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Staying Alive, Barely

Steve Goode

March 24, 2010

The "parent trigger" provision in a bill designed to reduce the achievement gap between white and minority students made it out of the education committee earlier today by a 19-11 vote.

But many of those who voted to send the bill - with the trigger included - to the floor for a final vote expressed concerns over the measure, which would give 51 percent of the parents in a failing school the right to make changes at their school. Others said they would not vote for it if the trigger was included in the final bill.

Teachers unions are also putting pressure on legislators to remove the language from the final bill.

And now state Sen. Thomas Gaffey and state Rep. Andrew Fleischmann have come up with their own competing bill that would strip the parent trigger and add a collaborative model that calls for the formation of parent/teacher committees in failing schools. Those committees, though, would only have advisement capabilities and no actual power to enact change.

The chances are slim and none that the parent trigger ends up in the final bill. Look for more on the issue on line and in the paper tomorrow.