'Parent Trigger' Laws Gain Traction, But Slowly

Jamie Garwood, director of development and programming for the Fort Wayne, Ind., Urban League, who backs the parent-trigger concept, supported an unsuccessful effort to convert the former Paul Harding High School to a charter school. The school was restructured under a different model.

—Aaron Suozzi for Education Week

By Sean Cavanagh

State lawmakers and community activists are making a new push for "parent trigger" laws, measures that let parents vote to convert academically struggling schools to charters or to radically restructure them in other ways.

But proponents and critics of the often-controversial, citizen-led efforts are divided on just how profound an impact those policies are likely to have on public schools across states and districts, and about who is likely to guide overhauls of those schools—parents themselves or outside organizations.

Opponents of proposals such as legislation recently introduced in Florida predict that they will lead to groups of parents organizing overhauls of schools at the urging of charter...