the state’s most powerful special interest groups, which swapped a promising bill out for a reinforcement of the status quo. And while the new AB 934 might work for those groups and their lobbyists, it’s a bad deal for California students, parents, teachers and voters, who trusted their elected representatives to serve and protect the people.

Specifically, the new AB 934 leaves in place California’s quality-blind “last in, first out” layoff criteria —  a system that 76 percent of public school teachers and 82 percent of California voters oppose.

In a review of California’s “last in, first out” process conducted over four years ago, the state’s own Legislative Analyst Office concluded that seniority-based layoffs lead “to lower quality of the overall teacher workforce” and recommended that “the state explore alternatives that could provide districts with the discretion to do what is in the best interest of their students.”

Additionally, instead of making teacher tenure an earned benchmark based on demonstrated quality of instruction, as teachers and policy organizations across the country strongly have advocated, AB 934 now doubles down on making tenure a time-based employment decision.

Combined with not requiring districts to use any evaluation system when making employment decisions, AB 934 treats all teachers as interchangeable widgets.

The new AB 934 also does nothing to streamline California’s arduous dismissal process, which entrenches grossly ineffective teachers in classrooms indefinitely. The amended version of AB 934 allows local districts and teachers unions to negotiate an alternative dismissal system, eliminating the bill’s previous language whereby an ineffective teacher could be dismissed with due process after two negative evaluations and a robust professional development program. AB 934 even adds to the bureaucratic red tape by forcing a patchwork of dismissal policies throughout the state, the success of which will depend on the status of the relationship between districts and their teachers unions.

But students cannot choose where to attend school based on the status of adult politics. All students in California deserve effective teachers, regardless of zip code or the health of their district’s labor relations.

In short, the gutted version of AB 934 adds insult to injury for millions of Californians and stands as the poster-child for the kind of politics that benefit powerful special interests at the expense of students, parents and all the rest of us. The Senate Education Committee must reject AB 934 when it comes up for a vote this Wednesday, June 29.

California’s hardworking families deserve leadership in tackling the greatest challenge the state faces today: preparing all students for successful careers and meaningful participation in the future of the state. Politics as usual like the kind that produced the new AB 934 will keep California’s dropout factories chugging along.

If the California Supreme Court was still debating whether or not to step in and review the Court of Appeal’s misguided reversal in Vergara, they now have their mandate.

Ben Austin leads policy development for Students Matter, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to sponsoring impact litigation to promote access to quality public education. Learn more at StudentsMatter.org. Prior to Students Matter, Austin served as the deputy mayor of Los Angeles and worked in the Clinton White House.

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.”

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.

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.

Among other things, Ravitch wrote that “There is a special place in Hell reserved for everyone who administers and funds this revolting organization that destroys schools and fine educators like [Weigand Avenue Elementary School principal] Irma Cobian.” She also called Austin “loathsome,” described him as the Walton Family’s “useful idiot.”

While some applauded her writing, a handful of online commentators called Ravitch out for her language.  Parent Revolution sent out a series of press releases blasting Ravitch on the facts and on her tone. Austin himself wrote a deeply personal open letter to Ravitch describing difficult aspects of his own childhood as his motivation for wanting to help fix broken schools like Weigand Avenue Elementary.

On Friday, Ravitch apologized to Austin – sort of:  “I lost my temper,” she wrote, “and I have to explain why. I don’t like bullies. When I saw this woman targeted by your powerful organization, it looked like bullying.”

Ravitch also apologizes to Cobian, the principal, on behalf of Austin: “Maybe next time, he will think twice, get better information, and consider the consequences before he decides to take down another principal.”

Previous posts: Parent Revolution Reaches Out to UTLA Teachers; Parent Trigger: Times Debates Transparency, Urgency; Teachers Union Turning Back Against Parent Trigger

Left to right: Greuel, Garcetti, James, Perry, Pleitez

Prior to today’s United Way mayoral candidate’s forum, we had been told to expect Wendy Greuel to “come out” as an “education reformer.”

But instead it was Eric Garcetti who took the opportunity to align himself with the so-called reform movement, voicing unequivocal support for LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy, the parent trigger law, and even performance-based pay.

In an interview with LA School Report after the forum ended, Garcetti denied any sort of change in positions.

“I’ve been consistent for years, before I even ran,” he told LA School Report.

Observers disagreed over whether Garcetti’s rhetoric was genuine or merely a tactical maneuver.

Today’s was the first Mayoral candidates forum that focused entirely on education. It took place in front of an extremely pro-reform audience — none other than Eli Broad was sitting in the front row.

Garcetti was endorsed by the teachers union last month after saying at a mayoral debate, “I’m sick of us bullying our teachers… We’re so obsessed with firing the bad teachers, we forgot to lift up the good ones.”

Newton ended his column by encouraging the candidate to use the United Way event “to lay to rest fears that his positions have been molded by his UTLA support.”

It was advice that Garcetti seemingly took to heart.

“I’ve disagreed with UTLA on many things — seniority, parent trigger,” he said.

It wasn’t just the trigger.  On issue after issue, Garcetti talked the talk. He also said he was in favor of linking “higher salaries to accountability,” raising money for school board candidates, mayoral control of LAUSD (though he cautioned, “it ain’t gonna happen”), Superintendent John Deasy (“He’s doing a great job. He needs to be reappointed,”) and school choice.

Many in the audience found his stance — if not a shift then certainly a new side of the candidate — surprising.

“I think he made news there,” said Parent Revolution founder Ben Austin, who was sitting in the audience. “That was significant.”

But not everyone was as convinced of Garcetti’s sincerity.

“Garcetti realizes UTLA has no money so now he becomes a fake reformer,” said pro-reform political consultant Mike Trujillo in a text message to LA School Report. “If Garcetti is a reformer, then I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.”

Greuel, who was endorsed today by former School Board President and ardent school reformer Yolie Flores and current School Board members Nury Martinez and Dr. Richard Vladovic, took up the reformer position as well, praising Superintendent Deasy (“He came in taking no prisoners”) and criticizing UTLA.

“What has happened, often, is teachers don’t believe that UTLA is looking out for their best interests,” she said.

The other candidates, Kevin James, Jan Perry and Emanuel Pleitez, all took up similar positions, praising Deasy and school choice while criticizing the teachers union.

In fact, all the candidates were in nearly complete harmony on most issues, causing the moderator, Dr. Raphael Sonenshein, to joke, “I give candidates permission to disagree with each other.”

Prior to the forum, the candidates filled out written questionaires, which you can download here: Greuel, Garcetti, James, Perry, Pleitez.

Previous posts: Education Summit Could Reveal Mayoral Candidates’ Differences, Video: Mayoral Candidates Talk Education, Mayoral Candidate Greuel Supports Garcia, Parent Trigger;  Candidate Garcetti Waffles on School Board Endorsement

24th Street parents hand their petition to LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy (via LA Times)

Nearly 100 parents of students attending 24th St. Elementary dropped off a “parent trigger” petition yesterday at LAUSD’s headquarters, demanding drastic reforms and new governance for the school.

At LAUSD, the parents received a “strikingly” different reception than parents received in previous instances of the parent trigger, according to the LA Times‘ Teresa Watanabe.

And the reaction from LAUSD was strikingly different from the reaction from UTLA.

According to the AP’s Christina Hoag, “The parents want the district to install new school leadership, an improved academic program with high expectations for students, and ensure a clean and safe school… If that doesn’t work, parents will move to convert the school into a charter.”

Around 68% of all parents have signed the petition, which was delivered to Superintendent John Deasy.  CBS news has video of the hand-off.

The event was also captured on Twitter, which you can review here.

Some of the parents were frustrated at LAUSD for not having helped the school change quickly enough in the past two years, notes SCPR’s account of the event.

But Deasy welcomed the parents and discussed their frustrations and hopes during a meeting at the Board headquarters.

Superintendent Deasy listens to parents (via Parent Revolution)

On its official Twitter account, the message was much less conciliatory:

The Parent Trigger is not the right tool for school reform. The end result will be that all faculty will be removed from the school.

— UTLA (@UTLAnow) January 17, 2013

 

Using the Parent Trigger to reform schools is like using an axe to perform complex surgery. As a blunt instrument it does not work.

— UTLA (@UTLAnow) January 17, 2013

Deasy will meet with parents again next week once he’s read the petition, which is apparently quite long, since it includes an in-depth plan for the school. In the meantime, his staff will verify the parents’ signatures.

Courtesy of Parent Revolution

Previous posts: Parents Hand Trigger Petition to Deasy, Previewing Tomorrow’s Parent Trigger, Parent Trigger Coming to LAUSD, You Say You Want a Revolution

Kate Anderson and family, via Twitter

But why should anyone be paying attention? There aren’t even any candidates yet! Or at least not many of them. Or at least not officially.

Behind the scenes, however, interest groups are searching furiously for the perfect candidate — and potential candidates are huddled around kitchen tables deciding if they should go for it.

One of the most-discussed contenders to run against Steve Zimmer for District 4 is Kate Anderson (pictured), executive director of a reform organization called Children Now.

Read below for more about Anderson and other possible District 4 candidates, and check back soon for the rundown on Districts 2 and 6, which are also in play.

Since many school board votes are 4 to 3, the stakes couldn’t possibly be higher for both sides. (If you think that’s hyperbole, check out the amount of money spent on the 2011 school board races: more than $5 million, with nearly $3.5 million of that going to the race in District 5, which was open.)

There are as of yet no declared challengers for District 4, however, Anderson‘s is the name that’s being bandied about the most. She ran for State Assembly in 2010, but was defeated in the Democratic primary by Betsy Butler, who was the eventual winner. Anderson is now the Los Angeles director of Children Now, an advocacy group that deals mostly with child health issues and early childhood education. She also sits on the board of the Mar Vista Community Council.

“It’s not something that I’ve entirely ruled out,” Anderson told me over the phone today. “I have two daughters in Mar Vista elementary, a public school, and they’re getting terrific education. I think LAUSD is doing a fine job given what it’s got, but it could be doing better, and I wonder if i could be useful in improving the system. But i haven’t made any decision about it.”

If Anderson decides to stay out, there’s a slim chance that Ben Austin could be convinced to run again. Now head of Parent Revolution, Austin was a former deputy mayor under Richard Riordan, a former Green Dot employee, and —  embarrassingly — a failed 2009 candidate for LAUSD school board who did not collect enough signatures to qualify (see: Setback for school board candidate). Austin went on to serve on the State Board of Education and was instrumental in getting California’s Parent Trigger law passed in 2010. (See: California’s Parent Trigger).

The last day to file for candidacy is November 10.

See our previous post, Candidacy Countdown, for a (slightly outdated) look at official candidates and cash they’ve raised. More on the money, and on the other potential candidates, in the days to follow.