The school board in the Los Angeles County community of Compton was presented with a petition signed by a majority of parents with children at McKinley Elementary School. They want the failing school to be taken over by a charter school company.
The fight over this parent petition -- the first use of California's new "parent trigger" law -- will be familiar to Prop Zero readers. But the latest news is striking. Even after a court told the Compton school board that it had to count the signatures it had, the school board went through the 275 signatures and apparently couldn't read any of them. None were found valid.
Jim Newton of the LA Times explains where the story is now. This is a school district and board that aren't just blind to parents and deaf to judicial orders, but mute too. District officials are declining to give interviews on the topic.
That's unacceptable -- particularly from this district, which has perhaps the most sordid history of any local government in the state. A decade ago, the state had to take over the Compton district because of widespread financial and academic corruption. Perhaps it's time for another top-to-bottom investigation of the district.
