This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The movie "Won't Back Down," soon to be released in theaters, is a fictional account of parents seeking to transform a school in Pittsburgh. The movie producers proclaim the movie is "inspired by actual events." The movie could not be further from the truth and I am compelled to set the record straight.
The lead actress, Maggie Gyllenhaal, says that the movie is "not ultra-realistic in style or even in terms of the story that it tells."
"Won't Back Down" is based on a process referred to as the "parent trigger," which purports to empower parents by allowing them to take control of a school. Who wouldn't support such an idea? But before jumping on this bandwagon, it is wise to dig deeper into the actual events and facts surrounding parent-trigger laws.
So far, parent trigger has a 100 percent failure rate, has pitted parents against parents and has torn school communities apart where it has been tried. The first parent-trigger attempt took place in Compton, Calif., in 2010 and is the supposed basis for this movie.
Contrary to the movie portrayal of a parent-led group which later contacts an outside organizer for support, Compton was entirely organized by outside operators. According to Caroline Grannan, a founding member of Parents Across America, "Parent Revolution, the billionaire-funded California operation that created the parent-trigger law, looked around for a school to target, chose Compton's McKinley Elementary, and pre-selected a charter school operator to take it over."
Grannan goes on to say, "Paid Parent Revolution employees went door-to-door in Compton with petitions. This was the first time parents had heard of this takeover. Hundreds turned out to a school board meeting to oppose the charter takeover." Parents protested that they had been misled into signing the petition and they did not want their school to become a charter, she said. The charter operator ended up opening a school near McKinley rather than taking it over. The majority of parents kept their children at McKinley, with a small percentage transferring to the new charter.
Struggling schools are not acceptable. We should be working to make our public schools better for all students, but parent trigger is not a real solution. What works? Here's what research tells us:
First, parents are the first teachers of their children. Genuine parental engagement can advance a child's ability to achieve academic and social success and diminish behavioral problems.
Second, education excellence is everyone's responsibility. Schools are like ecosystems all of their many parts support one another and are critical to success. A longitudinal study by the University of Chicago identified five essential, inter-related elements of school transformation: leadership, professional capacity, academic content/instructional guidance, student-centered learning climate and parent-school-community ties.
As for "Won't Back Down," Julie Woestehoff, co-founder and executive director of Chicago's Parents United for Responsible Education, put it this way, "We believe that corporate school reformers are once again turning to Hollywood to sell a version of school reform that many parents reject, as they did with 'Waiting for Superman' and its biased attack on public school teachers."
We must stop looking for silver bullets they do not exist. Reorganizing a school does not magically lead to improved results. We must build a greater sense of inclusion and social trust among members of the community, administrators, teachers, parents and students.
Sharon Gallagher-Fishbaugh is president of the Utah Education Association and the 2009 Utah Teacher of the Year.