Enter charter schools. Charter schools are independently operated public schools that receive their funding from the same pool of money as other public schools, but have broad autonomy in hiring teachers and administrators and setting curriculums. Because they are public schools, they are secular and must conform to equal opportunity policies, and because they are autonomous the majority of them are not unionized. In return for autonomy, charter schools must meet certain performance standards or lose their charter.
California recently passed a parent empowerment law, sometimes referred to as ''the parent trigger''. Under this law, if over 50% of the parents in a particular school sign a petition and present it to the school board, the parents can require the board to do one of four things - one of which is to establish a charter school in the existing buildings. In addition to providing greater autonomy, this would effectively fire the current staff.
This is exactly what happened recently at McKinley High School in Compton, California. Over 60% of the parents at McKinley, one of the lowest performing schools in Southern California, signed a petition requiring the school district to create a charter school. But rather than accept the petition, they ignored it for a month before finally requiring every parent to submit to a brief interview and to sign a paper verifying their signature on the petition.
The parents have sued, and they're being backed by some big guns. Kirkland & Ellis along with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher are providing pro bono representation for the parents, who are asking the court to rule that the district's actions are unduly burdensome and intrusive. Regardless of the outcome, although it seems almost self evident that the court will side with the parents, there's no doubt that the parents have been empowered. An energized community that cares about education can only benefit the students.
