{"id":12610,"date":"2012-09-04T09:49:40","date_gmt":"2012-09-04T13:49:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=12610"},"modified":"2012-09-04T09:49:42","modified_gmt":"2012-09-04T13:49:42","slug":"hollywood-dramatizes-parent-trigger-legislation-at-tampa-and-charlotte-political-conventions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/09\/04\/hollywood-dramatizes-parent-trigger-legislation-at-tampa-and-charlotte-political-conventions\/","title":{"rendered":"Hollywood Dramatizes Parent Trigger Legislation At Tampa And Charlotte Political Conventions"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

usatoday.com<\/p>

Viola Davis and Maggie Gyllenhaal star in "Won't Back Down," Hollywood's take on parent trigger legislation.<\/p><\/div>\n

A Hollywood drama focused on education made its way to Tampa and Charlotte in the last week.<\/p>\n

“Won’t Back Down” is a fictional movie about two moms who set out to transform a failing inner city school.<\/p>\n

Of course, this is no easy task as they must convince bureaucrats to look beyond traditional thinking.<\/p>\n

The film was screened for panels at the Republican and Democratic conventions.<\/p>\n

The movie is a dramatization of what the use of parent trigger legislation would look like<\/a>. The idea is that parents should be able to take over a perpetually failing school and determine the best course of action to fix it.<\/p>\n

A majority of parents at chronically low-performing schools could choose to fire staff or administration, convert the school to a charter school or close the school.<\/p>\n

For supporters, a parent trigger law makes perfect sense. But critics see it as a way of turning over public dollars to for-profit companies, like charter school operators.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The film screenings were organized by StudentsFirst<\/a>, a nonprofit formed by Michelle Rhee<\/a>. She\u2019s the former Chancellor of Washington D.C.\u2019s public school system who aggressively worked to turn around D.C. public schools.<\/p>\n

She also riled teachers and voters with her brusque — and self-promotional, critics claim — style.<\/p>\n

During her three years on the job, Rhee closed a couple dozen schools and fired hundreds of \u201clow-performing\u201d principals and teachers.<\/p>\n

Now, she leads a group whose mission \u201cis to build a national movement to defend the interests of children in public education and pursue transformative reform, so that America has the best education system in the world.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The screening at the Republican National Convention in Tampa was co-hosted by the Foundation for Excellence in Education<\/a>. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush<\/a> founded the group and serves as Chairman.<\/p>\n

Bush told Education Week he loves the film<\/a> because \u201cit puts a human face on nerdy policy.”<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a much more effective way of communicating the challenges that our country faces,\u201d Bush said.<\/p>\n

The screening at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte was co-hosted by Democrats for Education Reform<\/a>. \u00a0Founder Joe Williams told the audience, \u201cI think there\u2019s real momentum on the Democratic side over the last few years for reform, and that momentum is only growing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group Parent Revolution<\/a> was also there. Founder Ben Austin, who served in the Clinton administration, said \u201cthere\u2019s a growing group of liberal voters who don\u2019t want to keep pouring money into things that aren\u2019t working.\u201d<\/p>\n

Organizers say the panel discussions in Tampa and Charlotte yielded support for the movie’s message and brought bipartisan calls for change.<\/p>\n

Bipartisan opposition to the parent trigger has been just as strong<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The parent trigger bill didn\u2019t pass Florida\u2019s Republican controlled Legislature this year. It failed on a tie vote in the Senate after Republicans like Lakeland Senator Paula Dockery led an effort to defeat the measure.<\/p>\n

Bush says the issue will return with lawmakers next year, and likely will be the highest-profile education issue of the legislative session.<\/p>\n

\u201cWon\u2019t Back Down\u201d opens in theaters on September 28.<\/p>\n

Read all of our parent trigger coverage here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Hollywood drama focused on education made its way to Tampa and Charlotte in the last week. “Won’t Back Down” is a fictional movie about two moms who set out to transform a failing inner city school. Of course, this is no easy task as they must convince bureaucrats to look beyond traditional thinking. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[1026,1086,1109],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12610"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12610"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12632,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12610\/revisions\/12632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}