On April 1, 2009, former San Diego Schools Superintendent (and curent border czar) Alan Bersin visited Denver. This was before the November 2009 school board elections and before bitter disagreements cleaved the board. Bersin, who had been fired by his school board after an election flipped the board against him, had a lot to say that night.
Given the current recall effort against board President Nate Easley and the coming November elections, in which three seats are up and the board could flip, nothing seems as relevant to the realities of Denver’s school board today as the following 60-second excerpt (click on the arrow below to listen).
Popularity: 18% [?]
At a forum presented by DEFER, I asked Mr. Bersin how as superintendent he involved the local teachers’ union in reform. He responded that teachers didn’t want to “go along.” In other words, the “reform” measures were apparently typical top down. Teachers, students, parents and the rest of the community were apparently only spectators in the process. That’s the method used in Denver. It failed in San Diego and it will fail here.
Ed, you appear to be making a parallel between “top down” and the education reform movement. That argument has been quite effective and conversely paints the efforts backed by the union as being in lock-step with parents and communities.
That argument, however, falls on its face when we look at many of the grassroots movements happening throughout the country that come directly from disadvantaged communities effected most by failing schools. Take the ‘Parent Trigger” for example. If there is a reform movement that can be truly described as grassroots, ‘Parent Trigger’ would take the prize. The ‘Parent Trigger’ gives parents the right to force a transformation of their child’s current or future failing school. All parents need to do is organize – if 51% of them get together and sign an official ‘Parent Trigger’ petition, they have the power to force their school district to transform the school (charter conversion, turnaround, transformation, closure).
With this type of grassroots movement, one would think that this is exactly the type of thing the teacher’s union might support, but it’s not. Instead, in places where the law exists we see the union fighting to reverse the law and take away it’s power (http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/10/local/la-me-0210-parent-law-20110210).
Why?