Florida Education Commissioner Tony Bennett has warned that “parent trigger” bills expected to pass the Legislature are flawed. He’s right, but for the wrong reasons.

Parent trigger laws, despite the name, have nothing to do with guns. But they are a weapon in the scheme to privatize public education. And the parent trigger fad mimics in-your-face laws that the National Rifle Association makes lawmakers pass just to show who’s boss.

Similarly, parent trigger laws force lawmakers to kneel down before alleged education reformers like former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, whose Foundation for Excellence in Education — which takes money from for-profit charter schools — is a major advocate for parent trigger.

The bills allow parents of children in “failing” schools to change the school’s structure, including an option to turn the school over to a private charter school company.

School boards already have that option and others, including the option to close the school, hire a management company or convert the school to a district-run “turnaround” school. Now, the local school board decides what to do. The parent-trigger bill that passed a House education subcommittee last week (House Bill 867) would let parents recommend which option to exercise — assuming 51 percent sign a petition.

Read more here: http://www.bradenton.com/2013/03/20/4443578/parent-trigger-laws-wont-help.html#storylink=cpy