The “Parent-Trigger” Goes to Compton

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-Kristina Rizga, Mother Jones-Kristina Rizga, Mother Jones

[UPDATE: “Parent-trigger” organizers are now accused of misleading parents.]

This week, parents of kids attending LA’s public McKinley Elementary School in Compton are trying something new: Shutting down the chronically struggling institution and demanding that it be replaced by a charter school. [Read Kevin Drum for a good backgrounder on charter schools.]

Can parents really do that? In California they sure can, thanks to the state’s new “parent-trigger” law, which allows parents to force big changes at the state’s lowest-performing schools.

And Compton is just the first case. The Los Angeles Times reports that parent-trigger laws are in various stages nation-wide. Meanwhile, former DC school head Michelle Rhee has launched what she calls a “national movement” to push for more charters and “teacher accountability.”

The idea of using charter schools to “solve” low-performing public school issues—as opposed to increasing school funding and teacher pay—remains a divisive one. For now, parents in Compton are joining Michelle Rhee’s camp, and it’s hard to blame them. Thanks to Prop. 13 and budget cuts, parents in low-income communities in California aren’t always able to get more funding or better teachers for their schools. Aside from giving charters a chance, what other options are there for Compton parents in the short-term?

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In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

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