Movies: The School Behind "Won't Back Down"

You might be surprised to find out that "Won't Back Down" -- a screening of which I snuck into the other night -- isn't actually the fictionalized story of Desert Trails, site of the real-life still-unfolding parent trigger attempt outside of Los Angeles.  

It's actually the fictionalized story of Locke High School, the struggling South Central LA school that in 2008 was wrestled away from the Los Angeles public school system (and the teachers union) and taken over by Green Dot charter schools and run by Locke teachers who remained.

Of course, it's entirely self-serving of me to make the comparison to Locke, given my book about the Locke rescue effort.  

And, to be sure, Won't Back Down maps the Locke story imperfectly (just as it does the Adelanto story).  

But the similarities are striking and the issue of teacher empowerment has been missing from much of the discussion of the movie so far, and the historical connections between the teacher trigger and the parent trigger are important.

As you may recall, Locke was liberated/stolen from LAUSD by a teacher trigger -- a majority vote by tenured teachers  -- under a mechnism created several years ago in state law that had previously been adopted by a handful of Los Angeles schools (though most of them for other reasons than Locke's dismal failure).  

After Locke, the teacher trigger wasn't used successfully again because of the controversy surrounding the takeover by Green Dot, the initial struggles faced at the school, and the reality that only about 40 percent of the tenured teachers who voted for the conversion ended up getting rehired at the school. 

A similar process, called Public School Choice, was implemented by LAUSD shortly afterwards through which the district would identify struggling schools and request proposals for making them better (including converting them to charter schools).  There was no teacher or parent trigger required under PSC, but the mechanism gave parents and teachers an avenue to revamp their schools that had previously not existed.

That process was altered in December 2011 that excludes charters from the PSC process. By that time, however, Ben Austin had lost his race to become a member of the LAUSD board of education and begun expanding what was initially created by Green Dot and called a Parent Union into the barely-passed state law called the parent trigger.

Green Dot founder Steve Barr always said there might be a movie about Locke. Now there is.

Comments

[Jeanne]

Notwithstanding the great story of Locke High. Won't Back Down is a far different story, which stresses parent power over the teacher led movement Steve Barr instigated and that had as a central premise that a local union versus district union could drive school success. Parents were the winners in that plan but not the drivers, as they have been in thousands of school reform efforts. The new movie is absolutely a composite of many stories which makes it not only entertaining but widely representative of what is occurring today. Thank you!

[CarolineSF]

I read and enjoyed Alexander's book. I haven't yet been able to get access to any advance screenings of "Won't Back Down." From the trailer of WBD and everything I've heard and read about it, it's all about parents -- the main teacher who joins in the takeover effort is also a parent at the school.

Were any parents involved in the Locke takeover?

Are there any schools anywhere that have been *successfully* taken over by parents, by any definition of success? (Some people's might be simply charterizing/privatizing the school; mine would be improving the school so it provided a better education for its students.

Are there any schools anywhere that have been taken over by teachers -- where the majority of those teachers weren't then summarily fired by the takeover operators?

That's a rhetorical question, since we already know the answer is no. The movie is fiction. It's way farfetched to claim that it's about Locke.

[Bruce]

I haven't yet seen the movie, and so won't comment on it, but have a few factual additions to make to this discussion. (1) The school was "wrestled away" (a fair characterization) from LAUSD in 2007, not 2008; we just passed the five-year anniversary of the final vote approving the conversion two days ago. (2) Locke was never "run by Locke teachers who remained"; it was handed over to a group of people (the chief academic officer, who hired the cluster director, who hired the principals, including Ronnie Coleman, who has been called the hero of "Stray Dogs, Saints, and Saviors"; the principals then hired the teachers) that came from Long Beach Unified. (3) Parents were an after-thought in the Locke takeover (originally conceived as a partnership, but it morphed into a takeover) whose support was sought after the essential teacher support had been won. (4) The majority of those teachers were not "summarily fired" by Green Dot; they were discouraged, and decided not to reapply, because Green Dot was too slow in showing up on campus to give hope to a group of educators who had just taken an extremely risky career move in order to better serve their students and were taken for granted during the transition.

[CarolineSF]

In the one case in Bruce's comment that applied to me (the use of "summarily fired," I stand corrected.

[CarolineSF]

Also, by the way, the timing of the making of "Won't Back Down" means it couldn't be about the Adelanto parent trigger. It would have to be about the Compton parent trigger, which took place in December 2010. But to be accurate in that case, it would have to show Parent Revolution planning and orchestrating the entire process, and pre-selecting the charter operator to take over the school, before a single parent at the school ever heard about it.

[Gustavo Garcia]

I heard about this movie from my friend the other day. This sounds like a very uplifting story with dynamic character interactions. This movie looks like it takes a similar theme from past movies about inner city schools and uses it to empower women. I can dig it.

Thanks for the review.
- american home mortgage servicing complaints