First Successful Parent-Triggered Charter School Takeover Gets Underway

Won’t Back Down may have bombed at the box office, but the movement that inspired it appears to be inches away from its first victory in California.

Parents in Adelanto, after fighting their own school district for months, have finally gotten clearance from a judge to select a charter school system to take over failing Desert Trails Elementary. Via The Sun in San Bernardino:

The charter school chosen by a group of parent activists to take over their failing High Desert school will be announced this week, just days after a judge ordered a High Desert school district to stop thwarting their efforts.

Parents of students at Desert Trails Elementary School have been fighting Adelanto Elementary School District, attempting to turn things around at a school where three-quarters of students are unable to read or write, according to state test scores.

The group became the first to successfully use the 2010 California "parent trigger" law, which allows parents to force sweeping changes on their schools.

District officials have fought them every step of the way, but on Friday, Victorville Superior Court Judge John Vander Feer ordered AESD to allow Desert Trails Parent Union to transform the school into a charter school in the 2013-14 school year.

Parents are looking at two charter school operators in the area and will be announcing their decision Thursday.

More Reason coverage of parent-triggered charter school attempted takeovers here.

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  • sarcasmic| |

    Looks like they ripped off their logo from Michael Jackson.

  • Drake| |

    Can somebody bottle and sell the tears of fired failed administrators and teachers as they leave the building.

  • Agreenweed| |

    Aww tears, aw they taste so good. Mmm cry some more!

  • | |

    "...attempting to turn things around at a school where three-quarters of students are unable to read or write, according to state test scores."

    Retards read blame the Republicans in Sacramento.

  • Question of Auban| |

    I cannot let this thread go long without providing the link for the Alliance for the Separation of School State.

    A great organization!

    http://www.schoolandstate.org/home.htm

  • | |

    Reason supports the Separation of Ampersand and Comment.

  • Question of Auban| |

    Odd, for some reason the ampersand did not paste with the rest of the title.

    The full name is the Alliance for the Separation of School and State.

  • Hugh Akston| |

    Reason doesn't care for the ampersand apparently. For a blog called Hit ampersand Run...

  • Appalachian Australian| |

    I think you are wrong; Hit Run harbours no animosity towards this ligature.

  • DemosTheKnees| |

    The editors grew tired of all the cruel Hit y Run parodies, so they took away the ampersand. This is why we can't have nice things.

  • Appalachian Australian| |

    Hit & Run simply wants ampersands to be shown larger than normal (﹠ smaller than normal).

  • DemosTheKnees| |

    They want to have their ampersands and eat them too.

  • ant1sthenes| |

    Makes sense to me. Education is speech, and it's just as fundamentally important as political speech. Since public education always involves favoring government speech by confiscating resources that would be used for private speech (to say nothing of compulsory public education), it should be considered unconstitutional.

  • Zeezrom| |

    It's Thunderdome!!

  • Mainer2| |

    Having been to Adelanto once, I can tell you, it's definitely a downscale town. Good for them.

  • Hugh Akston| |

    This sort of direct control by local residents with a stake in the outcome is a threat to democracy.

  • Scruffy Nerfherder| |

    I laughed

  • Jordan| |

    "This is what progressives actually believe"

  • Paul.| |

    Won’t Back Down may have bombed at the box office, but the movement that inspired it appears to be inches away from its first victory in California.

    And in five years we'll be reading an article in the LA Times about the failures of charter schools.

  • Archduke Pantsfan| |

    This tidbit on the suckiness of Public Education from TMQ this morning:

    The latest, from my county, is that elementary schools no longer will use letter grades. Rather than A through F, students will receive ES for exceptional (a word that lacks an S), P for proficient, I for "improvement in progress," N for "not yet making progress" and M for "missing data."
    Perhaps elementary students should be taught about modern bureaucratic euphemisms.
    Apparently, it will no longer be possible to do poorly, only to "not yet" make progress, and impossible to fail -- the worst case is that evidence of success mysteriously is missing

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