By Victor Skinner
EAGnews.org

NASHVILLE – The new blockbuster movie “Won’t Back Down,” which focuses on Parent Trigger education reform laws, is already peaking the interest of families frustrated with their public school options.

Across the country, parents and education reform advocates have streamed into theaters to see how actresses Viola Davis and Maggie Gyllenhaal team up to transform a fictional Pittsburgh school into a high performing charter school using a parent trigger petition.

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Parent trigger laws allow parents of students in failing public schools to transform them into charter schools (or force significant changes in staff) if the majority signs a petition to do so. The empowering laws have been adopted in California, Texas, Ohio, Indiana, Mississippi, Louisiana and Connecticut, and are being considered in other states this year.

The parent trigger concept hit home for many people who recently attended a screening of the movie near Nashville, Tennessee. While parents who attended the invitation-only screening were from a much different demographic than those in the film – suburban Nashville vs. urban Pittsburgh in “Won’t Back Down” – its message is inspiring them to look for similar solutions, the Tennessean reports.

Many in attendance were parents from the city’s wealthier west side, “the same group most upset by the district’s recent rejection of Arizona-based charter school organization Great Hearts Academies,” the newspaper reports.

As in many other states, Tennessee requires charter school operators to gain approval from local school boards to open in any given community. The nonsensical rule prevents many promising charter schools from taking root because public school boards want to avoid competition for students and the state dollars attached to them.

Parents at the Nashville “Won’t Back Down” screening told the Tennessean they want other options besides public schools for their children.

Great Hearts would have competed with the local Hillwood High School, which parent Todd Meyers said is “failing to meet my expectations,” according to the newspaper.

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He’s willing to move his family to find better options.

“We’re probably moving back to Williamson County or to Wilson County,” Meyers told the Tennessean.

Other parents, like parent-teacher organization president Becky Sharpe, believe the metro public school district is choked by bureaucracy, and local leaders aren’t empowered to make quick decisions necessary to improve education. She cited the convoluted process the district goes through at the beginning of the year to distribute student textbooks to the proper classrooms.

Elected officials seem to sense the parental cry for more school options. State Rep. John J. DeBerry Jr., D-Memphis, told the Tennessean he’s considering introducing a strong parent trigger law this legislative session.

“We’ve had bureaucrats and academics tell us what we need, what’s best for our children,” DeBerry told the newspaper. “They build schools, put in management, and at the end, the product is woefully inadequate.”

Hopefully, “Won’t Back Down” will inspire lawmakers to create more parent trigger laws in states that don’t yet have them, so parents who are fed up with failing public schools can take matters into their own hands.