A bill that would let parents “trigger” a turnaround plan for failing schools would cause disputes and dissension in Florida’s public schools, opponents said Monday.

That’s yet to be proven, but it is causing plenty of turmoil in the Florida Legislature as it has in California, where the idea originated.

The Florida PTA and other bipartisan opponents held a news conference Monday to criticize not only the bill that’s supported by former Republican Gov. Jeb Bush but the way it’s been ramrodded through the GOP-controlled Legislature.

School officials would be required to adopt a turnaround plan if a majority of parents sign a petition.

Supporters say the “parent trigger” is a way to empower parents and encourage them to participate in school affairs. Critics contend it’s a ploy for handing public schools to private management or charter school companies.

“It has everything to do with laying the groundwork for the hostile, corporate takeover of public schools,” said Senate Democratic Leader Nan Rich of Weston. “Parents will divide against parents and even children will divide against children.”

Florida PTA Vice President Dawn Steward said corporations put the stockholders’ interest first.

“Their stockholders aren’t going to necessarily be children,” Steward said. “My stockholders are children and I’m a volunteer and I represent 330,000 voices.”

The trigger bill is being pushed by Bush’s Foundation for Florida’s Future and the California-based Parent Revolution. The group contends the legislation is not intended to promote charters, although that’s one turnaround option.

Parent Revolution spokeswoman Linda Serrato said it actually would add another step – the parents’ petition – to existing procedure for creating charters, which get public funding but are run by entities other than elected local school boards.

“So to put it in context, I’m a big bad for-profit charter school and I’m hell-bent on making millions of dollars,” Serrato said. “If that’s my objective, right now it’s much easier for me to just go through the normal Florida charter school law.”

The House already has passed a trigger bill (HB 1191), and what’s expected to be a close vote could come in the Senate as early as Tuesday.

One reason opponents are suspicious of Parent Revolution and its paid staffers is it initially received funding from a charter school company, Green Dot Public Schools.

Serrato said Green Dot no longer provides funding, which currently comes largely from foundations.

Another organization that’s promoting trigger bills is the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council.

“We can’t control what other people promote,” Serrato said. She said her organization has also drawn support from liberals in California.

The California law, though, is proving difficult to implement, causing acrimony on school campuses and legal fights.

The first parent-trigger campaign in Compton last year was defeated because of petition technical errors after a court battle with the school district and allegations of threats and harassment of parents by teachers, who stood to lose their jobs if the school was converted into a charter.

In Adelanto, about 90 miles northeast of Los Angeles, a similar scenario looms. Teachers mounted a vigorous campaign to counter the petition to convert Desert Trails Elementary School into a charter. There were problems with 121 signatures and dozens more parents rescinded their signatures, leaving the petition without the needed majority.

Serrato said some of the signatures had been illegally forged, which is something that cannot be blamed on the trigger law. Opponents say that’s what would happen in Florida, too, because the bill lacks petition-gathering safeguards.

“There’s a lot of room in this bill for some real shenanigans,” said Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland.

Critics also contend Florida has plenty of opportunity for parental empowerment through laws that allow students to transfer out of failing schools or obtain vouchers to attend private schools. Schools also have parent advisory councils and PTAs.

That’s not enough, Shirley Ford of Parent Revolution told the Budget Committee.

“When I was a PTA mom, it served its purpose,” the Los Angeles woman said. “We baked cookies, we raised money and all those things, but no real meaning to it.”

PTA officials said there’s much more to it in Florida, including advocating before local school boards and state lawmakers.

“We don’t need to import people from California,” Steward said. “Are they a good model?”

Like many migrant workers, Immokalee’s Maria Segura didn’t know how to read or speak English. Like her parents before her and their parents before them, the 43-year-old mother of four thought she would end up working the fields for the rest of her life.

Then she stepped into a Bush family literacy program, and everything changed.

A high school dropout, Segura learned to read, learned English, got her GED and in 2009 graduated from Southwest Florida College in Fort Myers. Today, she’s the lead preschool teacher at Immokalee’s Family Literacy Academy.

Former first lady Barbara Bush and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush celebrated Segura’s accomplishment as well as the thousands of people their foundation has helped at Friday night’s 12th annual Celebration of Reading at the Hyatt Regency in Bonita Springs.

The Bush family’s foundation has raised $42 million for 960 family literacy programs, but in a Friday panel discussion at Florida Gulf Coast University, education experts agreed more needs to be done.

About 90 million Americans struggle with literacy, a statistic that hasn’t changed in more than a decade. About 30 million of those people are caregivers of children younger than 8, according to the National Center for Family Literacy. The center’s president, Sharon Darling, said educators should expand prekindergarten opportunities and utilize the advance of smartphones to reach illiterate adults.

“We can do all we can to improve our institutions and we can get excellent charter schools, but until we think about educating illiterate adults, it’s like pushing on a rope,” Darling said. “We might get there, but it’s going to be a longer route.”

Jeb Bush, who announced Friday that he and his sister, Doro Bush Koch, will be taking over the reins of the Bush literacy program from their mother, hopes to make literacy a national discussion. He pointed to a recent study that found the U.S. ranked 12th in the world in the number of college graduates ages 25 to 35. Fifteen years ago, the U.S. was ranked No. 1.

“The emerging world is realizing how important literacy is and they’re setting high standards and embracing education at warp speed. And we have complacency in our education,” Jeb Bush said.

Jeanne Allen, the president for the Center for Education Reform who participated in the FGCU forum, believes schools should cut down barriers and open their doors to parents. She said disadvantaged families, particularly those who don’t speak English, don’t know how to help their children learn how to read because they never got that training.

“Why are we closing up our institutions?” Allen said. “It’s like if you want to help your child, you need to get an appointment, sit in a small desk at the school and you better be literate.”

Social media

Darling believes the expansion of smartphones can give educators an avenue to reach illiterate adults. Social media can also help illiterate adults network and share ideas. She explained a program where the Muppet character Elmo calls children with the letter of the day. Excited to receive a phone call from Elmo, the child then spends the rest of the day talking about the letter with their parents.

“TV is there, too, to use to reach people, and we have to make the best use of it,” Darling said.

Greg Kincaid, one of three authors highlighted at the Celebration of Reading, said the battle to fight illiteracy needs generals, sergeants and a slew of ground troops.

“At the end of the day it’s about finding a kid and reading to him and then paying for books to get to children,” said Kincaid, who wrote the best-selling novel, “A Dog Named Christmas.”

Prekindergarten education has shown to improve the learning capacities of children, Darling said. Segura, the migrant worker turned teacher, said she walked into the Family Literacy Academy of Immokalee because she couldn’t find a preschool for her 3-year-old son. Anthony. The academy taught both Segura and her son.

Dee Siemianowski, the program manager for the Family Literacy Academy of Immokalee, said she has about 30 migrant families enrolled in the program. There’s no cost to attend the program, which runs from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday. The program is supported by the Collier County Housing Authority.

Segura said it wasn’t easy to attend the program and learn how to read and speak English.

“I had to raise four kids, take care of the home and go to school,” Segura said. “But it was worth it. I wanted my children to see that their mother can accomplish anything in this world, and that education is the way to do it.”

A recent NAEP study found that a significant gap remains between Hispanic and white achievement levels. Well aware of the dropout and achievement of Hispanic youngsters, the Hispanic Council for Reform and Educational Options (HCREO) hosted an education summit in Florida to examine how school choice options can help Hispanic students not only stay in school, but achieve at higher levels. By creating coalitions with parents, teachers, schools, faith-based organizations, and corporate America, HCREO has been able to educate, inform, and mobilize Hispanic parents.

Florida’s new education commissioner Gerard Robinson, formerly president of the Black Alliance for Educational Options and Secretary of Education in Virginia, advocated in favor of all forms of choice for minority students from low-income families. Wonder what the NAACP thinks about that? The goal is to put the pressure on at a national level, which HCREO hopes to do with its Coalition to Ensure Educational Opportunities for Hispanic Children to Succeed.

Let’s hope they, and NPR, can shake the status quo to do just that.

But what about their effect on students’ futures?

A study looked at the achievement and movement of charter students in Florida and Chicago and has found a direct (positive) impact on graduation rate and college matriculation.

Two key findings:

Students who attend a charter high school are 7 to 15 percentage points more likely to earn a standard diploma than students who attend a traditional public high school. Similarly, those attending a charter high school are 8 to 10 percentage points more likely to attend college.

The “what” is clear. Charter schools are providing the necessary environment for students to break the 70 percent graduation rate and not only earn their high school diploma but move on to college in many cases.

The “why” may take a little more time to nail down, but whatever it is, it’s working.