Mr. Fischer showed where his allegiances truly lie when he
spoke in favor of the parent trigger earlier this week. He has the opposite
opinion of the PTA and every other parent group here in Florida and instead
sided with the corporate raiders attempting to take over our schools. This
however should be of no surprise as he embraced and even ran on his close ties
to Jeb Bush.
That’s a question you should ask Jason Fischer.
I however just find it interesting and befuddling that he
would come out for a bill that takes home rule away from the people because
that is what the Parent Trigger does. It takes the public’s assets away and
gives them to for profit companies where they public will no longer have a say
in how they are used. Some of you might not be so crazy about our public
schools, though Jason Fishers district has some of the best schools in the
state, but how can anybody be for giving up local control of the public’s
trust.
What Mr. Fischer is unaware of is the fact that the very rubric that measures school success or failure is something that our administrators and educators have yet to fully grasp. Why do we expect our parents and other members of the community to grasp what makes a school work? Once the so-called parent trigger takes effect, there is no going back as there is no real reason to admit to making a mistake or error when we agree to shift control of a neighborhood school to outside management. Since it takes only 51 percent to make this leap of faith, this invites the squeaky wheels in a community to determine the fate of a school and a neighborhood that could not even be bothered to engage in education policy to begin with. Instead of making a sincere effort to invest in improving public schools, we seem to be more willing to experiment with unproven ideas for the sake of scoring political points that will shift many students into the public schools that remain. In the end, the failure to meet these students' needs will trigger more privatization and micromanagement to the peril of those schools, administrators and educators who are truly trying to do their jobs.
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