Press release: For Immediate Release
July 26, 2013
Parents to Rep. George Miller: To celebrate “National Parents Day,” please listen to parents!
Parents Across America, a network of grassroots parents and parent groups across the U.S., has learned that Rep George Miller, ranking Democratic member of the House education committee, is holding a teleconference today to celebrate the July 28th National Parents Day.
The teleconference is taking place today, July 26, 2013, at 1:00 p.m. EST
Toll-free U.S. dial-in #:866-952-1907
Conference Call: National Parents Day; Password: Parents
The teleconference is clearly designed to promote parent trigger laws; Rep. Miller’s guest for the teleconference is Ben Austin, head of Parent Revolution, a group generously funded by corporate reform supporters including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Walton Foundation. No one from Parents Across America was invited to participate in this event.
Parent Revolution has been exposed for paying so-called parent activists to promote the disastrous “Won’t Back Down” movie and to go around the U.S. testifying about the parent trigger.
Although Parents Across America strongly supports true parent empowerment, we oppose the parent trigger process. While the parent trigger allows parents to voice discontent with a school, it gives them no opportunity to choose among more positive reforms, and fails to promote the best practices for parent involvement from the ground up. In addition, the process creates huge potential for abuse, disruption and divisiveness to school communities. The push for parent trigger laws across the U.S. raises deep concerns. As with other deceptively simple-sounding solutions, this law is likely to cause more problems than it solves.
Parents Across America instead supports a process in which parents are authentically involved at the ground level in developing strategies for improvement. These strategies might include smaller classes, more parent involvement, or other reforms that have been proven to work and are aligned with the individual needs of the school and its students.
PAA’s recommendations
- We urge lawmakers to oppose proposals like the Parent Trigger that would exploit parents’ legitimate concerns in order to hand public property over to private hands.
- Please also see PAA’s position paper, “The Empowerment Parents Want: The LSC Model for School Reform.”
For more detail, please see our position paper, “Parents Across America on the Parent Trigger.”