Jeb Bush's divisive push against public schools

From the Orlando Sentinel

by Leslie Postal

A proposal that could let parents decide the fate of failing public schools is sparking fierce debate as it heads to a final vote in the Florida Senate this week.

The "parent trigger" bill has prompted an outcry from critics, who view it as a way to snatch power from local school boards and convince parents to turn public campuses over to private companies.

Its supporters, including former Gov. Jeb Bush, call the criticism misleading. They argue the bill would simply help parents push for change at chronically struggling campuses.

Though it passed the House easily, the trigger bill's fate in the Senate isn't clear, and it has been the subject of intense lobbying as a vote nears.

"Thousands of parents are speaking. They don't want this bill," said Sen. Evelyn Lynn, R-Ormond Beach, one of two Republican senators to announce they would not support it.

Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, one of Senate President Mike Haridopolos' top lieutenants, said he doesn't know if the bill will pass the 40-member chamber. Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island, supports the bill.

"The Senate is about ideas," Thrasher said. "Ideas sometimes don't get 21 votes."

But Thrasher said Haridopolos gets credit for pushing the proposal. "I think a lot of people see this as a threat to the interests of the public education system," he said. "I don't see it that way at all. If these schools are performing well, you'll never have that situation."

But opponents dislike the bill modeled on California's controversial "parent trigger" law. Florida families, they say, already have ways to take part in public education and don't want this West Coast option.

"The parents did not ask for this — not the 330,000 in the Florida PTA," said Dawn Steward, vice president of the Florida PTA and an Orange County resident. "We feel very strongly it is a systematic approach to privatize education."

The bill would allow parents with kids at failing campuses to choose from four improvement plans. The four choices are already in state law, but local school boards now decide on the plans, with final approval going to the State Board of Education.

The options include: devising a district-run improvement plan; reassigning students to other campuses; closing the school and turning it into a charter school; or closing the school and turning its management over to a private firm.

If parents and school boards don't agree, the bill allows the State Board to have final say.

"What's the threat here?" said Bush, whose education foundation has been lobbying for the bill.

"This has turned out to be about politics in Tallahassee," not education, Bush said. The bill is about "giving parents the right to be engaged, with some wind at their backs," he added. "It's not going to change the world."

But opponents fear widespread fallout from a "cynical" effort to close public schools and then transfer their students — and the tax dollars they bring — to corporate-managed, for-profit charter schools.

"When we see a group of highly paid lobbyists running all over Tallahassee pushing this bill, we have to ask who is going to profit from this?" said Kathleen Oropeza, of Fund Education Now, an Orlando based parent group.

Michelle Rhee, the former Washington, D.C.schools chancellor who has served as Gov. Rick Scott's education advisor, said such criticism is baffling.

"They want more parental involvement in schools, and yet we're going to limit and define what that involvement will look like?" said Rhee, whose StudentsFirst group supports the legislation.

Kathleen Haughney in the Tallahassee bureau and Dave Weber of the Sentinel staff contributed to this story. lpostal@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5273.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/education/os-parent-trigger-florida-2-20120307,0,4010324.story