We're very fortunate that we have five excellent elementary schools in town. The middle school gets variable grades from parents, but is generally as good as the administrators in charge in any given year. The two high schools are also very, very good. Alot of that goes to parent involvement and donations via organizations like BCE, Taste of the Town, athletic boosters, site councils, etc.
But there are plenty of schools in California that aren't so good and the January 2010 state law that allows parents to pull a "trigger" if more than 50% of them want to force a particular school to close, shake up the administration or move to charter status. This is clearly not popular with the teachers' unions which was the topic of an investigative article in Saturday's Wall Street Journal about a school in Adelanto. According to the article on page A11
"About two weeks ago, the California Teachers Association flew in a cadre of paid operatives from Sacramento," says Ben Austin of Parent Revolution, the liberal activist group that conceived of the parent trigger and has supported the campaigns of Compton and Adelanto. "Suddenly parents were acosted in the parking lot by CTA operatives blocking cars from moving until the driver agreed to take a flier plastered with lies." Operatives also went door-to-door across Adelanto.
The piece goes on to describe alleged spreading of misinformation and notes that the operatives refused to identify themselves. The CTA response, per the Journal article is
CTA spokesman Frank Wells acknowledged that his union sent representatives to Adelanto, but he said their primary purpose was to hold information sessions for (school) parents. The door-to-door recission campaign was "parent-led," he told the L.A. Times, and "as far as us going around and telling people to do something one way or another, the answer is no."
This may qualify as a "where there is smoke, there is fire" and must be causing some discussion on Murchison Dr. where the CTA is headquartered.
