There is plenty going on these days with Parent Power activists within the school reform movement. And the work of families on behalf of the children they love offers more reasons why the rest of the school reform movement must fully join common cause with them.

Last week, the Connecticut Parent’s Union held a press conference at Hartford’s federal court house calling attention to the federal lawsuit it helped file against the Nutmeg State on behalf of Marie Menard, a grandmother who was charged with the laughable crime of stealing education. While that suit was dismissed, Menard’s case, along with that of Bridgeport mother Tanya McDowell (who is serving five years in prison for stealing education), led to last month’s passage of House Bill 6677, which now ensures that other poor and minority families seeking high-quality education will no longer have to face felony charges for doing what is right for their children. The Connecticut Parents Union has advocated for such a bill for the past two years.

Through its work, and that of its president, Gwen Samuel — including bringing attention to the plight of families such as that of Hamlet and Olesia Garcia of Philadelpha (who are being charged by the Montgomery County District Attorney with violating Pennsylvania’s Zip Code Education law), — Connecticut Parents Union continually advocates for expanding choice and providing parents with the tools they need to build brighter futures for our sons and daughters that they love. But that work extends beyond those issues. Last year, it brought attention to concerns from families in Waterbury about a gun range opened up near a school. It’s annual ‘This the Season to Be Reading event, which provides books to families and children in the Nutmeg State, played an even more important role after the massacre last December of more than 20 children and teachers in Newtown. Teddy bears were given to kids who attended the school along with letters of sympathy.

In Adelanto, Calif., parents of children who attend Desert Trails Elementary School are prepping up this week for the new school year. But this time, they won’t have to worry about sparring with the traditional district which has long run the school into the ground. This year, families control the governance of the school, with a charter school operator reporting to them on its overhaul. Desert Trails joins 24th Street Elementary in Los Angeles as the first schools families have taken full control of the schools serving their children through the Golden State’s Parent Trigger law.

Families in other parts of the state haven’t gone nearly as far. But as seen with parents of children attending Weigand Elementary School in the South Central section of L.A. (which ousted the school’s principal and demanded L.A. Unified put a better school leader in place), they have used the Parent Trigger law to equalize their positions at the education decision-making table and force changes that are not to the desire of either district bureaucrats or affiliates of the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers.

Meanwhile Parent Power activists in other parts of the country are working to become lead decision-makers in education. This includes Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina, which successfully advocated for the launch of a new school voucher program; and Black Alliance for Educational Options, which helped gain passage of school choice legislation in Alabama, as well as supported the move by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal to fund the Bayou State’s voucher program out of the state budget after the state supreme court’s wrongheaded ruling that it was unconstitutional to use the school funding formula to fund the program.

Then there is the work of other Parent Power activists such as Buffalo ReformEd, which continually pushes to reform the failing traditional district as well as inform families and others about such matters as how the district’s machinations with the AFT local there led New York State officials to withhold federal school improvement grant money for the overhaul of two of its worst high schools. Other Parent Power groups are just beginning to emerge, encouraged by the work of groups in other parts of the country.

Lets be clear: Not all of their efforts are ones with which Dropout Nation finds favor. The Texas Parents Union’s advocacy for House Bill 5, which essentially rolled back the array of reforms implemented over the past three decades, is wrongheaded because it will lead to the shortchanging of all children (including those from poor and minority backgrounds).

But part of the problem lies in part with the school reform movement’s own failure to build stronger ties with parents, especially those in the middle class. Nor have Parent Power activists and their allies succeeded everywhere. From Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s effort to convince state senators to vote down a proposed Parent Trigger law for the second straight year, to stillborn takeover efforts such as that by families who children attend Walsh Elementary School in Waterbury, Conn. (which is the subject of another suit by the Connecticut Parents Union), the reality remains that traditionalists, politicians, and even some reformers who should know better will do anything to oppose any effort by parents to do best by their children.

At the same time, the fact that so many families recognize that they should be active in structuring how schools serve their children is something that should be celebrated.

For one, Parent Power activists are working each day to end the disdain among traditionalists, including teachers’ union affiliates, and school officials, towards families whom they think are incapable of making smart decisions. This inherent distrust of families (especially Irish Catholic immigrant households of the 1840s, and black, Latino, and other minority and immigrant families of the last century), has always been at the heart of the traditional structure of American public education. As Temple University Professor William W. Cutler III illustrated in Parents and Schools: The 150-year struggle for control in American education, teachers unions, school boards, superintendents and administrators considered parents and the groups that represented them to be little more than tools for their co-opting. When earlier generations of families rebelled against such condescension, traditionalists would do all they can to beat them down. The most-infamous example happened in 1968, when the AFT’s New York City local, with the help of Big Apple and New York State officials, squashed the efforts of the mostly-black families overseeing the Ocean Hill-Brownsville school board to fire 13 teachers (along with administrators).

What these education traditionalists fail to realize — or admit — is that many families are no longer willing to accept this bargain. Poor and middle-class urban families long ago recognized that education is critical to revitalizing communities and helping their kids be prepared for successful futures in an increasingly knowledge-based economic future — and have long-concluded that traditional public education practices such as zoned schooling and ability tracking no longer work (if they ever did in the first place). Thanks to data on student, school, and teacher achievement unleashed as a result of developments such as Value-Added Assessment and the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act.

More importantly, families are recognizing that the “experts” really don’t know what they are doing. The very practices championed by traditionalists — from near-lifetime employment for teachers regardless of their ability to help kids succeed, to the overuse of the overdiagnosis of learning disabilities (especially among young black men, whose reading deficiencies are often diagnosed as being special ed problems) — are the underlying reason why schools fail to improve student achievement.These realities, along with the understanding that American public education spends $599 billion (as of 2011) abysmally, resulting in long-term pension and retired teacher healthcare burdens also weighs on their thoughts (and pocketbooks).

This isn’t to say that families fully understand all that is wrong with American public education; middle class families in suburbia, for example, still don’t full recognize the extent of the mediocrity plaguing suburban schools while poor and middle class urban households are far more aware of the extent of systemic education failure. What it does mean is that more families are demanding their rightful positions at the adult table of education as lead decision-makers, and are unwilling to go back to the little table and obediently go along with whatever their counterparts working in education demand. They want to be able to not only choose schools for their schools and not be restricted by Zip Code Education practices.

Even more, they want to actually what and how their children learn. This is why Parent Trigger laws are such important tools in advancing reform and engaging families. When families can take over and overhaul failing schools in their own neighborhoods (or merely force district bureaucracies to accept thwm as lead partners) they can take the steps needed to transform climates of failure into cultures of genius for our kids, expand the definition of choice beyond merely escaping failure, and rebuild the communities at which schools are the center.

This is already being seen in Adelanto, where two district board members were ousted last year after the district’s tactics in opposing the Desert Trails takeover (and that of NEA local officials) led citizens to challenge their incumbency. While not every Parent Trigger effort will lead to successful advocacy, Parent Power efforts can spur political action that benefits all children. More importantly, such advocacy helps even those families not engaged at such a level to become smarter in their school choices. This is because families no longer just defer to the advice of teachers and school leaders. And this is also a threat to traditionalists, who still.adhere to the myth of their own expertise even when it has proven long ago that it isn’t worth much.

For reformers, Parent Power offers opportunities for transforming American public education. But only if the movement is wiling to embrace it.

Far too many Beltway and institution-oriented reformers, more-interested in advancing their preferred solutions, disdain Parent Trigger laws as either encouraging divisiveness between families who may disagree over a school takeover, think parents aren’t knowledgeable enough to undertake school turnarounds (or make smart choices), and argue that the school choice approaches they favor are more useful.

As your editor has previously said, the first position ignores the reality that families deal amicably after other types of intra-community conflicts, while the second view fails to consider that families can figure out how to set up governance if they have high-quality information and are given advice by reformers in a respectful manner. And as I have noted in previous pieces, even when choice does fully flourish, families and communities will still want high-quality schools in their own neighorhoods; they should be able to overhaul the existing schools which, for better or worse, have long been part of the fabric of community life.

But the need for reformers to embrace Parent Power extends beyond supporting Parent Trigger laws. The school reform movement has long succeeded in spite of its small numbers, working with politicians in congressional corridors, statehouses, and city halls to pass laws that have helped more kids write their own stories. But small coalitions are not enough to sustain those efforts.

As seen this year in Texas with the passage of H.R. 5 and the Obama Administration’s move to eviscerate No Child’s accountability provisions (as well as with the pushback on implementation of Common Core reading and math standards), gains can be wiped out unless robust grassroots support, especially from families, is there to give political leaders cover. More importantly, when families aren’t being informed in simple yet sophisticated ways, they will sit on the sidelines or worse, support opponents of reform.

Reformers must also embrace Parent Power because it is the morally and intellectually honest thing to do. After all, these are the mothers and fathers of the boys and girls they love. More importantly, they are charged by the Creator and by society with nurturing, disciplining, and preparing their children to be good, knowledgeable, and productive adults. It is absolutely immoral and unacceptable to tell these families that they shouldn’t do everything they can to help their kids succeed — and absolutely repugnant to keep these families from exercising power on their children’s behalf.

School reformers have an opportunity to fully embrace Parent Power. And it starts with three steps.

The first? We must be ready to actively listen to families and engage them where they live. Green Dot and Future is Now Schools founder Steve Barr often makes the point that reformers going into urban communities must be willing to listen to community leaders and parents, who have been disappointed by earlier groups of outsiders. This active listening is also true for families regardless of their backgrounds. Once parents know that someone is listenng, they are willing to be allies.

The second step lies in providng families with high quality information — especially on how districts and adults working within them are helpingnkids get the knowledge they need — that is simple yet sophisticated and comprehensive. Useful data that can be used by families in making decisions leads to parents knowing better amd doing more.

Finally, reformers must do more than just praise Parent Power activists. After all, may of these groups are small and still need resources to sustain their efforts. They will also need assistance in building the internal capacity, including eveloping financial operations and controls. This is opportunity for both the nation’s biggest philanthropies working in reform as well as for individuals who want to provide the kind of funding and support usually done by venture capitalists in the private sector.

School reform cannot sustain be sustained for our children without the help of the mothers and fathers who love them. It is time to fully bring families into the fold.

New York State Education Commissioner John King took a smart stance for Buffalo’s kids.

If you want to get a full sense of how Buffalo Public Schools has continued to condemn the futures of thousands of students in its care — especially those from poor and minority backgrounds who cannot simply move into suburbia or use any form of inter-district choice — consider the decade-long performance of Lafayette High School, one of the worst of the district’s operations. Just 38 percent of Lafayette’s freshmen in its original Class of 2011 were promoted to senior year, according to a Dropout Nation  analysis of data submitted by the district to the U.S. Department of Education; that is lower than the 57 percent promoting power rate for the school for its Class of 2002. For young black and Latino men in particular, Lafayette has been little more than a way station toward dropping out into poverty and prison; just 31 percent of young black men, and 28 percent of Latino male peers in the original Class of 2011 were promoted to senior year.

So you can understand why New York State Education Commissioner John King moved on Thursday to allow students currently trapped in Lafayette, along with those attending East High — where just 31 percent of its original Class of 2011 were promoted to 12th grade — to attend school programs outside of Buffalo’s district boundaries  operated by Erie 1 Board of Cooperative Educational Services. Ignoring the pleas of Buffalo’s board members, who accused King of unfairly singling out the district, King also ordered Buffalo to hand over control of Lafayette and East either Erie 1 or another of the various cooperatives serving suburban districts outside of Buffalo in order to start turning the two schools around. If Buffalo doesn’t put Lafayette and East High under new management by August 12, King and the state’s Board of Regents could end up shutting down both schools altogether.

It isn’t as if Buffalo hasn’t had a chance to get its act together in overhauling the two high schools. Buffalo had originally agreed to hand day-to-day operations of the two dropout factories to the Talent Development program run by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for the Social Organization of Schools, the outfit whose famed researcher, Robert Balfanz, helped shed light on the nation’s dropout crisis and overall education crisis with his pioneering work. But the deal, which along with other turnarounds, would have been funded by $42 million in federal School Improvement Grant dollars doled out by the Empire State, fell apart thanks to the district’s machinations (and that of the American Federation of Teachers’ City of Good Neighbors local) over implementing the state’s new teacher evaluation system. Last year, King had rejected an evaluation agreement struck by Buffalo with the AFT local (and withheld SIG cash) because it didn’t include a component that would have held teachers responsible for their role in student attendance. Buffalo arouse even more ire from King (as well as from families in the district) in May after it was revealed in May that the district’s latest evaluation deal with the union included a side deal restricting use of the new evaluations for hiring and firing decisions, once again violating the letter, intent and spirit of the new system and SIG funding.

The fact that Buffalo continues to behave badly, both in its dealings with the state, and ultimately, in how it provides education to the children forced to attend its schools, should not be shocking at all. During the six-year tenure of former superintendent James Williams, the district did little to overhaul its operations and turn around its failing schools. The number of Buffalo schools that either needed improvement or some sort of corrective action (in short, failing) increased from 35 during Williams’ first year in 2005-2006 t0 to 41 by the time he was effectively forced to retire. Williams himself would eventually spend more time away from the office than in it, traveling 130 days out of one year to conferences as well as to a home he owns in Maryland. Meanwhile the district’s fiscal fecklessness has known few bounds, with its budget increasing by 20 percent between 2005-2006 and 2010-2011 — even as its enrollment declined by nine percent in the same period — thanks in part to contracts with the AFT affiliate that allowed for teachers to get nose jobs and other cosmetic surgeries at the expense of families and other taxpayers. [Buffalo spent $7.6 million on such surgeries between 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 alone.]

All the while, Buffalo’s bureaucrats and board subject children to the worst American public education offers. Just 15 percent of Buffalo’s seventh- and eighth-grade students were provided Algebra 1 in 2009-2010, according to Dropout Nation‘s analysis of data submitted by the district to the U.S. Department of Education’s civil rights database. A mere 11 percent of the district’s high school students were provided Advanced Placement courses, while only 18 percent of high schoolers accessed trigonometry, calculus or other forms of college-preparatory math. Yet there are few high-quality options for families to either help their kids escape Buffalo’s failure mills or take over individual schools operated by the district and overhaul them on their own. Just 16 percent of Buffalo’s school-aged children attend charter schools largely because so few have been authorized in the city. Efforts by Parent Power activists such as Buffalo ReformED to convince the Empire State’s legislature to pass a Parent Trigger law allowing them to take over the district’s schools have stymied by AFT and district opposition. Certainly the state could launch a voucher plan allowing families in Buffalo to send their kids to better-performing private schools in the city; earlier this year, the Foundation for Educational Reform and Accountability explained how the state Court of Appeals’ ruling in the successful school funding lawsuit against the state led by the now-defunct Campaign for Fiscal Equity could be leveraged to make such expansion of choice a reality. But until now, state officials — including Gov. Andrew Cuomo — have basically done little to end Zip Code Education policies that perpetuate educational abuse and neglect.

Which makes King’s decision to allow students attending Lafayette and East Side to attend school outside the district an especially important one. In allowing kids at the two schools to escape the district’s failures, King is taking a small yet much-needed step toward ending practices that wrongly restrict families from providing their kids with better educational opportunities. More importantly, King is actually reminding reformers that there is plenty of leverage available for making inter-district choice a reality. Besides the fact that the state provides 74 percent of Buffalo’s school funding (as of 2009-2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau), and the Campaign for Fiscal Equity ruling, the existence of multi-district cooperatives such as Erie 1 — which has the capacity through districts it serves to provide kids with academic courses — allows for new possibilities for expanding choice.

What will be interesting to see is if King allows children attending Buffalo’s other failure mills and dropout factories to attend school outside the district. That would be an even bolder step because it would all but put the district out of business — as well as open up the opportunities for similar action across the Empire State. That may be further than what King’s ultimate bosses, Gov. Cuomo and Board of Regents Chair Meryl Tisch, are willing to go. But King can easily make a strong moral and educational case for expanding inter-district choice. Far too many kids, both in Buffalo and throughout the rest of New York State, are being educationally neglected at the expense of the state’s taxpayers. Children, families, and other taxpayers in New York deserve better.

King deserves praise for this tentative step toward expanding choice. Let’s hope he goes further.

Rick Hess shows the respect for Parent Power that Diane Ravitch cannot muster.

Certainly by now, there is no question that once-respectable education historian Diane Ravitch no longer deserves to be taken seriously. From her factual inaccuracies and logical misfires in her sophistry, to her effort this past December to politicize the massacre of 23 teachers and children at an elementary school in Connecticut, Ravitch continually discredits herself with every tweet and blog post. What has been questionable is how conservative reformers who were once her comrades in arms continue to give her any credence. The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, for example, gave Ravitch a prominent spot in its recent video on the 30th anniversary of the Reagan Administration’s release of A Nation at Risk, while leaving out others from poor and minority backgrounds who could give broader perspective on the issues brought to light by the report that remain today. Some rallied to Ravitch’s side two years ago, criticizing Kevin Carey for rightfully exposing her charlatanism  and honestly questioning whether her change of heart was related to her anger with former New York City chancellor Joel Klein over his decision to not hire partner, Mary Butz, for a post in the city’s department of education. As a result of their willingness to give her sophistry cover, Ravitch continues to be treated as if she deserves to be among more-respectable commentators on education policy issues. Too much credibility and respect is given to someone who has long ago lost both.

So it is nice to see that Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute finally offered some strong criticism of Ravitch for her latest bit of demagoguery, this time criticizing the families of children attending Los Angeles Unified School District’s Weigand Avenue Elementary School for successfully using California’s Parent Trigger law to oust Irma Cobian, the school’s principal, with the help of Parent Revolution. [Don’t worry: I will criticize Hess’ argument for a moratorium on implementing Common Core tests later this week.] From where Ravitch stood, the Weigand families and Parent Revolution wrongfully removed “an excellent principal” who was supposedly turning the school around; the families were, as far as Ravitch is concerned, dupes who helped the outfit “destroy schools and fine educators like Irma Cobian”. As you would expect, Ravitch had particular ire for Parent Revolution, which she called a “malevolent organization” which deserves “a special place in hell” for daring to help families become lead decision-makers in the schools their children attend; in another bit of demagoguery, Ravitch accused the outfit’s honcho, Ben Austin, of being a “loathsome”  person who “ruined the life of a good person for filthy lucre”.

As you would expect, Ravitch doesn’t get her facts straight. Between 2009-2010 and 2011-2012 — the bulk of Cobian’s four year-tenure running Weigand — the school only once met federal and state requirements for improving student achievement  — including those from black and Latino  backgrounds who make up the majority of enrollment. In fact the percentage of all Weigand students proficient in math declined from 61.6 percent in 2009-2010 to 43.7 percent in 2011-2012, according to data from the California Department of Education, while the percentage of all students proficient in reading declined from 38 percent to 35.4 percent in that same period. [Data for 2012-2013 is not yet available.] The fact that many of Weigand’s parents found Cobian to be rude and dismissive of them makes clear that there were clearly concerns about the tenor and effectiveness of her leadership style. It’s hard for anyone to be considered a high-quality teacher or school leader if they are unable to work respectfully with the mothers and fathers whose children you are entrusted with educating.

Hess rightfully calls Ravitch on the carpet for engaging in “vicious, Dante-esque hyperbole” that doesn’t actually address the underlying reasons for the decision the Weigand families made. As far as he is concerned, Ravitch’s “tirade” essentially stands in contrast to the fairly good-mannered approach Parent Revolution has undertaken in helping Weigand’s parents and other families looking to overhaul the failing schools their kids are forced to attend. From where he sits, Weigand’s families are perfectly within their rights to engage in the same kind of leadership hiring and firing that boards and shareholders in other organizations inside and out of education do every day in order to turn things around.

Meanwhile Hess actually shows respect for the decisions made by Weigand’s families when he complains that Ravitch didn’t take the opportunity to offer an honest and thoughtful critique of whether they were taking the right approach to turning the school around in the first place. Given what Ravitch has displayed over the past couple of years, it’s rather vain to expect her to undertake such an endeavor. But Hess is right in arguing that Ravitch should have at least attempted to address what is a legitimate question. Sure, one can argue as I do that the Weigand families would have been better off petitioning to take full control of the school from L.A. Unified instead of merely choosing to fire Cobian; after all, it is the district’s failures on the teacher quality, school leadership, and curricula delivery fronts that are the long-term culprits of Weigand’s problems. At the same time, one must also admit as I do that this is a situation in which the Weigand families may have been making the decision they think makes sense given the issues on the ground. 

For Ravitch to engage in such an exercise, she would first have to actually believe that families have the right to make educational decisions for their children as well as for the school communities their kids must attend. It also means trusting and accepting that families are making the best decisions for their kids and schools in light of the challenges they surmise. It means allowing families to take the responsibility for the consequences of their decisions that are implicit in undertaking Parent Trigger efforts in particular (as well as for Parent Power efforts in general). Finally, it means being willing to offer advise and guidance to those families so that they can make their decisions as well as learn from mistakes they (along with all of us) will inevitably make. Simply put, Ravitch would have to abandon the disdain she has expressed since her first book,he Great School Wars: A history of New York City schools, for families playing powerful roles in education. And that’s not going to happen.

The good news is that at least one conservative reformer has finally given Ravitch the business for her shoddy sophistry. It would be nice to see others do the same.

Certainly Parent Power activists and other reformers outside of Florida were shocked earlier this week when the state senate failed to pass the latest (and weakest) version of a proposed Parent Trigger law by a tie vote. What was even more shocking to them was the news that Gov. Rick Scott, who had seemingly pushed hard for systemic reform during his first two years in office, was the man behind killing the bill. As Sunshine State News reported this week, Scott’s staff had worked the halls of the statehouse calling upon any senator they could find to vote against the bill, which had won strong passage out of the house just a month earlier. Why? Because Scott was more concerned with keeping traditionalists — especially National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers affiliates, as well as school districts — from strongly backing a Democratic challenger next year during his re-election campaign.

Yet Scott’s machinations were of no surprise to your editor or to anyone paying attention to all the discussions surrounding the proposed Parent Trigger law. For months, Scott, with the help of otherwise-sensible reform-minded Commissioner Tony Bennett, has worked hard to derail the legislation, arguing first that the legislation’s original proposal to make the state board of education the final appellate body for Parent Power takeovers was too burdensome on the body, then arguing that the plan may not stand constitutional scrutiny by state courts; the fact that Florida’s own constitution essentially puts the state in charge of structuring public education apparently didn’t figure into Scott’s thinking. Once the original legislation passed out of the Sunshine State’s lower house, Sen. David Simmons neutered the legislation on Scott’s behalf. This should have led Parent Power activists to abandon the bill. But they didn’t, likely to Scott’s dismay. Ultimately, Scott seems to have persuaded four senators — Jack Latvala, Greg Evers, Rene Garcia, and Miguel Diaz — to provide the votes needed to kill the bill at least for this year. And throughout this, Scott was so cowardly that he couldn’t stand up and say he opposed the bill as well as to giving families the ability to overhaul the failure mills in their own communities. Shameful.

Simply put, Scott and the four state senators who helped him defeat the proposed Parent Trigger law was far more concerned about keeping their political offices than helping families — especially those from poor and minority households — take their rightful places as lead decision-makers in education. Scott in particular behaved just as cravenly as his predecessor, Charlie Crist, whose political career went by the way side four years ago after vetoed tenure reform legislation. For that, along with a move last month to weaken Florida’s strong reform efforts, Scott and his colleagues deserve to lose their offices next year, as should every black and Latino legislator who also opposed it. Hopefully one of Scott’s predecessors in the state high office, Jeb Bush, will rally reformers and others around the state to find a more-suitable successor.

Yet Scott and his colleagues in Florida aren’t the only ones who fail to understand the need to expand opportunities for families to provide our children with high-quality teaching and comprehensive college-preparatory curricula.

Yesterday in Connecticut, the Connecticut Parents Union filed a lawsuit on behalf of families at Walsh Elementary School in Waterbury against the district, and Gov. Dan Malloy for attempting to circumvent that state’s Parent Trigger law through efforts to place the school under the oversight of the Commissioner’s Network school turnaround effort. As Dropout Nation readers remember, Walsh’s school governance council moved back in January to launch a takeover of the school from the district’s control amid concerns that the   As Connecticut Parents Union President Gwen Samuel (a DN Contributing Editor) and Alisha Love, a mother of a Walsh Elementary student alleges, the district, with the help of the American Federation of Teachers’ affiliate there, is trying to scotch the takeover attempt by putting the school’s leadership (which backed the effort) on administrative leave as well as bullying members of the school governance council, which is charged under state law with launching Parent Trigger efforts. Malloy, along with his education czar, Stefan Pryor, have aided and abetted the district’s efforts to scotch the Parent Power effort through the Commissioner’s Network, his signature reform effort. Under Public Law 116, the school reform law Malloy managed to get passed last year, a district can avoid a family-led takeover of its school by placing it under Commissioner’s Network control; once the state steps in, the school governance council is neutralized (and thus, the ability for families to utilize the Parent Trigger) and is effectively replaced by a turnaround committee controlled by an NEA or AFT local.

Meanwhile U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan declared in two venues this week that Parent Trigger laws weren’t exactly tops on his list of how he felt parents should have power in education. While somewhat supportive of Parent Trigger laws, Duncan thought there were better methods for families to be empowered in education such as demanding schools and districts to provide their kids with “world-class” education. Your editor wasn’t exactly expecting Duncan to offer a ringing endorsement of Parent Trigger laws. After all, it would be akin to the Obama Administration endorsing school vouchers — a bridge too far given its centrist tendencies and its desire to keep NEA and AFT affiliates at bay (even as other reforms it pursues antagonizes them). But one would expect Duncan to know quite well that such tactics never work for families — especially those from poor and minority households — who are often deemed nuisances and worse by far too many teachers and school leaders, most-notably those responsible for operating failing schools.

Certainly Scott, Malloy, and Duncan have otherwise been sensible in expanding the opportunities for families to choose high-quality education for their children, including the expansion of public charter schools. So why would they have so many misgivings — and in the case of Scott, outright oppose — providing families with the ability to overhaul schools right in their own neighborhoods? Chalk it up to their unwillingness (along with that of fellow political leaders) to stand up boldly to traditionalists (including teachers’ union affiliates and district bureaucracies), and their general belief that families lack the savvy and consensus-building skills needed to make smart decisions if given the tools.

As with so many aspects of reform, the unwillingness of politicians such as Scott and Malloy to embrace Parent Trigger laws have less to do with political ideology than with the power relationships (and often complementary views on the potential of poor and minority children) that often exist at the state and even school district levels. Especially in Florida (where districts are often county-based), school districts are often the biggest employers in their communities and the most-powerful political players in communities. In Hillsborough, Pinellas, Manatee and Sarasota counties alone, districts employ twice as many workers as the largest private-sector firms; the Pinellas district, for example, employs three times more workers than retail powerhouse Home Shopping Network. Districts often serve as the launching pads for the careers of legislators and executive branch politicians in both Democratic and Republican parties, (who are first backed by NEA and AFT locals), and those politicians tend to share in common with traditionalists running districts the same disregard for poor and minority families; this was clear in Simmons’ declaration, in spite of evidence to the contrary, that the failure mills targeted under the proposed Parent Trigger law got that way because those families “haven’t been involved in their own children’s lives so as to cause the school to improve”. As a result, these politicians are disinterested in any reform that may end up hurting their prospects for re-election.

This is particularly an issue for Scott, a neophyte politician who barely won his first term three years ago, now struggling in the polls. From his perspective, advancing reforms such as the overhaul of the Sunshine State’s teacher evaluation system he ushered in 2011 will do him more harm than good to his re-election chances. But Scott’s problems lie more with the perception that he hasn’t done all that well in moving Florida out of the economic doldrums — along with flip-flopping on such issues as the expansion of Medicaid — than with advancing systemic reform. As proven by predecessor Bush during his two terms in office — and by current colleagues such as Rick Snyder in Michigan and New Jersey’s Chris Christie (as well as predecessor Bush and former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels), governors can win on advancing systemic reform if they use effectively use their political capital, leverage their bully pulpits effectively, willingly suffer temporary political setbacks,  successfully built coalitions for reform, and embrace an approach focused on result, not accommodation,  Scott can easily see this in his own state. After all, the key players who supported last year’s effort to pass a Parent Trigger law kept their seats. In fact, as seen this with this year’s effort to enact a Parent Trigger law — as well as in the case of successful efforts in seven states to enact Parent Power laws so far — there are plenty of politicians willing to stand up to traditionalists.

Duncan, on the other hand, can’t necessarily be accused of cowardice. This is also true of Malloy, who bucked his own party to push for a series of reforms last year. The problem for them (as well as with fellow-travelers among Beltway reformers and those in the school reform movement with a more institutionally-minded focus) is their view that families just are too incapable of making decisions. From where they sit, families shouldn’t bother with controlling school operations because they lack the savvy to deal with the complexities of overseeing such overhauls. They also believe that Parent Trigger takeovers will lead to discord between the majority of families leading the takeover and those in the minority who would prefer to keep the school in traditional district hands. In their view, it is simply better to expand other forms of school choice so that families can escape failing schools and choose schools fit for their kids

Yet such views fail to keep in mind that some of the most-successful school reform efforts have been — and continue to be — done by folks who didn’t know much about education until stumbled into reform. This includes mothers and fathers spurred to take action and become what former National Urban League president Hugh Price calls impromptu leaders by concerns for the futures of their children. From Virginia Walden Ford’s work in spurring reform in Washington, D.C., to Shree Medlock of Black Alliance for Educational Options, to Samuel, whose work led to the passage of the nation’s second Parent Trigger laws, families and other grassroots players have done the work of jump-starting and sustaining reform that Beltway and operator-oriented reformers, often more-concerned about policy and management than with rallying critical support from people on the ground, almost never do. Certainly school turnarounds aren’t ever easy. But it isn’t impossible for a group of dedicated parents to turn around schools, either in an operational or (in most cases) governance role. Considering that families find common ground with others every day in other aspects of life, the argument that moms and dads can’t work together after a takeover battle doesn’t hold water either. And given how poorly experienced operators within traditional districts and even some charters are doing in operating and overhauling schools, statements that only experts should be entrusted with running schools isn’t exactly so.

Duncan and others also fail to realize that school choice is about giving families the opportunity to move their kids out of failure mills and the ability to choose the very structure of education for the kids they love (as well as directly push for reforms) within in their communities. Even if choice fully flourishes, families are still going to want real choices in their neighborhoods. After all, the high cost of sending kids outside of communities, both in terms of transportation and time, remains a challenge even for the most well-off of families. The fact that these families have invested heavily in these schools (especially through their taxpayer dollars), along with their ties to the schools (which are often longstanding institutions in their communities, for better or worse) also makes their desire to overhaul them rather understandable. It just makes sense for families to take charge of neighborhood schools from central bureaucracies and teachers’ union affiliates distant from their concerns for their children, or at the very least, use Parent Trigger laws to become lead decision-makers in the school with the district paying heed.

What Scott, Duncan, and Malloy should understand is that Parent Trigger laws are critical to helping families build brighter futures for their children. It is both intellectually and morally unacceptable to oppose reforms that allow them to be real decision-makers in education. Reformers need to remind them, as well as other politicians, that nothing less than full parent power will do. And this starts at the ballot box, inside statehouse corridors, and over at Duncan’s office on Maryland Avenue.

Over the past few days, the school reform movement (especially school choice and Parent Power activists) have had plenty to say about the revelation that Diane Ravitch acolyte Leonie Haimson was exercising school choice privately even as she opposes choice publicly– especially for poor and minority families. Certainly Haimson deserves all the scorn she has garnered as do her fellow traditionalists for defending her. [They also found themselves apologizing for once for the racial slurs uttered by one of their own during a protest in front of the U.S. Department of Education’s headquarters.]

But let’s remember this: Haimson has little in the way of influence outside of Ravitch and her fellow traditionalists; ultimately, challenging her intellectual dishonesty and her hypocrisy doesn’t do much to advance choice for our children. On the other hand, challenging politicians who cravenly bend to the will of traditionalists (especially affiliates of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, along with traditional districts) most certainly does. And the past few days have proven that the movement has a lot of challenging to do.

This past Thursday in Austin, Texas, legislators in the Lone Star State’s lower house passed an amendment to a budget bill attempting to end efforts by state Sen. Dan Patrick to launch a school voucher program. The amendment, which would not allow the state education department to fund either vouchers or tax credit programs, was passed overwhelmingly, with 103 legislators (including 43 of the Republicans who make up the majority in the state House of Representatives) essentially declaring that they had no interest in helping poor and minority kids escape failing schools. While the amendment may end up being scrapped in conference committee, the very fact that Republicans were as willing as Democrats to oppose choice should discomfort conservative reformers and the rest of the movement alike.

In Nashville, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam’s proposed school voucher program may end up being scotched altogether after he asked for the proposal to be withdrawn. Why? One reason lies with Haslam’s own unwillingness to allow his fellow Republicans in the state senate to broadly expand the modest school choice bill (which in its current form, only allows for kids on free- and reduced-price lunch programs to leave the Volunteer State’s worst schools). But Haslam’s move is likely not just about being unwilling to go big or go home. Some Republicans (and likely, movement conservatives as well) fear the possibility of subsidizing Muslim parochial schools they oppose. One can imagine that Haslam, who faces a re-election bid next year, doesn’t want to face a primary challenge from those more-interested in indulging their religious bigotry than in helping all kids succeed.

Then there is news this week out of California that state education officials are dropping their defense against a lawsuit filed against it six years ago by NEA and AFT affiliates, along with the state school boards association, after the state allowed charter school outfit Aspire to open six schools throughout the state. The unions and the school boards didn’t oppose Aspire’s expansion because it was a low-quality operator; in fact, it is globally recognized as being better than most traditional districts in the nation as a whole. But the traditionalists, annoyed that Aspire bypassed traditional district oversight (which is essentially akin to letting McDonald’s decide whether a Wendy’s can open next door to one of its restaurants), fought furiously against allowing a high-quality operator provide schools fit for kids in communities such as the state capital of Sacramento where traditional districts are essentially condemning their futures. And they were aided by elected judges — and, at the end, by a state board chosen by Gov. Jerry Brown that should have fought a little harder in the courtroom.

Certainly this isn’t the only time this year when legislation geared toward helping kids and families gain access to high-quality education have been kiboshed by politicians, more-concerned with remaining servile to teachers’ unions and school districts in their back yards. There was the proposed Parent Trigger law in Georgia that was withdrawn late last month (after having passed the Peach State’s lower house with strong support) after two key legislators, Senate Education and Youth Committee Chairman Lindsey Tippins and powerful suburban Atlanta senator Fran Millar, voiced their opposition to the plan.  Meanwhile in Mississippi, a proposal to allow charter schools to opened in any part of the state without districts having veto power over them — and allowed kids anywhere in the state to attend charters anywhere regardless of district boundaries, was significantly weakened amid opposition from Republicans in the state’s lower house; if not for the efforts of Gov. Phil Bryant, Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, and state Sen. Gray Tollison, no measure would have been enacted at all.

None of this should be surprising. School reformers have succeeded in expanding choice and Parent Power over the past four years — including the launch and expansion of voucher and voucher-like tax credit plans in more than 15 states, the opening of 1,089 new charter schools, and the passage of Parent Trigger laws in seven states. Yet even with that growth, four out of every five children and their families cannot avail themselves of any choice at all. Certainly traditionalist opposition to choice is part of the problem. But the fact that many legislators are unwilling to stand up to NEA and AFT affiliates, as well as to traditional districts  is the bigger problem. But it shouldn’t be shocking. After all, politicians understand votes and they understand money. The NEA and AFT bring both, pouring more than $369 million into state and local campaigns between 2000 and 2012, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics. The fact that districts are are often the biggest employers in their communities in Southern and even Rust Belt States, as well as have been the place from which state legislators have gotten their start in politics, means that many politicians are far less interested in embracing any sort of systemic reform.

Yet reformers can overcome those challenges. This starts by becoming more politically-savvy, embracing the political game, warts and all. While It means embracing the tools of digital advocacy. It also means strong campaigning that continually hits those who oppose reform hard and deep. Certainly if they win, they may hold a grudge. But they will also learn to bend toward reform because smart politicians run scared. They know that the next time, they may actually lose office and they are as interested in placating those who can hurt them as much as they will bow to their allies. It means embracing the tools of digital advocacy. It also means strong campaigning that continually hits those who oppose reform hard and deep. Certainly if they win, they may hold a grudge. But they will also learn to bend toward reform because smart politicians run scared. They know that the next time, they may actually lose office and they are as interested in placating those who can hurt them as much as they will bow to their allies.

It also includes working the grassroots, especially the 51 million single parents, grandparents and immigrant families ready to embrace reform. As Future is Now Schools founder Steve Barr points out, these families also have reasons to distrust those coming in from the outside. Reformers must leave the Beltway and work on the ground in neighborhoods in order to advance reforms. This means listening and constantly engaging these families every day over time. It also means working with grassroots activists and churches, the touchstones for many of these families.

It also means embracing the school reform movement’s roots as a bipartisan movement. As seen in both Republican strongholds such as Texas as well as in Democrat-dominated states such as California, reformers on both sides of the aisle cannot count on their fellow travelers in both parties to support expanding choice. This means abandoning these party-only efforts and embracing the single-issue voter approach that was crafted by the legendary Wayne Wheeler, who understood that having allies was more important than backing particular parties. It also means being willing to primary those in your party if they refuse to back reforms – and be willing to back those in the opposing party if they are your allies when it comes to transforming American public education.

Finally, it means constantly articulating why expanding choice and Parent Power is so important: Because it is absolutely immoral and intolerable to keep families from exercising their God-given right and obligation to provide their kids with the high-quality education they need to succeed in adulthood. Because allowing families to choose to escape failure and transform failing schools in their communities is critical to transforming super-clusters of failures in urban, suburban, and rural communities for all children, no matter who they are or where they live. And because everyone benefits — including the nation as a whole — when high-quality opportunities are provided to every child.

It will take strong political and moral activism to provide all families with high-quality education. And that means focusing on the political leaders who stand in the way — and holding them accountable for their political, intellectual and moral failures.