New legislation, called the parent trigger, which is being proposed in more than 20 states, including New York, is about to make your role as an engaged parent a lot more complicated.
What is the parent trigger? California was the first to adopt it. There, it works like this: parents whose children attend a failing school can band together. If 51 percent of them sign a petition, they can demand, and the district must provide, a new set of administrators to run the school. In Texas, parents can pull the trigger after two or more years of an “unacceptable” performance rating. In Connecticut, a slightly different iteration of the parent trigger recently became law — this one calls for powerful parent councils to help run the school.
The trigger creates an opportunity for parents to be heard. Parents at schools that “pull the trigger” will be deciding among school operators. Some will offer bilingual education, others will offer inclusion classes, an international baccalaureate program, Advanced Placement courses or vocational training. Thirty years ago, “parental engagement” meant signing a report card once a quarter, attending the yearly parent-teacher conference and making a batch of brownies for a bake sale.
It turned out, though, that the good old days weren’t so good for low-income students. So over the last 15 years, parents were first invited — and now, in many places, are required — to participate in choosing what school their children will attend. It’s a great idea, but on the ground, it’s messy, frustrating, imperfect and staggeringly time-consuming. Public-school parents must attend chaotic school fairs and crowded open houses, navigate confusing guides and rules about choosing schools.
Some wealthy parents, even those who favor public education for their children, opt out and enroll their children in private and parochial schools, where the admission process is often much easier. Savvy middle-class parents (especially ones with lots of free time, who speak English and have college educations) come up with a credible short list of schools they like, but in the end, their children may not be allowed to attend, because of space. 
And sometimes the parents don’t even know that the “choice” they are making is a bad one. When researchers from the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington studied the school choice process in Hartford, they found that schools with the highest levels of parental satisfaction were often ones with the lowest levels of academic achievement. “You see this all over the country,” said Sarah Yatsko, a research analyst at the center.
We need to supply public-school parents with substantive training programs to help them figure out, for instance, what a good reading program looks like, what should be expected from a parent-teacher conference and how to ensure that elementary, middle and high school curriculums are preparing students for college. At the very least, parents need unbiased, accessible information about what solid research tells us works best in schools — even if they don’t have a computer at home or if English isn’t their first language. Source
Related article: Illinois Should Weigh Use of Parent Trigger
Related article: Illinois Should Weigh Use of Parent Trigger