Like the Democratic Party platform on education, this is no surprise: Democratic tension over school choice and parental empowerment is on display at in Charlotte. But some of the developments and statements are still worth logging in.

StudentsFirst co-sponsored a special screening of the new movie “Won’t Back Down” at the DNC yesterday, just as it did at the RNC in Tampa last week. And in the panel discussion that followed, Ben Austin, executive director of Parent Revolution, told the audience that the parent trigger law – upon which the movie is loosely based – is a progressive idea aimed at giving parents more power to right struggling schools. According to coverage of the panel by Education Week’s Politics K-12 blog:

The laws allow parents to "unionize and collectively bargain, just like teachers' unions," said Austin, who served in the Clinton White House. "Parent trigger fundamentally makes public schools more public. ... We need to be modern 21st-century progressives" who stand for government working.

To be sure, people like Austin and former California state Sen. Gloria Romero have tried, mightily, to dispel the notion that the trigger is a right-wing creation, but the myth persists. In June, the U.S. Conference of Mayors unanimously endorsed the parent trigger idea, and among the big-city Democrats who led the charge was Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Villaraigosa is chairman of the Democratic National Convention this year, as the Huffington Post notes in this piece over the weekend. He’s also a former teachers union organizer. Wrote the HuffPo: “It is hard to paint the school reform movement as a right-wing conspiracy. Support for taking on teachers’ unions is growing in Democratic and liberal circles.”

More DNC coverage of the growing divide between Dems and teachers unions in the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Times.

It’s getting harder and harder for critics to torpedo education reform ideas like the “parent trigger” by distorting political affiliations. The evidence just keeps getting in the way.

The latest example is what happened at the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Orlando last weekend. With prominent Democrats leading the charge, the mayors in a voice vote unanimously endorsed parent triggers, which aim to help fed-up, low-income parents turn around struggling schools.

“Too many districts,” their resolution said (go to page 169), “continue to turn a blind eye toward some of the worst performing schools … ”

Now, whatever you think of parent triggers as a school-improvement tool – and there’s plenty of room for fair-minded debate here - it’s undeniable that critics have gotten considerable traction by portraying the notion as conservative, corporate, far-right and Republican. This was especially true in Florida. Parent trigger legislation was narrowly defeated in March after weeks of being caricatured as another sinister device for Jeb Bush, the Koch brothers and the American Legislative Exchange Council to mine billions of dollars from the privatization of public schools. (If you think my description is over the top, please watch this video.)

It’s true a lot of “conservative” ed reformers like the idea of a parent trigger. But it’s true, too, that the idea of giving low-income parents leverage and options, including the possibility of converting their schools into charter schools, has roots in “liberal/progressive” circles. (My apologies for the air quotes; after covering education in Florida for eight years, the labels just no longer make sense to me.) The sponsor of the original parent trigger bill in California, former state Sen. Gloria Romero, is a Democrat. Ben Austin, who heads the Parent Revolution group that is pushing the idea from state to state, is a former staffer in the Clinton White House. Rahm Emanuel, the former chief of staff to Barack Obama and now mayor of Chicago, is a fan, too.

All that wasn’t enough to scrub the perceived partisan funk off the Florida bill. But all indications are that it will resurface next spring. And maybe last weekend’s vote will help it be judged on its merits rather than its alleged lineage. (more…)