If Teachers Can Organize, Why Can’t Parents? That’s essentially the question that Doreen Diaz, president of the Desert Trails Parent Union, an organization formed to change failing Desert Trails elementary school under California’s parent trigger law, asks in a Washington Examiner column.

The frustrated parent compares the real life efforts of California parents to turn a school around to the movie Won’t Back Down, saying the movie makes union tactics seem tame in comparison.

So of course Doreen Diaz was excited to appear next to AFT President Randi Weingarten during a panel at Education Nation, where she could ask the union leader directly how she could justify the tactics being used to stop the Desert Trails conversion. Diaz:

“On the panel, she [Randi] told me how she understood my frustration over my daughter’s education and how she shared my goals of giving her a great school. But after the lights and the cameras turned off, she left the stage and sent a tweet deploring the absence of parents who want “real” empowerment at the panel discussion. I had been sitting right next to her for the entire discussion. Her tweet made me feel just like our school district has made me feel for years: invisible.

It is Weingarten’s union that fights hardest against parent trigger laws, despite the fact we are fighting for the same right to organize that her teacher-members enjoy — a right we support.” Read More…

Dear Friends,

I hope you all found time this weekend to go see Won’t Back Down. Now that it is in theaters, parents are seeing the movie and wondering if – and how – they can take control of their child’s education. Lucky for them, our Parent Power Index© can tell them just that.

As I mentioned to you last week, there are powerful anti-reform groups actively working against this movie, including the teachers unions. They fear that old adage that “information is power.” So we’ll double our efforts to make sure parents get the power they need and deserve.

We know firsthand the enormous tasks that parents can accomplish on behalf of their children when given the right tools and information. The Center has since 1993 counseled thousands of parents and activists on how to improve their schools, and with the tools we’ve created they’ve started schools, changed laws, and taken back their communities. And to meet the demands of anyone’s schedule our new Take 5 Minutes and Take Back Your Schools gives actionable tools to anyone wanting to get engaged now.

Thousands have already explored the Parent Power Index© and with your help in spreading the word we can create the next grassroots revolution in American education. So tell your friends and neighbors to visit the Parent Power Index© and become part of the national imperative to secure real, substantive improvement in all schools!

Thank You!

Jeanne Allen
President

Education reform film “Won’t Back Down” opened Friday to terrible reviews – and high hopes from activists who expect the movie to inspire parents everywhere to demand big changes in public schools.

The drama stars Maggie Gyllenhaal as a spirited mother who teams up with a passionate teacher to seize control of their failing neighborhood school, over the opposition of a self-serving teachers union.

Reviewers called it trite and dull, but education reformers on both the left and right have hailed the film as a potential game-changer that could aid their fight to weaken teachers’ unions and inject more competition into public education.

Private foundations, nonprofit advocacy groups and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have pumped more than $2 million into advocacy efforts tied to “Won’t Back Down,” including 30-second ads, promotional bookmarks, websites, private screenings and a six-month, cross-country discussion tour that will keep the film in circulation long after it leaves theaters.

Their goal: To attract new foot soldiers who will help them fight for legislation that allows parents to seize control of local schools, as dramatized in the film; eliminates tenure protections for veteran teachers; and opens the door for more competition to neighborhood schools in the form of charters, which are publicly funded but privately run.

“This movie has the potential to be one of the most transformative vehicles in the history of education reform,” said Ben Austin, a longtime Democratic activist.

Austin now runs Parent Revolution, which promotes “parent trigger” laws allowing parents unhappy with struggling schools to take control, fire teachers and bring in private management.

His organization is holding 35 private screenings of “Won’t Back Down” in states from Georgia to Utah to New York over the next month to rally more parents to the cause. “This movie is telling a story that’s relevant to hundreds of thousands of parents across America,” Austin said.

Union leaders, for their part, have slammed the movie as a propaganda film that bears little resemblance to reality.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, has called it “egregiously misleading” and complained that several scenes seemed designed for “the sole purpose of undermining people’s confidence in public education, public school teachers and teacher unions.”

Parent groups that support teachers’ unions have organized protests outside some screenings. And they’ve been gleefully posting negative reviews of “Won’t Back Down” on Facebook and Twitter.

PUSH FOR CHARTER SCHOOLS

So far, the reform coalition has ignored the bad reviews and pushed ahead with their marketing efforts.

The drive to capitalize on the movie grows out of lingering disappointment within the education reform community over the last major film to carry their message, the documentary “Waiting for ‘Superman.’”

Produced by Walden Media, which is also behind “Won’t Back Down,” the documentary chronicled dysfunction in urban schools and the desperation of parents trying to find alternatives for their children.

“Waiting for ‘Superman’” was well-received and widely viewed, thanks to backing by the Gates Foundation. But activists hoping for a big boost from the film were disappointed.

“We didn’t feel we captured anyone,” said Matt David, a consultant to Michelle Rhee, former chancellor of Washington D.C. public schools and a major figure in the reform movement. Many viewers walked out angry at the public school system, he said, but had no way to channel that emotion into action.

This time, Rhee is moving quickly to provide a channel. Her advocacy group, StudentsFirst, has bought 30-second ads to run before showings of “Won’t Back Down” in 1,500 theaters and sponsored marketing efforts to drive viewers to her website.

That website has been revamped to feature an “action center” where people moved by the film can sign up to join StudentsFirst, view short videos about its agenda (including one from comedian and newly appointed board member Bill Cosby), and share their own experiences with public schools.

The Center for Education Reform’s website urges viewers to launch their own charter schools to compete with public schools. “You don’t need a PhD or a teaching degree to start a school,” the center’s website advises. “Remember, you can do it now.”

The most enduring campaign linked to the film may be the six-month “Breaking the Monopoly of Mediocrity” tour arranged by the Institute for a Competitive Workforce, an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Drawing on a $1.2 million grant from the Daniels Fund, the group plans to stage private screenings and discussion forums for business and civic leaders in cities from Memphis, Tennessee, to El Paso, Texas, to Trenton, New Jersey.

The American Federation of Teachers is countering with its own series of town hall meetings and workshops across the country designed to present teachers – and unions – as natural allies of parents seeking to better their schools.

Thank You!,
Jeanne Allen
President

Movie Inspires Parent Power Index©
Real Parents Deserve a Hollywood Ending

Many parents seeing the upcoming movie Won’t Back Down will no doubt leave the theater inspired to take up the same fight as the dedicated moms in the film.  But, they may also wonder whether they have the power available to them to make the same kind of change in their children’s education, or if such power is just a Hollywood invention.  Now they can find out with the new Parent Power Index© (PPI) from the Center for Education Reform (CER) which ranks the United States based on how much power parents have over their children’s education.

The PPI is an interactive, web-based tool that – based on an evaluation of state policies – measures the ability in each state of a parent to exercise choices, engage with their local school board, and have a voice in the systems that surround their child. States that ranked the highest offer a high degree of options to parents and engage them more directly in school decisions.

“Parents want and deserve power over their child’s education and most states do a poor job of providing it.” said CER President Jeanne Allen. “The Parent Power Index represents the first time someone has quantified for parents how much power they do or don’t have over their child’s education.  And just as important, PPI educates parents on how to use the power they do have as well as how to get more.  It’s vital information that’s been missing from their arsenal – until now,” Allen continued.

“Parent power in education is not only a matter of public interest, but it’s a matter of public right. It’s also the only thing that is going to fix our educational and economic problems for good.” Allen said.

PPI is the latest effort from CER this fall to educate parents and the general public about what real education reform is and how they can help get those reforms enacted.   For more information see The Field Guide to Education Reform: How to Spot a Real Reformerand Educationfifty.com, a voter’s guide to gubernatorial and state education candidates.

]]> http://www.edreform.com/2012/09/movie-inspires-parent-power-index/feed/ 0 http://www.edreform.com/2012/09/parents-vs-the-blob/ http://www.edreform.com/2012/09/parents-vs-the-blob/#comments Mon, 10 Sep 2012 18:49:51 +0000 admin http://www.edreform.com/?p=10395 by Jeanne Allen
Highland Community News
September 10, 2012

A parent revolution is underway, and most Americans don’t have a clue it’s happening. That’s because most of us – concerned as we are about the environment, jobs and our own family’s sustainability – think education is someone else’s responsibility. And the self-perceived “owners” of the traditional education system – The Blob – stand in the way of virtually all meaningful education reform and work hard to give you the sense that everything is under control.

But reality has a way of intruding. Parents are waking up to the disturbing reality that they have no influence over where and how their children are educated. With eyes increasingly opened, they seek out others who have similar epiphanies and band together to change things. And then, like something out of a bad movie (cue creepy music) The Blob kicks into gear. The moment these parents gain any traction for real change, they find information that confirms they are not alone and they are off. And then, they are immediately maligned by phony Blob front groups portraying themselves as parent-friendly.

Case in point: As I was sitting at home on a recent Friday night, bracing myself for the week ahead when I’d be dropping my two youngest at college, I decided to tweet my pleasure over Teachers Rock, a solid hour on prime time TV whose star studded cast paid tribute to rank and file teachers. Such teachers move mountains for children and defy the status quo, often at great personal cost. This is illustrated by the upcoming feature film Won’t Back Down, which chronicles the efforts of a parent and teacher to transform their failing school. As it was advertised during the show, parent groups began praising what they saw, only to be attacked, as I was, for applauding what they watched. “Shame on you for supporting a movie that sensationalizes locking kids in dark closets as ubiquitous ‘punishment,’” bellowed someone named Colum Whyte, just one of hundreds of venomous tweets I began to witness. (An earlier version of this op-ed attributed the previous quote to Stephanie Rivera who was part of the Twitter assaults on parent trigger that night but it was not her tweet.) “A ploy against teachers and public education,” said another. By nights end there’s were more than 100 tweets attacking us, with childish name-calling to boot. These Twitter bullies are typical of what happens when the status quo feels threatened. They seek and lash out at anyone who posits things could be better, who espouses parental choice, or who suggests that the unions and The Blob might be standing in the way of real reform.

Who are they and where did they come from? Responding to a decade of major, transformative changes in public education, The Blob helped organize a new group called Save our Schools (SOS). It masquerades as a parent effort to improve education but only backs reforms that the status quo embraces – more money and lower class size, neither of which has been shown to improve education. They neither address better ways to spend money, nor ensure accountability. They just want more of one, less of the other and oppose the same reforms the teachers unions fight daily.

SOS chapters across the country have long protested the creation of charter schools, bullying anyone who endorses them and stampeding statehouses to strong-arm legislators, too many of whom irrationally fear this vocal, extremist minority. They oppose testing and loathed NCLB, the nation’s first federal attempt to tie federal spending to accountability. SOS and The Blob successfully convinced the nation’s lawmakers that NCLB was hurting schools, though it was actually the flawed implementation by school districts that did so by imposing wildly unpopular rigidity in instructional delivery that was neither the intent nor requirement of the law.

SOS eventually took to marching to Washington where some mistook it for a true grassroots movement of ordinary citizens. What a put-up job! I saw the buses roll in, the professional signs waving, the well-funded tents, and the polished speeches. I listened to people as they talked about how they had been bused in by their unions. Ordinary people? No, these were people whose livelihoods depend on the status quo, joined by some parents, deluded into believing the fight is about “equity,” when it’s actually about power — theirs, not ours; and certainly not parents’.

Real parent power ensures that choosing a school for your child doesn’t get restricted because of one’s zip code. It allows someone with a child in a failing school to change it or have access to other options – like using technology to educate their kids.

That’s the centerpiece of Won’t Back Down, which stars Viola Davis and Maggie Gyllenhaal. It is brought to you by the same company that gave us Charlotte’s Web, Amazing Grace, and Holes. It is based on the experience of real people, and on real facts. SOS and its new allied group, Parents Across America, are doing all they can to keep you from seeing the film.

The heroic effort depicted in Won’t Back Down is becoming more common today in the 42 states with charter school, parent trigger or school choice laws. The real heroes of today’s revolution are the parents and teachers who, in the name of their children and students, fought to enact policies empowering them take back control from The Blob. Most of these heroes have neither the time nor the money to march on Washington or their statehouses, or to hang around Twitter casting aspersions. But they are out there, and they will persevere, driven by a clear and compelling need: to save their kids.

Jeanne Allen is President of the Center for Education Reform, which has been the leading voice and advocate for lasting, substantive and structural education reform in the U.S. since 1993. CER will release a Parent Power Index this fall as part of its Taking America Back to School on Education Reform campaign.

Jeanne Allen weighs in on parent power, education reform & the elections on WSJ Opinion Journal.

In politics, poll results are often fleeting, but they are paid much attention as a gauge on public attitudes and often influence how a candidate or leader might tackle a particular issue. With convention season here and all eyes on the presidential candidates, anyone interested in education — and the economy (which should be everyone) — should take heed to view some polls with a grain of salt.

Last week, an annual survey of public attitudes toward the schools was released by the Gallup Organization in partnership with an ivory tower group called Phi Delta Kappa. It provides additional evidence that our task is a daunting one, for despite the popularity and importance of programs that support and advance parental choice and accountability in education, this poll’s findings would have you believe otherwise.

Respondents are questioned without being given critical facts, data, and context, resulting in responses that contradict today’s current climate and demand for reform. For example, while support for scholarships (aka vouchers) increased in this year’s poll, its findings mask the true strength of public support, evidenced by other polls, by using a question that is factually incorrect and contains a built-in bias against such programs. Gallup asked if respondents favor parents being able to choose a private school “at public expense.” But parents who use scholarships to move a child from a public school (failing to meet their needs) to a private school (that will meet those needs) are certainly part of the “public!” They are targeting funds designated to educate their child to a school that will actually do so.

With nearly 6,000 charter schools in existence in 41 states and the District of Columbia, and credited with a competitive push that has finally made school districts begin to address decades-old failures, PDK says that support for charter schools is falling. Our own polling shows that when people have a full and accurate definition of public charter schools, they overwhelmingly support them as an option for families. Thankfully, it’s those families and their lawmakers who govern what occurs with this public education reform and not the ivory tower!

Demonstrating that art can indeed influence reality, we are glad to see the poll recognize the growing importance of parent trigger laws to education reform. The upcoming, much publicized feature film, “Won’t Back Down,” chronicles the story of two moms who use a kind of parent trigger to improve their children’s school. Support for a parent trigger was 70%, yet another signal of the high demand for more choice in education. However, the poll question presented just one option: removing leadership of a failed school. Support would likely have been even higher had the poll included other options available to parents, such as taking over their school, or turning it into a charter school.

There are more issues that the Gallup organization surveyed which are legitimate and important to the improvement of US schools. When it comes to teacher evaluations, most people get queazy. We know people love their teachers. We do, too, but that’s not really the point. Even teachers we really like can be bad at their jobs. That’s why strong evaluations of teacher performance are a key to addressing our education crisis. The poll asks simply whether student performance on “standardized tests” should be part of teacher evaluations. Yet evaluating teachers is not just about test scores. It’s about how well students are performing against a variety of measures of academic performance, and whether a teacher is actually increasing student achievement. Had the question been posed in that way, support for teacher evaluations would be near unanimous. Indeed what effective schools offer parents is not only an extraordinary group of teachers, proficient in their field, but the confidence to know that when their kids have problems, they will be acted upon, even if that means an adult needs to be moved out.

The bottom line is parents want and need power and most states do a poor job of providing it. Parent power in education is not only a matter of public interest, but it’s a matter of public right. It’s also the only thing that is going to fix our economic problems for good. As NBC’s Rehema Ellis put it in her own Huffington Post piece this time last year, “What is surprising is that we, as a nation, aren’t fully making the connection between education, local, state and federal budget matters, and the economy.” Polls and survey aside, let’s hope that these next two weeks of convention mania yield the understanding that education reform is central to our future solvency.