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Parent Trigger Still Moving Forward

Steve Goode

April 02, 2010

The "Parent Trigger," a provision in a bill designed to help close the achievement gap between white and minority students, made it out of the legislature's appropriations committee Thursday, bringing it one step closer to becoming law.

The measure is making its way to the floor of the house and the senate despite opposition from the education committee's co-chairs and teachers unions.

State Rep. Jason Bartlett, D- Danbury, said Thursday that opponents of the bill are starting to come around to the view that the disparity between minority and white students isn't acceptable anymore. The state has 185 failing schools, with a majority of them in its largest cities dominated by minority student poplulations.

Bartlett said the conversation has turned to how the bill will define failing schools and what constitutes improvements that would prevent the trigger from kicking in.

"We can't maintain the status quo anymore," he said, adding that there will be some form of the trigger -or whatever anyone wants to call it - in the bill that goes for a full vote.

City parents who have been sending their children to schools that have been on the failing list for their entire time there say "amen" to that.