When a large group of parents on Dec. 7 delivered a petition to the Compton Unified School District demanding that McKinley Elementary School be turned into a charter school, they caused a firestorm, not only over the performance of the school, but over the law that enabled them to take action in the first place.

The historic Parent Trigger Law gives parents in California the right to force a transformation of their child’s school into a charter school if a total of 51 percent of parents with students at that school sign a petition, something that McKinley parents did earlier this year.

Accusations have been levied by both sides of the controversy ever since. Faculty and PTA members say that the signing parents were duped or intimidated into signing the petition. Parents say they are being threatened by teachers and other parents to remove their signatures. The Compton Unified School District says the school is continually improving under the present conditions. Parents think their children’s state test scores have been falsified.

While the truth of these and other allegations remains to be seen, the allegation that the parents were organized by an outside force is true. Parents with children at McKinley were organized by a group called Parent Revolution, an educational reform organization.

Parent Revolution was launched on the day President Barack Obama took office. The group’s leaders say the organization is based on the premise parents should be able to chose how their children’s school is run. Parents began to join the organization almost immediately, and its membership is now in the thousands and includes parents throughout Los Angeles.

In August 2009, Parent Revolution organized a massive campaign to pass the LAUSD Public School Choice Resolution, which forces the district to compete against charter operators, groups of teachers, and other nonprofits to run schools.

In January 2010, the group organized a second campaign to pass a law called the Parent Trigger through the California State Legislature. It passed by just one vote in both the Assembly and State Senate.

The parents are demanding that McKinley Elementary School be operated by Celerity Educational Group, a nonprofit organization that specializes in the creation and operation of highquality schools in underserved communities in Los Angeles.

The schools’ instructional program is built around educational practices that have been implemented successfully around the country. Its curriculum is designed to deepen students' understanding of core concepts while avoiding needless repetition.

Celerity schools’ curriculum encompasses requirements of the California State Standards, and the state’s STAR tests are used to measure student achievement.

Celerity currently has schools in the communities of Crenshaw, South Los Angeles, Eagle Rock, Highland Park and Glassell Park.

President Obama has laid out several ways for a low-performing school to be transformed into a great one. The Parent Trigger empowers parents to choose one of four options.

If there is a nearby charter school that is outperforming their child’s failing school, parents can bring in that charter school to transform the failing school. The school will then be run by that charter school, not the school district; but it will continue to serve all the same students that have always attended the school.

They can bring about big changes while leaving the school district in charge. The district is forced to “hit the reset button” by bringing in a new staff and giving the local school community more control over staffing and budget. The least drastic change forces the school district to find a new principal, and make a few other small changes.

The most drastic option is to close the school altogether and send the students to other, higher-performing schools nearby.

They can also use a petition with 51 percent of signatures of the school’s parents as a bargaining tool to persuade the school to make improvements.

The Parent Trigger applies to every school in California that is on Program Improvement Year Three or above, has an API score of under 800, and is not classified as one of the lowest 5 percent of schools in the state.