{"id":18199,"date":"2011-01-13T11:03:05","date_gmt":"2011-01-13T18:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/?p=18199"},"modified":"2011-01-13T11:05:31","modified_gmt":"2011-01-13T18:05:31","slug":"parents-teachers-and-activists-debate-education-in-los-angeles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/2011\/01\/13\/parents-teachers-and-activists-debate-education-in-los-angeles\/","title":{"rendered":"Parents, Teachers, and Activists Debate Education in Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><ul class=\"inline-playlist playlist\" title=\"\"><li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.archive.org\/download\/DailyDigest-011311\/2011_01_13_trigger.mp3\">Listen to this segment <\/a><\/li><\/ul><ul class=\"inline-playlist playlist\" title=\"\"><li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.archive.org\/download\/DailyDigest-011311\/2011_01_13_uprising.mp3\">Listen to the entire program<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" align=right width=55% src=\"http:\/\/witnessla.com\/files\/2010\/12\/McKinley-sign-board-2.jpg\" alt=\"mckinley\" \/>Compton\u2019s McKinley Elementary School has found itself at the center of the on-going national debate on education.  Touching off this latest battle is the so-called \u201cParent Trigger\u201d option, outlined in The Parent Empowerment Act of 2010, which recently passed California\u2019s state legislature by a slim but bipartisan majority. Under the trigger option a majority of parents whose students are enrolled in a school deemed by the California Department of Education (CDE) as \u201cchronically underperforming,\u201d can petition that school to enact one of four intervention models. These intervention models are replacing the school principal;  exerting some control over staffing and budget; closing the school completely and sending students to a nearby, better performing school; or establishing a charter school in place of the existing school. This final, and most drastic option, is what Parent Revolution chose as the method to effect change in the struggling Compton Unified School District. Parent Revolution is a non-profit organization with ties to the charter school movement. However, shortly after the group delivered the petition signed by more than 60% of parents, the McKinley staff and teachers unions leveled allegations of intimidation and deception during the effort to amass the required signatures. Parent Revolution countered with its own allegation that the staff spread misinformation about who could be enrolled at the replacement charter school. <\/p>\n<p>At the behest of the California Board of Education (CBE), the state\u2019s attorney\u2019s general will conduct an investigation into both sides of the dispute to determine any wrongdoing. But it is this very body on which sat Ben Austin, the Executive Director of Parent Revolution, that is, until he and others were just replaced by Governor Brown with pro-teachers union members. Further complicating things is that the CBE has yet to vote on the final regulation and language of the Parent Empowerment Act. <\/p>\n<p>McKinley is comprised of roughly 60% Latino and 40% African-American students and ranked in the bottom 10% of similar schools. But it has become a closely watched case-study for pro-charter school reformers throughout the country, including former Obama Administration Chief of Staff and Chicago Mayoral candidate, Rahm Emanuel. States around the country, including Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, West Virginia and Maryland are considering enacting laws similar to the Parent Trigger. <\/p>\n<p><em>GUESTS: Gabe Rose, Deputy Director of Parent Revolution, A J Duffy, President of the United Teachers of Los Angeles<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Find out more at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.parentrevolution.org\">www.parentrevolution.org<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.utla.net\">www.utla.net<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Compton\u2019s McKinley Elementary School has found itself at the center of the on-going national debate on education. Touching off this latest battle is the so-called \u201cParent Trigger\u201d option, outlined in The Parent Empowerment Act of 2010, which recently passed California\u2019s state legislature by a slim but bipartisan majority. Under the trigger option a majority of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-program"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18199\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}