Parent trigger on agenda today. Is the bill fatally flawed?
A Senate committee takes up the parent trigger bill today.
Originally, House Bill 123 allowed a majority of the parents or teachers in a failing school to petition the school board for a complete overhaul of a the school by converting to charter school status or another turnaround model. The bill specifies that the parents can remove school personnel, including the principal, or mandate the complete reconstitution of the school. In a feature unique to the Georgia bill, even parents of high performing schools can apply for their schools to convert to a charter school.
But House Bill 123 underwent dramatic change in its move from House passage to Senate consideration. The Senate eliminated any mention of teachers in failing schools being able to petition for a management overhaul. The Senate version limits that power to parents.
I asked the bill’s sponsor, House Majority Whip Edward Lindsey, R-Atlanta, for a comment.
“We’ll see what the Senate committee does with my bill. I obviously like giving teachers a greater voice since I put it in the original bill. If the Senate decides to modify the bill, I told the teacher reps that I would work with them on other ways to accomplish this,” he said.
Two education activists sent me this essay in opposition to the bill. Latasha Walker is an advocate for arts in education. Parent Annette Davis Jackson is executive director of the Ken Ford Foundation, a music education corporation.
By Annette Davis Jackson and Latasha Walker
The General Assembly is back at work fixing education. Its latest solution is known as the “Parent Trigger” bill. The “trigger” is a mechanism by which parents in a low performing school district can petition to fire everyone or convert to a charter system.
Sounds innocent, right? Unfortunately, House Bill 123 does nothing to fix Georgia’s educational system. Rather it sacrifices our children, punishes public school families and firmly places the state in the homes of Georgians.
While the bill is well intended, no amount of spin can explain away the four fatal flaws of this bill. We are parents of three public school children, grades 6, 7 and 8.
Allow us to explain why these flaws make HB 123 bad law for families:
Over the last decade, the Georgia Assembly has reduced public school funding by more than a billion dollars. Approximately two-thirds of all school districts are open for less than the norm of 180 days. Teachers across the state are furloughed regularly. Funding is so anemic that in places like Floyd County over 100 certified and administrative staff are being laid off.
All of this means more students with fewer teachers and even fewer resources. Now, via HB 123, the Legislature wants to take even more resources and shift even more costs to taxpayers.
The first fatal flaw in HB 123 is that it is an unfunded mandate. This legislation adds more rules and regulations and increases our financial burden.
The bill states: “The local school system may provide transportation for students in non-Title I schools. In any year in which the General Assembly does not appropriate funds for the provision of transportation to non-Title I students, the parent or guardian shall assume responsibility for the transportation of that student.”
Translation: Good luck getting your kid to school. Supporters say that will only happen if the General Assembly does not fund transportation. For those of us with children in packed middle schools, remember that Georgia just raised the classroom size caps because the state cannot afford more buildings and more teachers. How long do you think it will take before the General Assembly cuts even more funding for transportation? Perhaps GDOT can authorize more HOT lanes and toll booths across the state to fund school bus routes.
The second fatal flaw is that HB 123 gives the state the power to dictate to communities what reforms they can implement. For Republicans, this type of government intervention runs contrary to their very philosophy. For Democrats, the issue is not government intervention, but the lack of funding provided to implement the types of interventions outlined.
Rather than encouraging local solutions or funding the full 180 day school year for every district and ending furloughs, HB 123 limits unhappy parents to two options: Convert to a charter or pick from an already created list of reforms.
The third fatal flaw is that HB 123 fails to protect certain groups of parents. The bill prohibits harassment of those who are involved with petitioning to change the school management or become a charter school. This is fair and the right thing to do for all sides. But in its silence about the other side, those who don’t want the changes, HB 123 implies it is OK to harass parents and families who do not support a petition. It is foolish to think that harassment is a one-way street, particularly when the subject is emotionally charged.
The fourth fatal flaw is that this bill does very little to fix the problems we know exist. We know that it takes at least a few years before any reform can fully take hold, yet this legislation authorizes a potential shift after only one year. We know that high student-to-teacher ratios are bad for teaching and even worse for learning, but the caps on classroom sizes are only going higher.
We know that many rural school districts are suffering under the strain of the recession to meet their basic budgets, yet this legislation will shift even more money away. There’s plenty to fix that will improve our educational outcomes, yet they are ignored in favor of a something untested that has no track record of success.
We have to do better by our students. Georgia can and must improve its graduation rate and that means being willing to push the boundaries. The question is what boundaries are we pushing?
Rather than demanding that our teachers and our schools do more with less of everything, perhaps the solution is simple: Restore the full school calendar and incentivize high performing teachers.
While these solutions can and should be debated, the flaws of HB 123 are clear. This bill is about punishment rather than reform, state intervention instead of state support.
The government should not dictate which reforms are going to work best. We cannot protect one group of parents and not the other. Last, we simply cannot ignore the problems that now exist and can be fixed. We need solutions, but we do not need HB 123.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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78 comments Add your comment
concernedmom30329
March 21st, 2013
9:59 am
These mothers have used magnet programs for their children in DeKalb. (i think one is no longer a DeKalb parent.) I find it frustrating that they believe it is ok for them to opt out of failing schools for a magnet school but not want parents to have options.
Magnets in DeKalb have cost more, sometimes 1000s more per student, than traditional schools for decades, until this year. Their children have benefited from so much, I find it ironic that they would deny other parents the same option, even if it has to come about from a parent trigger law.
Magnet parents sometimes overlook the benefits that come to their schools because the parents are such effective lobbyists.
Looking for the truth
March 21st, 2013
10:07 am
I’m just wondering one thing – government gets bent out of shape when there were sections of this country without running water or electricity. Why is our legislature intent on eliminating, by such machinations as this, public education? Maureen, I know what you said that 93% of students in Georgia go to public school. However, when you start talking vouchers, tax-payer funded scholarships, etc., you’re setting up two school systems. One for those who can afford to get out and one for those who can’t. Where will most kids go? Since poverty continues to be a major problem in our state, most kids will go to the (then wrecked) public schools.
Legislators, listen! Support public schools. Let those who want to go to private school do so without any state help. It’s an atrocity.
BTW the only parents who will pull the trigger are ones who have a problem with a particular school administrator or school teacher. When bullies run the schoolyard, only vicitims will remain.
Looking for the truth
March 21st, 2013
11:05 am
On the other hand, it might be kind of fun to watch the parents who want this “trigger” solution go at it. Two opposing sides who know what’s best for kids, even though they’ve never been in a classroom (as a teacher or volunteer) and their kids are always “perfect” angels. That might be one fight worth watching!
Those who think they know it all are particularly annoying to those of us who do!
Mountain Man
March 21st, 2013
11:12 am
“Mountain Man, Where are you going to put all these “retained students?” You want 17 year old wolves sitting in the same classroom with little dewey-eyed 12 year olds? Okay. Everybody retained that needs to be retained. Now what? How are you going to manage then? I await your “system design” reply.”
I have repeatedly said that I favor a system where students that fail in their regular classes are required to attend “summer school” (y’all remember that, or are you too young?). People then counter “there is no money for that”. So there is money to send the student an extra year on retention? Or worse yet, what happens is you throw that underprepared student in with everyone else and they get further behind until they reach 16 and drop out. Tha is CHEAPER?
In summer school they are in low teacher-student ratio classes where hopefully some can be raised up to mastery level (if the come to school, that is). If they fail after summer school, then they are retained.
As for those who have been retained twice, I propose different clasroom settings or either the alternative school, since there is a definite lack of will to learn.
Mountain Man
March 21st, 2013
11:22 am
Mary Elizabeth – I apologize for personally attacking your attendance answer – I just don’t think it was a realistic answer.
“ATTENDANCE. I was on the phone with parents and counselors about this if it became an issue.”
You were always able to GET the parent (singular) on the phone? Did you read about the student who was sent with police when the school could not get in touch with the emergency number the parent had left, because she turned off her cell phone because she was out of minutes? So parents then ALWAYS got the student to school every day and on time after that? The counselors you spoke with, they were ALWAYS effective at getting students to school? Current teachers in urban schools – would Mary Elizabeth’s process eliminate the attendance problem?
“I tried to care for my students and let them know that I cared for them, personally. I tried to keep my courses relevant to their needs, interesting in delivery, and challenging for them without the course being so difficult that they could not master the work.”
Is that not what I said?
” If attendance were a problem beyond that, I knew that it probably had to do with social/evironmental/psychological reasons. I would refer those students to the Student Support Team in my school for extra looking into”
So what was your “plan” for solving the “social/evironmental/psychological reasons”? Do all schools have “Student Support Team” and are they effective at handling attendance issues? Teacher – again I ask you if this is a reasonable solution?
I notice you never said you referred students to the Truancy Officer and I don’t know if schools even HAVE truancy officers any more. Do they do their job? Or is MAKING parents get their kids to school by means of fines or jail time just not PC anymore?
Mountain Man
March 21st, 2013
11:23 am
And, finally, Mary Elizabeth, to address your
Mountain Man
March 21st, 2013
11:29 am
Sorry about that,slip of the fingers.
And, finally, Mary Elizabeth, to address your “continuous progress instructional design” – so what you are saying is that when that 3rd-grader is promoted to the fourth grade even though he has not mastered the material, the fourth grade teacher must now divide her class into two (or more) mini-classrooms, where she then teaches one set of students the regular material, and teaches the other set the material they were supposed to already know – at an accelerated rate to get them “caught up”. Is that an accurate description? As I am not a teacher, I again put this out there to the current teachers – is this a truly workable solution with the class sizes you deal with today? This, of course, is assuming that the student actually WANTS to learn and will do the work, and it also assumes that the child did not fail because they were absent so much or that the absenteeism problem has been addressed.
We won’t even get into the discipline issue. Or the special ed issue.
Astropig
March 21st, 2013
11:32 am
The above essay is just a bunch of self interested tripe.Educrats use the code words “profit” and “untested” and “fringe” to demonize people that they disagree with. The bill doesn’t go far enough in my opinion.I have become convinced that only a complete privatization of schools will get rid of the malcontent know-it -alls that staff the public schools.I used to support that halfway house of unhappy educrats (charter schools) as a reasonable compromise, but it’s obvious that the cartel will sabotage any meaningful reforms of the status quo for their own selfish reasons.I’ve had it-Vouchers Now,Vouchers Forever.
Congrats you idealogues-You’re losing moderate voices like you’ve lost the legislature. It’ll be fun watching your total marginalization.
Rick L in ATL
March 21st, 2013
11:34 am
I can rebut the extremely weak arguments raised by these two well-intentioned parents in eight typographical characters:
dkss,aps
Sorry. And you worked so hard to push that boulder uphill.
Mountain Man
March 21st, 2013
11:38 am
“bootney, If I have not made it clear enough, I am some stunned by your enthusiasm to abandon 12 years olds (7th graders).”
Bootney is not abandoning the students – the students and their parents are abandoning themselves. They have been given a great opportunity to get an education and lift themselves out of the gutter and they have said” no, thank you, we prefer the gutter”.
Private Citizen
March 21st, 2013
12:08 pm
In summer school they are in low teacher-student ratio classes where hopefully some can be raised up to mastery level (if the come to school, that is). If they fail after summer school, then they are retained… As for those who have been retained twice, I propose different clasroom settings or either the alternative school, since there is a definite lack of will to learn.
Good idea, except that your state has eliminated funding for summer school and has shut down the alternative schools, which is part of the problem with ongoing disruption and kids who “run this school.” It’s a bad situation. I’ve been there, in the classroom with unregulated children and little can be done. There are many teachers who can report of this. It is really crazy, an abandonment. And the best part is the communication from THE STATE (that would be you, Mr. Barge) telling schools to reduce discipline.
the students and their parents are abandoning themselves
That’s ridiculous. You’re completely out of touch. And any of this treating children as if they have decision powers is entirely inappropriate and is the very definition of dereliction from what used to be a shared community concept where the strong take responsibility. I suppose next you are going to blame poor people for that the road is not paved in front of their home. You’re really being a cretin with this view. The truth is the greater power structure used to give a da&&, and no longer they do and almost seem set to malign things instead of govern. And then put Mr. “go light” at the head of the state apparatus to re-deliver whatever the foundations come up with. I sure hope Mr. Barge is not planning on legacy because he is not doing anything beside riding herd over what big-power is telling him what to do. Maybe open a bait shack instead? -Step back? Point is the state has issued directives telling schools to do less discipline. And forget about the weblog comments, go read the public commentary about schools and the conditions described, the “slow motion learning” and “bullying” and what seems like a low performing carnival, where the bad kids run the school and the alternative schools have been shuddered. Does not anyone anywhere take responsibility?
Private Citizen
March 21st, 2013
12:12 pm
Best’s Bait Shack “At least we can be the best at selling bait!” All that other stuff – you’re on your own!
(100 years later – Why that was the best bait shop there ever was. Good thing when a person finds their meaning!)
living in an outdated ed system
March 21st, 2013
12:14 pm
I disagree in principle with the letter @Maureen posted on this blog. That being said, I am disappointed with the language in the bill at hand. I even blogged about it on my own blog. (sorry, Dr. Trotter, I won’t self-promote it here). I believe in the concept of “parent trigger,” but the wording is too broad and, in my opinion, not “actionable.” I can’t even begin to outline the shortcomings with the language, one of which is the fact that a school board can override a petition. The accountability criteria is also “too easy.” Seriously, with GA’s graduation rate at 67%, do you know HOW MANY school districts are not at 65%? Ridiculous.
I am not close enough to what is going on behind the scenes in the senate – taking away the teacher element is another problem. In this case, I would have to acknowledge that no bill is better than this bill.
Private Citizen
March 21st, 2013
12:15 pm
Rick, I think you call those “acronyms.”
living in an outdated ed system
March 21st, 2013
12:15 pm
But it doesn’t really matter, because the Republicans will be able to ram it through to passage, regardless of what we all think.
Private Citizen
March 21st, 2013
12:16 pm
State house republicans at the weekend party, “Let’s bottle up the schools and shake it real good and watch the fizz!!” “Hoo-eee!”
Brasstown
March 21st, 2013
12:23 pm
“Congrats you idealogues-You’re losing moderate voices like you’ve lost the legislature. It’ll be fun watching your total marginalization.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaIJKM0sjdo
Private Citizen
March 21st, 2013
12:26 pm
Republicans – take the checkbook and run for the hills
Democrats – Install every “change how you think” directive imaginable and make it policy
parents – “My kid comes home upset every day”
teachers – “Roof is leaking and doesn’t look like it will be fixed. At least my blood pressure is up / doctor has pills. Less sleep, more efficiency”
local school board – “keep a lock down on our own people in each management position. if you’re not from here, you better remember who’s who”
assistant principal – “how am I supposed to inventory these mismatched raggedy books?”
principal – “Good morning students and staff. 29 days until THE TEST.”
testing company personel – “maybe leave at 4:45 today, take Fi-Fi to the vet, check on the 401k, nice trip planned for this weekend, fresh air and sunshine, hike in the mountains”
Arne Duncan – “How ’bout some b-ball, cuz? Mission accomplished.”
Private Citizen is a serial bore
March 21st, 2013
1:41 pm
Ditto for bootney and Mountain Man. Anyone for taking up a collection to add daytime TV to their cable package?
Mountain Man
March 21st, 2013
2:21 pm
“Private Citizen is a bore” must be the handle for an ADMINISTRATOR who is TERRIFIED at the arguments that I (and bootney) bring up!
Mary Elizabeth
March 21st, 2013
3:09 pm
@ Mountain Man, 11:22 am and 11:29 am
Yes, every school in Georgia is required by law to have a Student Support Team which is composed of social workers, school pyschologists, counselors, teachers, administrators, parents, and any other needed specialist within a school system that would be of benefit to the student with difficulties. That team might recommend sending a student to a truant officer, if other strategies had not effective. I was the Chair of my high school’s Student Support Team for over a decade and I know how effective that team of specialists can be for getting a student on the right track for him or her.
I was able to talk with all of the parents or guardians with whom I knew I must converse about serious problems, including attendance problems. I managed to contact them through personal phone calls, counselors, administrators, or in writing in which I requested a conference. Now teachers can keep contact with parents, about students’ various needs, through computers.
Discipline problems, attendance problems, as well as students’ failing their courses, often are all a direct result of teachers and administrators not addressing the precise instructional needs and placement of individual students.
Please try to really understand this, Mountain Man: All students do not learn the grade level curriculum at the same RATE, or SPEED, of learning the material. These students can learn the curriculum but they must take LONGER than is the norm for most students to learn the required material. That will often be the case for every grade that these students are in. You cannot keep failing or retaining students over and over again. The instructionally wise answer is to advance these students into the next year in school, but place them in the correct instructional group in which they might learn. So, as an example, a 5th grade student, who is behind other 5th graders in reading, would be taught on 3rd, or 2nd, or 4th grade reading level, depending upon where he actually functioned. If that student were on grade level in math, then he would be taught on 5th grade level, with the majority of the 5th grade students. Students realistically vary in their instructional needs, even from one curriculum area to another area.
Let’s say that that student were reading on a 3rd grade level. Then, there are many ways to accommodate his individual needs. The student might go to the 4th grade hall and be taught in a below average group of 4th graders who are actually reading on 3rd grade level. Another option, would be that he remain in the 5th grade hall and two 5th grade teachers team teacher so that one takes all the kids reading on grade level (5th grade level) for both of them, and the other teacher would teacher kids from both classes who are reading on 3rd/4th grade level as well as those who are reading on 6th/7th grade level. Either teacher might have the help of a paraprofessional or the help of a parent/senior/business volunteer who has had some rudimentary training in instruction and discipline.
Or, as you suggest, the teacher could be trained in how to handle two groups in reading within in her classroom, with some reading on grade level or above, and others reading below 5th grade level. That teacher would not necessarily be trying to “catch up” the below grade level students, although some from the lower group may “catch up” with the faster group. What the teacher should be trying to do is to teach each group to their optimum mastery levels of their separate instructional objectives -knowing that the students will learn at different RATES. Mastery is the key, not “catching up.” Moreover, teachers should lead students to mastery as quickly as the students can truly obtain mastery of the instructional objectives they are being taught. This continuous progress instructional design allows for teachers always to be instructing students where they are actually functioning, which will cut down on failure, discipline problems, and attendance problems. This design acknowledges that those students who will learn at a slower rate, or speed, will probably graduate from high school as older students than the norm, and having spent more years in school than the norm of 12 years. However, the key is that practically all students will be successful all along the continuum of their 12, 13 or 14 years in school because they all will have been properly instructed where they were actually functioning – at point in time.
catlady
March 21st, 2013
3:10 pm
I don’t know enough about this. Does it allow parents to hand the goods over to private companies, and the SB has to pay for it?
Mary Elizabeth
March 21st, 2013
3:13 pm
Correction: “Teachers would team teach,” not “teacher would team teacher”
Mountain Man
March 21st, 2013
3:27 pm
I give up – all you teachers out there please implement Mary Elizabeth’s mastery learning system immediately. You will see your students flourish. I have every confidence that you can easily implement this system.
I can see now that all our problems have stemmed from exactly what the cons have been claiming all along – it is the fault of the TEACHERS. If they just teach correctly, if they are just GOOD teachers, then our students, even the difficult ones, will learn. We don’t need better ADMINISTRATORS, or better BOARD members – we just need superteachers. Good luck!
Mountain Man
March 21st, 2013
4:24 pm
Mary Elizabeth I guess you and I will just have to agree to disagree. I am obviously not going to change your mind and you are not going to change mine, so everyone else can just make up their own minds. You obviously were a talented and caring teacher and I salute you for that. Your intentions still remain the best.
Mountain Man
March 21st, 2013
4:26 pm
“Ditto for bootney and Mountain Man. Anyone for taking up a collection to add daytime TV to their cable package?”
I don’t need no daytime TV package – I have plenty of recordings of episodes of “Duck Dynasty” that I can watch!
Mary Elizabeth
March 21st, 2013
4:43 pm
Mountain Man, 3:27 pm
I have much respect for teachers and administrators. I simply believe that the instructional design for most schools is flawed. Notice in the next thread, “. . .teachers complain of the pressure to change grades. . .” that many students are actually failing and that teachers are being urged to change the grades of these students so that students do not APPEAR to be failing.
Aside from the unethical practice of coercing teachers to assign a false grade, the instructional design, itself, is faulty, imo. Students must be instructed where they are actually functioning and, as a result of achieving that, few students will fail.
I have mentioned before on this blog that about seven years ago, the DeKalb School System had decided that all 8th students would be required to take a pre-algebra course. I realized at the time I read that a large number of those 8th grade students would fail because so many would have been misplaced. The instructional design, itself, in other words, was faulty. I was aware, from my instsructional background, that not all of those 8th grade students would have been ready to take pre-algebra in the 8th grade. That decision to take pre-algebra should have been an individual decision for students and not a decision for ALL of the 8th grade students.
As it turned out, at the end of that school year, between 1/2 and 2/3s of those 8th grade students had failed that 8th grade pre-algebra requirement. Whose fault was that? Was it the students’ fault that they were misplaced instructionally? Was it the teachers’ fault that they were mandated to teach a course over the heads of between 1/2 and 2/3s of the students in eighth grade? Was it the fault of the school administrators who were required to carry out a countywide decision? Where did this bad decision come from? Did it come from the county’s Dept. of Instruction? If so, I do not believe those instructional supervisors were aware of where the 8th grade students in the schools were actually functioning? Did that bad decision come from the county’s Board of Education? If so, then that Board of Education must not have been composed of enough members who had been educators with a background in instruction from grades 1 – 12. Did that bad decision come from parents who had pressured the school system to raise the standards of coursework early so that all of the students would be better prepared for college preparation courses in high school? If so, then those parents had not been well informed about a mathematics curriculum continuum nor about the individual variances of students’ academic growth and development, nor that students will learn curriculum content at variable rates.
But, I am not into blaming anyone or any group. I want to share with others – parents, teachers, and administrators, as well as members of Boards of Education, and even legislators – what I know to be true instructionally so that others can learn from my experiences in education. My principal who had designed his continuous progress, multiaged model school had earned a doctorate in instruction and he had been the school system’s Associate Superintendent of Instruction before he became the principal of his model school in order to put his knowledge of instruction into action. I was the beneficiary of his instructional knowledge and I helped him to implement successfully his continuous progress, mastery learning school design, for grades 1 – 7.
Where there is a will to do something, one will find a way to do it. First, however, one must be aware of basic truths about instruction. The basic truth about instruction is this: Students cannot learn – and they will fail – if they are not placed on, and taught on, their precise instructional levels as individual students in grades 1 – 12.
http://maryelizabethsings.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/about-education-essay-1-mastery-learning/
Pride and Joy
March 21st, 2013
5:53 pm
FATAL flaws?
Mwa ha ha.
Annette Davis Jackson and Latasha Walker obviously have no clue.
We parents don’t care about buses. We want our kids out of failing and marginal and clueless schools.
As it is, I don’t even allow my children to ever ride a bus because of the lack of security on them (recall the Tucker “parent” who followed a bus so that his daughter could beat up on another girl exiting the bus?) Yeah, right, I’m not putting my kid on that death trap.
And money? You’re complaining about “not fully funded” as a fatal flaw?
Charter schools run much more efficiently than traditional public schools and parents HAVE a clue about managing within a budget.
FATAL flaws?
Ha.
They’re strengths, not flaws.
These featured “essays” by these two “authors” are no more than the same old whining and complaining we hear from many, not all, teachers on this blog.