A packed movie theater of parents and education workers in Nashville got an early pep-talk Monday night about getting active, if they don’t love their public school options. The event was an invitation-only preview of “Won’t Back Down,” which is about petitioning using what’s called a parent-trigger law to take over a school.
In the movie, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis work to push out indifferent unions and bureaucrats, on the grounds their kids’ educations can’t afford to wait.
At the event, Nashville Mayor Karl Dean was careful to say he wasn’t there for the law in particular, but education as a whole. Dean wants schools to be a selling point for families in the area. No mayor wants a parent like Karen Meredith to move away.
MEREDITH: “It’s actually nothing I want to get away from. I’m a very strong advocate of public schools, but what I want is a school that’s well proven… and Metro schools don’t have that proven. There are a few pockets of excellence, but they are few and far between.”
Meredith is a pediatrician and mother of three in West Nashville. She’d hoped for an option like the scuttled Great Hearts charter, saying she doesn’t want to gamble on getting her kids into public magnet schools. Now she’s thinking about private schools, or moving to Williamson County.
An official with California-based Parent Revolution, Ryan Donohue, said after the premier the group may push to make it easier for parents to take over a school In Tennessee. Right now the law requires 60 percent of parents or teachers to sign off, along with the local school board.
EXPANDED: TUESDAY AFTERNOON VERSION
Nashville got a special preview last night of a movie promoters hope will inspire parents to fight for control of failing public schools. “Won’t Back Down” is a fictional account of parents and teachers who petition to push out indifferent unions and bureaucrats.
The movie drew lots of backers of charter schools, as well as a few skeptics, like Michelle Kelly, who brought her son. Kelly wants more done about disparities between schools in different parts of the county.
“You have north Nashville and then you have where we go, which is in Oak Hill and the Hillsboro cluster, and the discrepancy between North Nashville and our cluster – there shouldn’t be.”
The movie barely mentions charters by name, but one aspect resonated with charter-student Nevaeh Harris, a sixth-grader at Nashville Prep – specifically its depiction of a public-school teacher indifferent to bullying.
“I think at think at some other schools, like mostly Metro Public Schools, they have certain things going on where it’s like the teachers can watch the kids and really wouldn’t do anything about it.”
After the movie, the audience heard from Parent Revolution, a California-based group encouraging the use of parent-trigger laws to take over schools. An official said such a move is possible in Nashville, and that his group could push for new laws to make doing so easier.
Nashville was one of several cities chosen for invitation-only previews of “Won’t Back Down.” The event was hosted by the Tennessee Charter Schools Association, and by Students First, which is headed by former Washington D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee.
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