The Heartland Institute

A recent representative poll of 1,010 Chicago residents has found that 61 percent support a Parent Trigger law. Parent Trigger laws allow a majority of parents whose children attend a failing school to require change through petition. In California, the first state to pass such a law, parents can petition for school improvements ...

The Texas House will vote on a bill to simplify the state’s Parent Trigger law and let parents petition earlier to take control of a school’s future. Sponsored by Sen. Larry Taylor (R-Friendswood), Senate Bill 1263 passed the House, then the Senate Education Committee unanimously March 28 and is likely to have a favorable ...

Of Florida’s 67 counties, only one has more African-Americans than whites: Gadsden County. Established nearly 40 years before the Civil War, Gadsden is one of Florida’s poorest communities, and one of the toughest places to get a good education. According to the Florida Department of Education , one of Gadsden’s two public high ...

Florida Reps. Carlos Trujillo and Michael Bileca have introduced a Parent Trigger bill that would authorize parents to choose a reform option for their children’s chronically failing school. Sen. Kelli Stargel (R-Lakeland) filed a companion Senate bill that would also require schools to notify parents of online options if their ...

A new Joyce Foundation- Chicago Tribune poll shows strong and widespread support — among parents of CPS students and among other Chicagoans — for unchaining more charters in Chicago. The poll of 1,010 Chicagoans found: • More than 6 in 10 respondents (63.7 percent) favor making it easier for charters to expand in neighborhoods ...

The speech in the attached PDF was delivered by Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast on February 23, 2013, at the Eighth Annual Wisconsin Conservative Conference, Bluemound Gardens, Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. An excerpt is below: In 2016, in time for the next presidential election, every child now in high school will be eligible ...

Maine legislators are considering an education reform that has garnered significant national attention: the Parent Trigger. The legislation, first passed in California, has been considered in approximately 20 other states, and legislators in five states have stated their intention to propose it in early 2013. A Parent Trigger would ...

A Parent Trigger bill that aims to give parents more influence in their children’s schools is making its way through the Tennessee legislature. Filed by Rep. John DeBerry (D-Memphis), the bill would allow a petition by the majority of parents at schools performing in the state’s bottom 20 percent to trigger one of several ...

Exercising their rights under California’s 2010 Parent Trigger law, more than 300 parents delivered petitions to the Los Angeles school district in January, calling for their children’s failing school to be improved or converted into a charter school. Parents are now reviewing proposals from eight different organizations and ...

South Carolina legislators are considering an education reform that has garnered significant national attention: the Parent Trigger. The legislation, first passed in California, has been considered in approximately 20 other states, and legislators in five states have announced their intentions to propose it this year. A Parent Trigger ...

Rep. Edward Lindsey wants to make Georgia the eighth state to pass a Parent Trigger law. House Bill 123 , which Lindsey and five other legislators are cosponsoring, follows a new constitutional amendment permitting independent charter schools, which voters passed in November. The legislation will simplify the process for letting ...

Missouri legislators are considering an education reform that has garnered significant national attention: the Parent Trigger. The legislation, first passed in California, has been considered in approximately 20 other states, and state legislators in four states have stated their intentions to propose it in early 2013. A Parent ...

Voters elected Teresa Rogers, a parent who helped pull a Parent Trigger in Adelanto, California, to the district’s school board. That school board had opposed parents’ efforts to convert a failing school under its purview into a charter school. It took a lawsuit, but parents won. “We need to change the culture of the schools ...

Oklahoma legislators will soon consider an education reform that has garnered significant national attention: the Parent Trigger. The legislation, first passed in California, has been considered in approximately 20 other states, and legislators in four states (including Oklahoma) have stated intentions to propose it in early 2013 ...

Nevada legislators are considering an education reform that has garnered significant national attention: the Parent Trigger. The legislation, first passed in California, has been considered in approximately 20 other states, and legislators in four states have stated their intentions to propose it in early 2013. A Parent Trigger ...

A Georgia legislator plans to propose an education reform that has garnered significant national attention: the Parent Trigger. The legislation, first passed in California, has been considered in approximately 20 other states, and state legislators in four have stated their intentions to propose it in early 2013. Though the Georgia ...

Thirty-five Mississippi schools have performed so poorly for three years in a row that parents can now convert them into charter schools under the state’s 2010 Parent Trigger law. This is the first year any Mississippi schools are eligible. About 50 schools improved their performance and thus avoided the eligible list. “Mississippi ...

Most states begin legislative sessions in spring 2013, and several lawmakers have already indicated they will introduce Parent Trigger or school voucher legislation. Here’s a list. Parent Trigger: These laws, passed in seven states, allow a majority of parents whose children attend a failing school to require a specific reform ...

Sometimes, it seems as though the debate over school reform takes place in an alternate universe where time passes but nothing really changes. Complaints about the quality of public education were widespread in the 1980s and even in the 1950s and before, and they sound surprisingly similar to those heard today. Thankfully, new ...

If a bill before the Michigan House passes, parents whose children attend the state’s worst public schools could require one of four potential reforms by signing a petition. Senate Bill 620 would allow a petition consisting of signatures from either 60 percent of the school’s parents or 60 percent of the school’s teachers ...