Turnaround, Transformation, and now Trigger: Repositioning parents in reform recipes

It is worthwhile to think about the ways parents are positioned in school reform models, old and new ones. Until 2010, parents were engaged in education policy primarily, if at all, through School Site Councils, in Chicago known as Local School Councils, which are local decision-making bodies of parents, teachers, and community members that make school policy such as but not limited to curriculum, principal hiring and termination, and budget. This has changed in some ways with the US Department of Education School Improvement Grants Program endorsed school reform models: turnaround, transformation, restarts, and school closure. Of the 4,941 eligible Struggling Schools: 71% of schools have chosen turnarounds, 21% transformation, 5% restart, and just 3% of schools have chosen closure. In turnarounds and transformation models, parents’ roles are not explicitly outlined, whereas charter and voucher models position parents as consumers and choosers.

Seeking to reposition parents higher on the decision-maker ladder, Parent Trigger allows parents to choose their own reform recipe. Working closely with Parent Revolution, California Democrats passed the first Parent Trigger law in January 2010. Their bill held that parents who lived within the boundaries of, or whose children attended, an eligible failing school could sign a petition that would, with 51% parent body endorsement, trigger the school district to turnaround, transform, restart, or close the school. California remains the only state to allow all four reform recipes. With the exception of Louisiana, six other states have moved in a restart-to-charter-only direction. Here’s a state-by-state synopsis:

Revolutionary? Yes. Progressive? Sure. Policymakers are demonstrating efforts to move beyond involvement and toward engagement. Effective? We don’t know yet, but probably not. For now, here is a working hypothesis of why: The causal relationship between “pick a reform” and “watch your school transform” is weak, at best. Rather than jumpstarts, a more likely improvement scenario would include building authentic relationships around the co-construction of a school that includes community, parents, teachers, and students. Let’s look at this a bit further:

Parent Trigger supporters contend that the law will affect change, reform, and school improvement. The Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank, thinks this is pretty easy: “A. Organize with fellow parents; B. Pick your reform option; C. Get signatures on your petition; and D. Watch your school transform!” Yet, we can see that parents are empowered to neither change, reform, nor improve schools. In California, they are simply empowered to choose a preferred reform recipe. Elsewhere, they are simply empowered to ask for a restart. Instead, several data reveal that what parents want is to see change happen within their own schools, in their own communities, and in their own unique contexts. Parents’ comments from McKinley Elementary School, the site of America’s first Parent Trigger, reveal that they wanted to see change happen within the walls of their own school. Perhaps this is why only approximately one-third of parents who signed the pro-charter petition actually moved their children to the new nearby charter school. Desert Trails Elementary parents, reveal similar discontent: after a year-long, highly public fight to pass their pro-charter petition in Adelanto, CA, less than one-third of parents who signed the petition voted the new charter authorizer for their school. Their choice of charter authorizer came down to the charter that demonstrated experience with students and families of color, despite its “traditional” approach to education. And in March of 2012, in a last minute flood of letters to Florida Republican Senator Rory, parents demanded a recall against Trigger on the grounds of false empowerment.

These parents’ perspectives do not stand alone. Data on parent engagement in school improvement reveal true value in cooperation, inclusivity, and validation of parents’ roles as partners in school decision-making. Findings from a few recent studies are particularly provocative:

- The Annenberg Institute for School Reform (AISR) found that community organizing over time led to mutual support between under-served communities and school districts that yielded several stronger metrics of school improvement;

- In her study on Chicago’s Logan Square Neighborhood Association, Soo Hong finds that trusting relationships and equalized distribution of power are “core strategies” for school improvement;

- In their study of community organizing efforts in Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, Denver, San Jose, and the Mississippi Delta, Warren et al. found that collaborations between educators, parents, and communities led to “deep, and sustainable school reform”;

- and in his participatory study with Latino/a high school students, Irizarry et al. uncover improved educational experiences for Latino/a youth through connections to Latino cultural and linguistic communities (Irizarry, 2012).

We need to do a lot more to better understand parents’ roles in school improvement. Empirical evidence is indeed hard to come by, as experimental models have to draw a strong, statistically significant causal relationship between parent engagement and school improvement. That aside, the rigor and richness of the qualitative data above and of other high quality studies remind us why Parent Trigger is unlikely: it’s nothing new. It’s the same four reform recipes, at best. The “easy as A-B-C-D” Trigger process jumpstarts reform but does not necessarily extend toward improvement. Reversing the effects of a historically tenuous relationship between parents and schools, particularly for low-income communities of color, is a complex process. Perhaps new Reform Recipes should consider repairing the parent-school relationships as a vehicle by which to move from reform and toward improvement.

Irizarry, J. G. (2011). The Latinization of U.S. schools: Successful teaching and learning in shifting cultural contexts. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.

By: Priya Goel