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Atole con el dedo: learning from low-income parents' lived experiences with educational choice policies

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Atole con el dedo: learning from low-income parents' lived experiences with educational choice policies

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Content ATOLE CON EL DEDO:
LEARNING FROM LOW-INCOME PARENTS’ LIVED EXPERIENCES WITH
EDUCATIONAL CHOICE POLICIES
by

Rodolfo Acosta

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(EDUCATION)

August 2015

ii
Acknowledgements
My graduate school journey along with this dissertation was indeed a village effort. I
wish to extend my deepest gratitude and thank those that provided support, guidance,
encouragement, and love through this journey, particularly in writing of this dissertation.
Of course, I would not have a dissertation at all were it not for the wonderful participants in this
study who generously shared their thoughts and opinions with me and graciously accepted me
into their homes, neighborhoods, and workspace. I am so grateful they were willing to spend
time with me and allow me to learn from them. I also want to thank my former students and their
families at CIS 313 in New York City and KIPP Academy of Opportunity in Los Angeles. It is
their struggle in navigating the complex world of education that initially inspired me to pursue a
Ph.D.
I am exceedingly grateful for the steadfast support of my advisor and dissertation
committee chair, Patricia Burch. She took a chance with me five years ago and there is no
question that her input, feedback, and advice helped me diversify my human experience in
unimaginable ways. She has been instrumental in my development as a researcher, scholar, and
overall educator, showing care, displaying patience, providing encouragement, setting high
standards, and demonstrating integrity every step of the way. Thank you for being a wonderful
advisor and mentor; I could not have done this without you. I would also like to thank her son
Cuba Blais, as his thoughts of encouragement helped provide greater perspective to my work as
an educator.
I am also grateful to my dissertation committee members, Terry Cooper, Adrianna Kezar,
and Julie Marsh. Your support of my work, interest in my dissertation, and insightful feedback
has meant so much to me. I thank each for their insights, questions, and words of wisdom and
encouragement. You have all helped elevate my skill as an educator and hope to live up to the

iii
examples they have set up for me.
I would also like to thank my graduate school colleagues and friends, particularly the
members of collective of Latina/os and Chicana/os from Rossier: Diane Nevarez, Michelle
Castellanos, Joyce Gomez, Bryan Rodriguez, Roman Liera, and Eric Felix. Your solidarity in my
own times of struggle and in learning from yours really helped strengthen my drive in
completing the Ph.D. Your stories also gave greater levels of hope and meaning to my
scholarship with Latina/o families. I want to especially thank my dear friend Susanna DeSimone
for providing me with support and words of encouragement throughout my stint as a graduate
student. Thank you for always believing in me, pushing me to keep going, keeping me grounded,
and for inspiring me to being a better educator.
Lastly, I am most grateful to my familia, which includes my father Rodolfo, my mother
Angelica, and by siblings Angel and Jacky. When I went to college for the first time, my parents
went with me in spirit and earned a B.A. in the process. When I received my M.A. in Ed., they
received one too. Now that I finished this Ph.D. it is as they finished one too. I am forever
grateful and indebted to your unconditional love and unwavering support throughout my entire
life. And for my siblings, thank you for your overwhelmingly and sometimes unwelcome, dozes
of humor during my graduate journey. You two should seriously consider a career in comedy.
You are, however, wonderful teachers, not only to your students, but to me as well. Your stories
in the classroom inspire me and give me hope that my work as an educator can in some way help
to improve people’s lives, just like both of you do every day.

iv
Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ii

List of Tables vii

List of Figures vii

Abstract viii

Chapter 1: The ‘Atole’ Narrative: Engaging Parents with Choice Reform 1
Policy, Politics, and the Problem Statement 3
Statement of Purpose and Research Questions 5
Parents, Schools, and Educational Reform 7
Within a District of Choice: Los Angeles Unified School District 12
Social Constructions and Sense-making Theory 23
The ‘Atole’ Metaphor: Significance and Overview of Dissertation 25

Chapter 2: Parent Literature & Two Interpretivist Theories 31
Social Construction of Policy Targets 32
Sense-making Theory 39
Parent & Schools: Participation, Markets, & Community Organizing 43
Markets, Choice, & Parents 46
Parent Community Organizing as an Approach for School Reform 52
Value of Sense-making in Parent Participation Scholarship 56
Chapter Summary 59

Chapter 3: Research Design and Methods 60
Qualitative Research Design & Questions 60
SES and Individual Choice 64
PEA and Collective Choice 69
Data Analysis 82
Limitations 86
Trustworthiness & Validity 88

Chapter 4: Parent Empowerment Act & Contending through Choice Reform 92
Policy Background 93
History 93
Civic Engagement as a Principle of Design 96
New Contenders of Education Reform 99

v
Four Dimensions of Contender Construction 100
Looking under the Hood: a Deeper Look at Contender Construction 102
The Story of Planning & Implementation of PEA in LAUSD 104
Parents at Jefferson Ready to Contend 105
The Unintended Consequences of PEA for Parents at Watts Elementary 112
Summary of PEA cases in LAUSD 119
Lessons from Jefferson and Watts Parents 120
Intermediary Organizations Play a Key Role in Establishing PEA’s Intent 120
Setting is Critical for Parents in Collective Decision-making 128
Parents with Developed Civic Capacity Facilitate Implementation of PEA 134
Chapter Summary: PEA as part of the Atole Narrative 140

Chapter 5: Consumer Parents and the SES Market 145
Policy Background 146
History 147
Consumerism as Principle of Design 151
Looking Under the Hood: A Deeper Look at Consumer Constructions 154
Stories of Choice: The Implementation of SES in LAUSD 155
The Seasoned Parent and the New Consumer 156
Parents Relied on Own Experience to Make the Best of SES 159
Novice Consumers Struggle to Make Sense of SES 163
Reflection of Choice: Cierran El Mercadito (Closure of the Little Market) 169
Lessons from Parents Participating in SES 172
Districts and Vendors are Influential in Parent SES Choice 172
Parent Histories are Critical to Individual Sense-making 176
Setting of SES Instruction in an Extension of Parental Engagement 177
Summary of Chapter 180

Chapter 6: Cross-Case Summary, Discussion, & Implications 184
Summary of Major Findings 184
Importance of Intermediary Organizations 186
Setting is Important 188
Parent Individual Histories are Important 190
Connecting Findings to Research 191
Theoretical Implications 197
Policy Implications 200
Emerging Questions 202
Closing Remarks 203

vi
References 205
Appendix A: PEA Parent Protocol 221
Appendix B: PEA Organizer Protocol 223
Appendix C: Observation Instrument 225
Appendix D: SES Focus Group Protocol 229
Appendix E: SES Follow-up Parent Interview 231
Appendix F: List of Codes 233

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List of Tables
Table 1.1: Schooling options available for families
in the Los Angeles Unified School District 13

Table 1.2: LAUSD SES market during the last 7 fiscal years 16
Table 1.3: Comparison between SES and PEA 22
Table 3.1: Comparison of Data for LAUSD SES Study 64

Table 3.2: Summary of Parent Participant
Demographic Information for Data Collected 2013-14 64

Table 3.3: Comparison of 2012-2013 PEA School Characteristics 75

Table 3.4: Data for LAUSD PEA Study 81

Table 3.5: Data Analysis for SES and PEA 86

Table 4.1: Elements of Design within PEA 98
Table 4.2: Four Dimensions of the Social Constructions of
Parents as Contender Groups 103

Table 4.3: Racial and Ethnic History at Watts between
African American & Latina/o Populations 133

Table 5.1: Characteristics of Students Attending SES 2012-2013 149

Table 5.2: Elements of Design within SES 153

Table 6.1: Summary of Cross Case findings of PEA and SES 187

List of Figures
Figure 2.1: Four Types of (Potential) Target Populations 35
Figure 2.2: Process of Sense-making in the Context of K12 Policy 40

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Abstract
Parent participation in schooling matters has become a topic of interest as part of
educational reform for the last three decades. Although scholarship has documented parent
participation and its benefits to students before that, it was mainly focused as practice at a local
level. Policy initiatives, like No Child Left Behind (NCLB), took the extra step to expand the
dialogue at the federal level by defining parent involvement and establishing guidelines for
educational agencies to begin building two-way relationships with families. The authorization of
NCLB also heralded the introduction of second-generation choice policies, which provided
families with different types of choice policies as an incentive to participation and an effort to
improve academic gains. Part of the emphasis on offering educational choices for families is also
a result of neoliberalist ideology that espouses the several market principles one being individual
self-interest. In result, parents have become the central targets of policy in efforts towards
educational reform. In the process of designing these specific choice initiatives, parents have
historically and problematically been socially constructed as a deficit-based group that lacks the
appropriate or adequate knowledge to make informed decisions. In addition, choice policies
seldom have the reflective space to adhere to parents’ needs and voices, which in turn can offer
insight to how policy is lived and practiced.
The following study takes an in-depth look at how two specific choice initiatives are
understood and practiced by parents. As part of the federal initiative to engage parents, I will
study and analyze Supplemental Education Services (SES), which is a mini-voucher program for
after-school programs. As part of second-generation choice policies, SES offers families the
individual option to select programs that will help improve on academic achievement. The
second is the state initiative in California called the Parent Empowerment Act (PEA), better

ix
known as the Parent Trigger. As second-generation choice initiative, PEA offers families the
option to collectively petition their local school to implement a school-wide intervention; with a
51% majority vote parents can overhaul the leadership and school governance in one of four
ways. Although both choice initiatives are different in design and implementation, they both
offer valuable insight to the benefits and challenges families face through the practice of both
laws.
To investigate both policies, I conducted a comparative ethnographic case study of
parents participating in SES and PEA within Los Angeles Unified School District. The study
took two years and relied on qualitative methods to investigate how parents understood their
participation within each choice initiative. I started by investigating the text of the law to
ascertain how levers within policy design socially construct the role(s) of parents. I then
conducted extensive fieldwork in the forms of interviews and observations to investigate how
parents actually interpreted their own participation within each choice initiative. Consistent with
this line of inquiry, I used sense-making theory to understand how parents socially constructed
their own role(s) as they participated under both choices.
Cross-case findings of both cases indicate that these initiatives have the opportunity of
offering families options to improve the educational experiences of their children. Yet in both
cases there are sets of conditions that tethered to the perceived success in the implementation of
both choices. Although there are some significant differences in the implementation of both
policies, three important similarities emerged in the cross-case analysis of SES and PEA. These
include the importance of intermediary organizations in the dissemination of information and
implementation of the law; local setting is critical to both participation and implementation; and
parents’ own individual histories matter in interpreting information about choice and how they

x
approach their decision. Parents face serious challenges in implementing their choice without
these components, which in the end left some parents feeling confused and tokenized.
Implications for the study include suggestions to how districts can work with parents in a more
symbiotic way, opening up lines of communication between the various actors involved in the
implementation of each choice initiative. Part of this symbiotic relationship includes the method
in the dissemination of information to parents about each choice policy and a method of
reflection for districts to learn from parent experiences.

1
Chapter 1: The ‘Atole’ Narrative: Engaging Parents with Choice Reform
During the last two decades, market-driven policies developed into the dominant
response to matters of educational reform (Anyon, 2007; Apple, 2006; Gulson, 2011; Lipman,
2011). Impressed by the efficiencies and accomplishments of the private sector, market-based
reformers seek to inject doses of competition, entrepreneurialism, and other market logics to
rectify the shortcomings in public schools and to improve student performance (Bast & Walberg,
2004; Chubb & Moe, 1990; Friedman, 1955; Meier, 1995). Much of the attention garnered by
market reform is centered on the panoply of choices offered to predominantly low-income
minority families. These policies are broad in scope and include but are not limited to tuition tax
credits, vouchers, after-school tutoring, public school choice, and other private or nonprofit
options, such as charter schools, emphasizing an exit from public schools. The theory of action
driving these policies assumes that the opportunity for parents to make choices will in turn foster
a sense of competition to weed out ineffective and under-performing schools and contribute to
improvements in schools and student achievement. The implementation of these choice
initiatives, however, specifically in large school districts, has not gone without debate.
The growth of choice policy initiatives is part of the neoliberalist ideology that espouses
individual self-interest, an unrestricted flow of financial capital, reduction of labor costs, and the
privatization of goods historically provided by the public sector (Lipman, 2011; pg. 6). In other
words, the private sector is able to accomplish what the public sector has failed to do or at least
do it better. Large urban school districts in cities including Chicago, New York, New Orleans,
and Los Angeles have become some of the nation’s leading laboratories on choice. At the same
time, these districts have also become sites of struggle. Critics of these policies argue that
market-based initiatives are changing the face of urban school districts and not necessarily for

2
the better (Apple, 2006; Ball, 2007). In sum, critics claim that market-driven policies fall short,
or in some cases fail, in recognizing the socio-political, economic, and historical contexts tacitly
embedded to the problems with public schooling (Anyon, 2007; Apple, 2006; Dumas, 2006;
Lipman, 2011). The most visible part of this debate however, has taken place within a policy
arena familiar to traditional educational leaders which include policy-makers, educational
administrators, local superintendents, community principals, and in some cases teachers.
1

Parents, however, have not been silent in the debate. Another side of this debate, and equally
important is also taking pace with more direct and tangible consequences for families. During the
same decade and contrary to market logic, parent and community organizing have increased
specifically in large urban cities. (Fabricant, 2010; Mediratta et al., 2009; Warren & Mapp,
2011).
Dissatisfied with their children’s schools and frustrated by the dominant education
policies, parents in low-income minority communities are organizing strategic campaigns to
pressure local school districts for needed change (Anyon, 2009; Fabricant, 2010; Mediratta et al.,
2009; Oakes et al., 2006; Warren & Mapp, 2011). Parent and community organizing centered on
school reform offer a new approach to choice. While large school districts like Chicago, New
York, and Los Angeles are experimenting with choice policies driven by the individual self-
interest for each family, parent organizing, as a reform strategy, seeks to impact the educational
welfare of the entire community. Organized campaigns have taken place in various urban centers
including Austin, Chicago, Denver, San Jose, Los Angeles, Bronx, Oakland, Milwaukee,
Philadelphia, and Mississippi where families organized to improve the conditions of local

1
For the rest of this narrative, I will use the term “educational experts” or educational leaders interchangeably refer
to non-parent stakeholders, which include policy-makers, administrators, principals, and teachers.

3
schools ranging from changing school curriculum to improving the physical conditions of
schools (Mediratta et al., 2009; Warren & Mapp, 2011).
The mobilization efforts from parental organizing further provide the potential to
challenge the political and economic priorities established by traditional educational leaders.
Undergirded by assumptions of choice through democratic processes and contrasted to those of
market-based reform, parental and community groups are using their own local knowledge,
wisdom, commitment, authority, and rectitude to address some of the systemic and oppressive
educational inequities within our nation’s public schools (Fung, 2006).
Policy, Politics, and the Problem Statement
Even though they are different, both market-based and community-organizing efforts
place parents at the crux of educational decision-making. At the market-end of the spectrum,
parents are framed as consumers that make individual choices in order to optimize the academic
opportunities for their children. In contrast, community organizing efforts conceptualize the
role(s) of parents as part of a larger collective unit, one which by theory and practice use
democratic-based action to ameliorate specific educational problems and in turn lead to whole
school reform. Policy-making, however, is a political process. Despite ideological differences,
both market-based and community-organizing initiatives can converge under the right political
conditions. Current efforts in California have institutionalized community organizing as a choice
strategy through the Parent Empowerment Act (PEA) better known as “parent triggers”. These
new choice policies provide parents with the lever to restructure or overhaul a local school’s
governance through a majority vote by the parents from the subject school. More importantly,
triggers offer a new vision of choice; one that allows parents to opt-in to their local school rather
than opt-out. I will elaborate on this further but in short, all of the previous, traditional choice

4
models allow families to exit or opt-out from their local school option. On the contrary, trigger
laws allow parents to opt-in and improve their local schools. In terms of policy analysis, a closer
look at these new trigger initiatives, which are construed to be more democratic in action,
compared to other market-based policies may provide a deeper understanding to how parents
experience choice and shed further insight into the problem I address in this study.
The political process of designing policy is guided by divisive social constructions of
target populations (Schneider & Ingram, 1997). These social constructions tacitly embedded
within policy design govern how participants act. As a target population of redistributive policy,
parents – specifically those from low-income, minority communities – have historically and
problematically been socially construed within policy design, as a deficit-based group that lacks
the appropriate or adequate knowledge to make informed decisions. In many cases, parents are
also seen as a monolithic group thus disregarding the sociocultural diversity within these
communities. The problem is grounded from the reality that policy is written for and not by or
with the parents. Despite the best intentions and efforts of educational reformers or experts in
addressing achievement and resource inequities through the market logic of choice, policy
without parental input, feedback, and buy-in, runs the risk of tokenizing parents. Failing to
understand policy from parents’ lived experiences also runs the risk of alienating families from
broader educational processes, which can then diminish the impact of their choice thus
perpetuating inequity in already under-resourced communities (Apple, 1996; Orfield &
Frankenberg, 2013; Pedroni, 2007). My intention then is to explore how the social constructions
within choice policies compare and contrast to parents’ lived experiences in order to mediate the
implementation of choice.

5
Statement of Purpose and Research Questions
The endeavor of understanding social constructions within policy design also involves
addressing the relationship between the educational experts that write the law and the parents
that live it. Various scholars have explored the relationship between experts and parents (Dewey,
1927; Fung, 2003). Community and parent organizing efforts have also increased the amount of
scholarship exploring this relationship (Mediratta et al., 2009; Oakes et al., 2006; Warren &
Mapp, 2011). A large part of this research is grounded in the broader body of work exploring the
educational benefits to students and schools from various forms of family participation (Baker et
al., 1999; Dryfoos, 2000; Epstein, 1988, 1995; Epstein & Jansorn, 2004; Henderson & Mapp,
2003). Most of this research, however, even part of my work here, is centered on policy analysis
as an evaluative act reflective to the effects of design and implementation for an audience of
majority educational experts. Dumas better articulates this point in the following:
our work has largely focused on policy as a set of interventions, regulations and
institutional and societal consequences. With an audience comprised primarily of
policymakers, educational leaders and other researchers, we have been less concerned
with how policy is lived, and too often suffered, by those who have little hand in policy
formation or implementation, and more to the point, have not been invited to weigh in on
how we who research policy should assess the deep impression of policy on flesh, bone
and soul. (Dumas, 2013: 2).

Here, Dumas is referring to the experiences of those individuals who lived and suffered through
struggle in the Civil Rights movement. Similar to Dumas, though, I contend that in order to
begin understanding the utility of market-based reforms, educational leaders should pay closer
attention to how choice is experienced and interpreted by parents, specifically those living in
under-resourced communities. Through this narrative, then, I analyze how policy is lived from
the perspectives of families making choices for their children.

6
The purpose of this study is to expand our understanding of choice reform through the
lived experiences of families, while also addressing the governance linkages between school
leaders and parents. Returning to the notion that policy production is a political process driven by
social constructions of target populations, my goal is to compare and contrast choice reform as
envisioned by the educators that authored the law to the lived experiences of parents. To do so, I
conducted a comparative qualitative case study of two different choice policies within the Los
Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and asked the following questions:
1. How does policy design socially construct the role of parents, specifically those in low-
income, minority communities?
2. How do parents construct the policy, in particular as related to their roles and
responsibilities, and act on these interpretations?
3. How do assumptions of policy clash or converge with perspectives and/or interests of
parents?
4. What are similarities and differences in the social construction of parents and the sense-
making of policy in two specified LAUSD choice reforms?
5. What are implications of this analysis with regards to choice policies for large urban
school districts like LAUSD and the role of parents, specifically those in historically low-
income minority communities?
To answer these questions I selected to compare two choice policies to that socially
construct parents in their design differently: Supplemental Educational Services (SES) and the
Parent Empowerment Act (PEA). In brief, SES is a federally funded mini-voucher, after school
program established for under achieving schools and is based on a more traditional form of
choice where parents make individual choices for the benefit of their children. PEA on the other

7
hand, is a state based
2
initiative which allows parents in a community, through a majority vote, to
change the school in one of four ways. In sum, parents can dismiss the principal, dismiss the
principal and some of the staff, restart the school as a charter or close it. Different from SES,
parents must decide collectively through a democratic majority for the choice that will help the
whole community. For each policy, I interviewed parents, district personnel, and third-party
stakeholders to capture multiple interpretations of the specific choice reform. I also observed
parents either in the process of making or reflecting on the choice(s) they made for their families.
And finally, I reviewed pertinent documents such as the lettering of the policy and media stories
relative to each case. To frame and analyze the data from both cases, I coupled social
constructions of target populations with sense-making theory to further attend to the contextual
determinants that mediated the decision-making for parents. This last point is important, as I
believe that context plays a critical role in how parents experience and make sense of policy.
In order to provide a richer description of both cases and attend to contextual
determinants writ large, I begin this narrative with a brief review of the literature regarding the
role of parents in schools and educational reform. I follow that by explaining the political context
regarding the environment and the two choice policies under study in Los Angeles. I then briefly
introduce the theoretical framework guiding the study. Finally, I will conclude with an overview
of the remainder of the dissertation.
Parents, Schools, and Education Reform
Since the 1980s, educational scholars have been paying attention to the relationships
between schools and families and the implications for student success (Mattingly et al., 2002).
The majority of this scholarship attends to what parents, families, and communities bring to the

2
California was the first state to ratify a PEA law. In addition to California, seven other states in total have these
laws including Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Indiana, Ohio, and Florida

8
educational development of children and school systems (Mapp, 2003). The body of work has
been diverse in scope and method, seeking to provide depth and breadth to the roles of parents in
education. For example, some of the general topics covered by parental participation studies
include evaluations of school programs and interventions (Baker et al., 1998; Dryfoos, 2000;
Epstein et al., 1997; Shaver & Walls, 1998), home-to-school interactions (Mapp, 2003; Sanders
& Harvey, 2002), community effects (Dryfoos, 2000), community and class (Lareau and Horvat,
1999; Lopez, 2001), and effects on students based on age (Dryfoos, 2000; Mediratta & Fruchter,
2001; Shirley, 1997) and grade level (Miedel & Reynolds, 1999; Epstein et al., 1997; Sanders et
al., 1999). In trying to cover new ground, scholars have implemented various designs such as
descriptive case studies, ethnographies, pre- and quasi-experimental studies, correlational
studies, and other experimental studies (Henderson & Mapp, 2002).
The research on parental participation is fairly consistent, suggesting there is a strong link
between the various forms of parent participation and educational benefits to children such as
higher grades, higher attendance rates, improved social behavior, and access to post-secondary
education (Baker et al., 1999; Dreyfoos, 2000; Epstein, 1988, 1995, 1996; Epstein & Jansorn,
2004; Henderson & Mapp, 2003). Of particular importance are studies that find parent
involvement a consistent predictor of student academic achievement (Epstein et al., 1997; Baker
et al., 1999); it leads to lasting effects on children’s success regardless of class, race, ethnicity,
gender, or age (Abdul-Adil & Farmer, 2006; Cochran & Henderson, 1996; Cortes, 1996;
Dreyfoos, 2000; Epstein et al., 1997; Giles, 1998; Mapp, 2003; Stevenson & Baker, 1987); it
positively affects attendance and retention rates (Epstein et al., 1997; Giles, 1998; Zellman &
Waterman, 1998); it improves student attitudes and behaviors (Barton et al., 2004); and
involvement in schools positively influences parents themselves, motivating them to increase

9
their community connections (Abdul-Adil & Farmer, 2006; Barton et al., 2004; DeMoss &
Vaughn, 2000).
Education reformers and policy designers have used this data in order to make strides in
increasing the roles parents play in the framing and implementation of federal, state, and local
policies (Davies, 2002; Epstein, 1987). At the federal level, parental participation has been a
major focus of policy design. During the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act better known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB), parent involvement was one of
the major areas of concern; specifically, NCLB requires that schools receiving Title I support
allocate funding towards parent participation programs (USDE, 2013). In addition, the federal
role in parent involvement extends beyond the reach of the Department of Education. Other
federal agencies (i.e., the National Institute of Health, National Science Foundation, and National
Academy of Sciences) and various national organizations (i.e., Parent Institute for Quality
Education and Family Involvement Network of Educators) have and are working to improve
academic achievement by focusing on training parents to be more active in their involvement
practices regarding their children’s schooling (CDE, 2011). The push from the federal level has
trickled down to policies taking place at the state level. States like California, Illinois, Tennessee,
Texas, Minnesota, and Missouri have included blueprints to involve parents in statewide
education reform (CDE, 2011; ISBE, 2010; TDOE, 2013; TEA, 2013; MDE, 2013; MDESE,
2013).
Markets, Choice, and Parents
Proponents of school choice pushing for dramatic changes of schools and school systems
have also advocated for and paid close attention to the influence parents could have on student
achievement and success. Proponents of school choice, however, had a slightly different view of

10
parent roles in educational reform. In Politics, Markets, and America’s Schools, educational
scholars John E. Chubb and Terry M. Moe (1990) assert that the democratic nature of
educational governance, which is aimed and engineered at providing policy solutions for our
nation’s public schools, is fundamentally flawed. They claim that public school systems are
paralyzed or stymied by structural yet burdensome regulations that thwart effective school
operations (Chubb & Moe, 1990). No matter how well intended and designed, they argue,
policies implemented by federal, state, or local agencies will fail to effectively capture the voices
and concerns of parents, thus stifling true levels of participation and involvement. More so, they
argue that compared to schooling authorities, parents as politically weak, and although there are
policies in place that promote their participation, schools are not meant to be theirs to control or
even provide the education that they would want for their children. According to Chubb and Moe
(1990), parents and students should not be left out of school governance matters and have more
central roles regarding school-wide decisions. Market-based reform then, when successful will
thrust families “onto the center stage of educational matters, along with other educational
experts” (p.35) and establish schools that will effectively succeed at their core academic mission
which is to ensure students are learning.
According to other market-reform scholars and practitioners, market and choice
frameworks work to ensure that parents have a more central role in the education of their
children in three ways. First, rather than participants in educational decision making, parents
would be framed as clients, forcing schools to be responsive to their specific needs. Second, if
schools fail to be responsive to their clientele, parents have the choice or freedom to switch from
one alternative to another (Meier 1996, 2000). Finally, linked to the previous two, if a school
continuously fails to satisfy their clientele, it will simply go out of business (Friedman, 1955).

11
The market approach then re-imagined the roles of parents to that of a clientele of decision
makers, which – through choice – would revitalize the drive of educators and improve their
children’s schools.
Popularly known as “parent choice” in the realm of education, these policies seek to
specifically improve the political interference and bureaucratic weight that permeates our
nation’s public schools by allowing parents to have greater control over the allocation of
educational funding (Chubb & Moe, 1990; Lubienski, 2001; Meier, 2000; Pedroni, 2007).
Dissatisfied with the structure and outcomes of public schooling, parents should have the viable
option of exiting the system to one that is more efficient in improving student achievement
levels. The exit as a strategy comes from the work of Albert Hirschman, asserting that
individuals participating in markets as consumers had one of three choices regarding services
rendered: exit (leaving because of dissatisfaction for another choice), voice (although
dissatisfied, one would stay as a political act to voice their opinion about said dissatisfaction),
and loyalty (staying because you are satisfied with services) (Hirschman, 1970). It is important to
note that choice approaches do vary greatly. When it comes to helping low-income populations,
some of these may be of great value while others may have little to no benefits. In the end,
however, most choice initiatives are designed for parents to exit or to opt-out from poor
performing public schools.
In sum, educational choice policies are grounded in market principles of utility
maximization, meaning that self-interest among parents, as consumers will produce the
necessary conditions to abridge historic achievement gaps. As a policy response, choice is
antithetical to concepts such as collaborative community efforts and equitable distribution of
educational resources. Thus, the normative reliance on market principles assumes that only as

12
consumers and not as civic participants, can parents participate in the schooling process of their
children. Parent triggers, however, are challenging this specific perception of choice. Returning
to Hirschman’s notion of exit, voice, and loyalty – a notion that I will revisit later in this study as
it was used by parents to define choice – parent triggers are in some ways allowing parents to
voice their discontent with their local school and do something about it. And they did so in Los
Angeles.
Los Angeles as a District of Choice
Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is the second largest school district in the
nation, serving over 667,000 students, in a large geographical area (CDE, 2013). Similarly to
other large urban school districts, LAUSD has implemented various choice initiatives to improve
achievement among its student population. Currently, the district offers families twelve different
choices regarding their children’s schooling (LAUSD, 2013). Table 1.1 lists all of the available
options for families within the district. Each of these options presents a learning point for
families to navigate. For example, to enroll a student in a magnet school, the district has set up a
priority point system to ensure that certain schools are not over-enrolled. Magnet schools give
priority enrollment to those students with a high number of matriculation points, which are
obtained in a variety of ways (i.e. being in the waiting list, attending an overcrowded school,
having a sibling at a magnet). Parents interested in magnet programs have to apply a year in
advance in order to amass the necessary amount of matriculation points. In a different schooling
option (as stated in Table 1.1), parents opting for a Permit with Transportation must call the
district first in order to find out whether or not their residence qualifies for the permit. If it
happens that parents do qualify, they then will have to sift through their choices of schools in

13

Table 1.1
Schooling options available for families in the Los Angeles Unified School District
Option Definition of Choice Policy
Magnet Schools

Court-ordered voluntary integration programs available to all students in grades
K-12. Each magnet school has its own specialized program (i.e. STEM, language
immersion)
Permits With
Transportation
(PWT)*
For families living in a PWT sending area, these programs place non-white and
white students in racially integrated settings. The school assignments are made
by the district
Local Zones of Choice 19 different geographic areas comprised of multiple campuses that offer students
living in an attendance boundary the opportunity to select and rank various
school models
Open Enrollment State of California policy allowing any LAUSD student to apply to a regular,
grade-appropriate LAUSD public school that has seats designated for open
enrollment
Alternative Education
and Work Centers
Educational alternatives for high school age teens who have been out of school
45 days or longer and who want to earn a high school diploma or equivalency
certificate
Schools for Advanced
Studies
District programs designed for students identified as gifted, highly gifted, and/or
students demonstrating superior academic achievement
Romero Act Students attending the 1,000 lowest achieving schools in the State of California
can apply to enroll in higher-achieving schools, regardless of their residence
Affiliated Charter
Schools
District schools with increased autonomy and flexibility. Funded by the District
and governed by the local board
Independent Charter
Schools
Any charter school not governed by the District board but rather by an
independent non-profit board
Private Schools Independent schools not administered by local, state, or federal governments.
Supplemental
Educational Services*
Tutoring services to all eligible students in low-income and underperforming
schools
Parent Empowerment
Act*
More than 51% of the parents in any school in its 3
rd
year of program
improvement and an API score below 800, sign a petition to reconstitute their
child’s school
Note. *The California Office to Reform Education (CORE) waiver nullified two of the federally mandated choices
for parents. Starting in the 2013-14 academic school year, the district will not offer NCLB’s Public School Choice
or Supplemental Educational Services. The district also does not offer transportation for families. Finally, because
there are no test scores this year, there are no API or AYP metrics, which may limit any PEA petitions within the
district.

14

order to select the one that best meets the needs of their child. Similarly, the Zones of Choice
option allows families living in specific designated areas throughout the city to openly select the
appropriate schooling option for their child within the boundaries of the zone. To help families
discern the various options, the district provides an annual brochure that details each of the
options described above in Table 1.1. It is important to note, however, that both Supplemental
Educational Services and Parent Empowerment Act are not covered as part of the options
brochure for families. I explain why and each of these two policies in the following section.
Policies under Study
Market-Driven Choice – Supplemental Educational Services
Under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), schools identified as in need of improvement for
two or more years are required to offer parents of children in low-income families the
opportunity to receive extra academic assistance, known as Supplemental Educational Services
(SES)
3
. These services are part of a market-based initiative presenting parents the choice of
selecting what they perceive to be the best available candidate to provide additional academic
instruction designed to increase achievement (USDE, 2007). In order for parents to exercise their
buying power to select for the best service provider, SES policy mandates that “each State
identify organizations that qualify to provide these services” (USDE, 2009). The state-approved
list includes providers from the nonprofit and for-profit sectors, faith-based organizations, and/or
local school districts (Kasmin & Farmer, 2006). Accordingly, districts with underperforming
schools must then make a list available to parents of state-approved SES providers in the area

3
Need of improvement is defined by failing to meet annual state benchmarks known as adequate yearly progress
(AYP), which is measured from the results of standardized testing

15
(USDE, 2009). Districts must also disseminate SES information in an understandable and
uniform format in a language parents can understand.
In sum, SES is a Federal program that offers parents choices of after-school tutoring
programs from a host of third-party organizations that use public money to provide additional
academic help to eligible students. Consistent with a market-based orientation, the law also
restricts schools, district, and states from regulating provider programming – based on the idea
that doing so would dampen competition, which is viewed as essential to improving the supply
and quality of tutoring. As consumers of education, parents are expected to attend provider fairs,
read catalogues and brochures, talk to teachers, and visit school functions to make the
appropriate choice for their children.
LAUSD and SES. SES has been part of the district’s choice landscape for the last ten
years governed by the Beyond the Bell branch, which is the out-of-school time division within
LAUSD. The district is a rich environment for market-based policies to thrive, with over 400
schools meeting the criteria for SES and over two-thirds of the student population qualifying for
services (CDE, 2012). The growth of the SES market is further illustrated understood through
Table 1.2. With more schools meeting the SES criterion, more families applied during the last
seven years, leading to larger number of participants receiving services. The organizations
offering services also varied widely along multiple elements such as hourly rates, tutor
qualifications, tutoring session length, instructional strategies, and curricula (Burch et al, 2007;
Heinrich & Burch, 2011; LAUSD.net, 2013; Zimmer at al, 2007). During the same time period,
and in efforts to assert a larger market share of services, SES vendors began experimenting with
technology and digital means of instruction (Acosta et al., 2013; Burch & Good, 2014). In
contrast to traditional tutoring, digital means of instruction allowed for SES instructors to

16
connect with students remotely via the Internet through digital devices. With LAUSD covering a
large geographical area, remote instruction may prove to be a pragmatic option for families
willing to participate. During the 2012-2013 academic school year, a large share of the SES
market went to vendors offering online forms of instruction provided through either laptops or
tablets (Burch & Good, 2014). Even though there has been a sizable growth over the last ten
years, LAUSD has opted out of SES for the 2013-14 academic school year as a result of a federal
waiver from NCLB. I explain further below.
Table 1.2

LAUSD SES market during the last 7 fiscal years

Year 05-06 06-07 07-08 08-09 09-10 10-11 11-12
Eligible PI
Schools
173 200 235 280 302 343 370

Eligible
Students

303,140 310,544 331,274 354,652 382,555 406,121 421,435
Number of
Providers

40 55 38 43 44 47
Total
Applications

32,452 37,872 40,226 45,603 51,263 61,252 92,314
Student
Participants
19,910 27,599 29,060 30,694 34,584 38,236 34,000
Note. Data source LAUSD Beyond the Bell Branch (2012)

In 2013, the Department of Education granted the California Office to Reform Education
(CORE) a federal waiver to circumvent some of the accountability provisions from NCLB.
LAUSD, along with nine other districts in California, coalesced to create CORE. In an effort to
provide greater levels of autonomy regarding matters of accountability, the waivers allow state
educational agencies to circumvent some of the strings attached to federal funding. The CORE

17
waiver allowed the ten California districts to circumvent the state department of education in
applying for a federal waiver in order to opt out of NCLB guidelines. The application and
approval of the CORE waiver allowed LAUSD to stop the implementation of SES and free-up
the twenty percent allocation of Title I funding that would otherwise go to these after-school
programs. Even though the future of SES remains unclear, I believe that further analysis of the
policy is important in trying to understand how parents are socially constructed to engage in
choice policy.
To review, the goal of this dissertation is to expand our understanding of choice policies
from the point of view of parents. SES offers a purposeful case in trying to understand how
parents are socially constructed to engage in choice. First, SES provides an opportunity to reflect
upon a strictly market-based policy and one centered on traditional individual consumer choice.
Second, implementation of SES is a complex affair involving schooling officials, private third
party vendors, and parents. Contrary to the perception that market-based reforms aim to
minimize the role of the state, SES exemplifies how the state plays a rather huge role in creating
the conditions necessary for neoliberal policies to work. Third-party vendors have commercial
incentives to engage parents, which will impact the quality, and types of information parents
receive. The relationship between the state and third-party vendors in developing an after-school
market is important in determining how parents understand their own roles as the decision-
makers of SES. As states begin to rethink the role of third-party vendors in public schooling, the
end of SES in LAUSD provided the analytical reflective time frame to conduct a type of social
autopsy regarding one type of market-based reform. As SES begins to fade or perhaps transition
into something different; PEA to the contrary, has barely begun its trajectory in the landscape of
choice reform.

18
Collective Choice – Parent Empowerment Act
California passed the Parent Empowerment Act (PEA), popularly coined as the “Parent
Trigger”, which provides parents greater control of their local schools in 2010. Contrary to the
traditional forms of choice like SES that focus on the individual, PEA rather focuses on
collective decision-making. Rather than opting out, PEA allows parents to opt-in to their local
school. Instead of asking how choice benefits their individual child, PEA allows parents to
engage in decision-making that will benefit their child’s whole school. More importantly, as a
choice initiative, PEA does not rely on market logic in its design. Instead, PEA relies on a civic
logic further undergirded by assumptions of democratic participation, which have been
implemented through community organizing efforts. I elaborate this below.
Parents may collectively apply the law if their children attend a school that has been in its
fourth year of program improvement and has scored below the state’s accountability metric of an
800 in the Academic Performance Index. If 51% of parents of a local school sign an official
petition, they have the power to redefine the governance structure of the school. The options are
the same as those offered by President Obama’s Race to the Top initiative which are: 1) Charter
conversion; 2) Turnaround; 3) Transformation; and 4) Closure (CDE, 2011; USDE, 2009)
4
. As a
policy instrument, PEA seeks to emulate some of the current community organizing efforts that
have occurred in other communities and provide parents – specifically those that represent
historically marginalized groups – with the leverage to transform their local schools. More so,
implementation of the law may challenge and diminish the traditional governance authority of
local school districts (Marsh & Wohlstetter, 2013). Part of this erosion of traditional central

4
1.) A charter conversion leads to overhaul the failing school into a charter school; 2.) turnaround means that the
principal is replaced along with 50 percent of the school’s instructional staff; 3.) transformation means that only the
school’s principal or leadership is replaced; and 4.) closure means shutting the failing school down, sending all of
the students to nearby schools (USDE, 2009)

19
authority and part of the PEA narrative is the philanthropic interest of the law, mainly by interest
groups that promote market ideology regarding school reform. I will discuss more about what
Lipman (2013) calls “venture philanthropy” (p.100) throughout the study specifically with the
involvement of Parent Revolution
5
. This is an important point to background and as Saltman
(2009) summarizes, “venture philanthropy treats schooling as a private consumable service and
promotes business remedies, reforms, and assumptions with regards to public schooling” (p.53),
which can in turn have consequences in how parents interpret and experience the implementation
of policy.
The first PEA case took place in the city of Compton with parents opting for a charter
restructuring of the school. Compton Unified School District challenged the petition, taking the
parents and the intermediary organization Parent Revolution to court where the judge deemed
that the signatures gathered were unacceptable thus halting the petition. The first successful PEA
transformation took place at the Desert Hills Elementary School in the Adelanto community
where parents similarly opted for a charter transformation (Cavanagh, 2012; Lubenski et al.,
2012). A year later, a large part of the parent organizing efforts are now taking place in Los
Angeles where two schools have been transformed with other cases pending. Although only
three cases of implementation of the law have been recorded, several other states have begun to
follow in California’s footsteps and have devised or are devising similar laws. The
transformations in Los Angeles may provide important lessons to better understanding the
development of triggers throughout the nation.

5
Parent Revolution is the central intermediary organization helping parents implement PEA petitions. They are a
non-profit organization led by Ben Austin, a former member of the California state board of education. Parent
Revolution’s participation has been controversial based on their funding sources which have been linked to a
privatization of public school agenda such as the Walton Group.

20
LAUSD and PEA. Since its inception in 2010, two schools have been reconstituted by
PEA in LAUSD. Other school communities began petitions, but school and district officials
negotiated terms with parents to prevent a trigger overhaul. Both trigger schools are in
predominantly Latino neighborhoods and both have underperformed based on state
accountability metrics. Similar to all PEA cases, both school communities were supported by
Parent Revolution. As previously stated, support from Parent Revolution has been contentious in
all petition efforts based on the funding sources backing the organization. Parent Revolution
receives funding from the Gates Foundation and Walton Foundation, organizations, which have
both been linked to anti-union and privatization of education agendas. I will examine the
implications of this point from the perspective of parents throughout the analysis of this study. In
LAUSD, one of the schools overhauled opted for a district/charter partnership while the second
decided to replace the principal, which resulted in some unforeseen consequences including 21
out of the 22 school site teachers filing for an inner district transfer and in many ways gutting the
school of its staff. I will discuss these two schools in detail in Chapters 3 and 4 as they are both
part of this study.
PEA and SES. In sum, LAUSD is a district of choice that provides the purposeful setting
to study, analyze, and understand how parents experience choice. As stated in Table 1.1, LAUSD
has a diverse portfolio in choices for families, which helps put into context the undercurrent
driving the district’s reform agenda. More so, LAUSD has leveraged choice historically since the
1960s (Kerchner et al., 2008). From that time to now, LAUSD has had the time to develop a
sophisticated system of choice. The two policies I have explained in some detail are part of that
evolution. These two policies then offer two distinct ways by which parents are to approach
choice: through individual choice focused on individual student growth (SES) versus to

21
collective decision-making focused on school wide improvement (PEA). But the comparison
between these two choice policies is diametrically more complex than the binary of individual
versus collective choice.
As stated above, the market values embedded in SES rely on the assumption that parents
will select the appropriate type of instruction, which will in return improve their child’s
individual academic growth. In contrast, PEA, designed by the principles of collective action or
civic engagement, follows the assumption that through an informed and united majority, parents
can influence the redesign of a school through choice. Policies in practice, however, are more
sophisticated and complex in relation to the theoretical assumptions nested within the design
(Ball, 1994). Although the difference between individualist and collectivist choice is an
important distinction, and one that is at the core of this study, there are other dimensions to
consider, all which provide a richer and more complex interpretation of policy design. Table 1.3
covers eight additional dimensions to both policies organized around key design principles and
ideas central to policy design and tightly linked to the social construction of parents as target
populations. The table also summarizes the key distinctions of policy design and context which
include scope of implementation, levers of implementation, role of government, structure(s) of
accountability, and related to the theory of action, the intended outcomes proposed by each
policy. It is therefore important to understand the key differences between both of these policies
to begin comprehending how parents experience and in turn act upon these choice options. I used
social construction of target populations coupled with sense-making theory to analyze the
theoretical assumptions guiding both SES and PEA policies with regards to the construction of
parents as target populations to then compare them to the lived experiences of parents.

22

Table 1.3
Comparison between SES and PEA
Policy Element Supplemental Educational
Services
Parent Empowerment Law
General theory of action in the
implementation of policy
towards school improvement
Parent choice of after-school
instruction as a pivotal
dimension in individual
academic growth
Parent choice around the
redesign critical to school
wide improvement

Setting

Los Angeles Unified School
District

Los Angeles Unified School
District

Eligibility Point

Title I Schools in second year
of program improvement

Focus schools in their fourth
year of program improvement
and with an API score below
800

Targets

Low-income families defined
by the percentage of students
receiving free and reduced
lunch

Parents in underperforming
schools and nearby community

Type of parent choice

Annual choice of a
provider/vendor of after-
school services from a state-
approved list

Four redesign options
triggered through a petition
containing signatures from at
least 51% of the parent
population in a local school

Logics of choice

Market principles:
Supply and demand,
competitive edge through
innovation, limited
government

Civic principles:
Association for collective
action, emphasis on citizen
participation, right to petition
government

Role of Government

Federal (NCLB): Limited to
districts and states with the
responsibilities of creating
adequate conditions for
parents to be informed about
choices

State (CA): Limited to
adhering to parent petition
requests. Can accept/reject
parent petitions.

Intended outcomes

Individual student growth and
academic achievement
measured by improved test
scores

School wide improvement
through increased local
autonomy via parental
organizing

23
Social Constructions and Sense-making Theory
Much of the process generating public policy in the United States is driven by divisive
social constructions of target populations (Schneider & Ingram, 1997). These constructions have
the power to emphasize and exalt the virtues of certain populations while denigrating the
deficiencies of others. Education policy is no exception. More so, these constructions justify the
distribution of educational, political, and financial resources regarding our nation’s public
schools. As I have argued above, parents from low-income, minority populations have been
historically construed as dependent populations that need all the help they can get because they
are perceived as having have very little to no political power to affect change on their own.
Social constructions are, however, part of an ongoing process based on the actions and
interpretations of people with their social environment. Individuals internalize, interpret, and
(re)construct policy in their own terms through constant interaction of events, people, media,
politics, religion, science, literature, and music along with their own personal experiences and
values. Social constructions then are multifaceted and vary along various dimensions, which can
have serious consequences regarding policy design and implementation. Social constructions,
however, are also dialectical meaning that they can be utilized to engage in discourse and debate
regarding specific societal problems. I use social constructions then to conduct a dialogue
between parents – the intended policy targets of choice – and the policy experts that designed the
law. To expand the interpretative process of this dialogue then, I plan to also apply sense-making
theory in order to get a better understanding in how parents interpreted choice based on their own
lived experiences.

24
Sense-making Theory
As part of the social construction process, sense-making as a theoretical framework helps
to put into perspective how actors generate interpretations of policy implementation from their
own social context (Spillane et al., 2002; Weick, 1995). Sense-making is a cognitive theory of
identity (re)construction focused on how people make sense of policy depending on ecological
conditioning (physical environment), political positionality (power structures), and cultural
context (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989; Resnick, 1991; Spillane at al., 2002; Weick, 1995;
Whiteman & Cooper, 2011). Through a tacit interpretation of their local reality, actors or
stakeholders will interact accordingly to the components of the policy that have a certain
meaning to them (Spillane et al., 2002). Sense-making thus assumes that stakeholders who are
deeply rooted or connected to their ecological landscape—both in a physical, political, and
cultural sense—are more attuned to changes at either an individual or organizational level and
are more apt to actively interpret them (Whiteman & Cooper, 2011). Coupled with the social
construction of target populations, sense-making theory helps provide the analytical heuristic to
then interpret the choices parents made with regards to SES and PEA through their lived
experience, or what Dumas (2013) calls policy research assessing its impression on flesh.
I will speak to these two theoretical frameworks in more detail in the following chapter
and how both specifically help in understanding the problem between policy and practice. Before
that, however, I first present a parent narrative, using their own powerful language and cultural
knowledge to depict their experiences with choice. It is through this narrative that I not only
provide context regarding the title of this study, but also a precursor to my main argument
regarding choice options for parents. In what follows then, I will discuss the main overview of
this dissertation through the Atole narrative.

25
Atole con el Dedo: A Cultural Idiom on Choice
Atole is a traditional hot masa (corn-dough) based Mexican beverage. It’s similar to hot
cocoa but it is thick, almost porridge like. It comes in many flavors with the most popular being
cinnamon, vanilla, or my favorite chocolate otherwise known as champurrado. Atole is typically
served during winter months, specifically during the holiday season with a side of tamales or
some pan dulce. During winter in Los Angeles, you may find street vendors pushing a shopping
cart, selling it in large orange coolers for a dollar a cup. When it comes to Mexican cultural
staples and great comfort food, atole is it. No other drink, as far as my cultural awareness
permits, provides with immediate warmth like the first sip of chocolate atole. No other drink,
aside from tequila or pulque (fermented agave), carries the cultural Mexican authority as much
as atole. Now because it’s so thick, mothers use it to feed their babies. To test how hot it is, they
dip their finger in it and then give the drippings to their baby. It is mainly done so to placate the
baby from crying. The action, however, has become part of a traditional Mexican idiom. Atole
con el dedo (atole served with a flick of a finger) is a popular idiom that was used quite often
during my interviews with parents when we talked about choice as seen in the following
example:
Me: “Entonces usted no sabía que todos los maestros se iban a ir. Como se sintió cuando se
dio cuenta que todos los maestros se iban a transferir de la escuela?”
(So you didn’t know that all of the teachers were leaving. How did you feel when you
found out that all of the teachers decided to transfer out of your school?)

Madre: “Nos sentimos un poquito traicionadas. Esto no fue lo que nos prometieron. Era
como si nos hubieran dado atole con el dedo. No más queríamos que se fuera la
directora. Nosotras apoyábamos a los maestros. Los organizadores de PR nunca nos
dijeron esto. Esta no era nuestra opción.”
(We felt a little betrayed. We were not promised this. It was like we were given atole
flicked by a finger. We only wanted the principal removed. We supported our teachers.
The organizers from PR never informed us that this could happen. This was not out
option.)

26
Atole con el dedo describes a gift used to momentarily tranquilize, appease, or placate a
person or a group of people. In short it is used to describe a patronizing or tokenizing gift. To get
a better mental image, the idiom states that whoever is giving a person atole, instead of giving
the whole cup, is condescendingly, giving the recipient drippings from their finger. In other
words, getting atole con el dedo is like getting a little bit of nothing. My father used the saying
all the time referring to his boss giving him a fifty-cent raise then later finding that his
responsibilities had increased substantially and not comparatively to his pay. Like my father, the
parents I spoke to, from both cases, often used the saying when referring to the choices they had
made. The excerpt above is from parents reflecting on a PEA campaign after they had organized
to remove the principal only to find out that in the last day of school, all of the teachers opted for
a district transfer and in many ways, nullifying the impact of parent decision-making.
The atole con el dedo sentiment was also felt by parents selecting after school programs
for their children through SES. During my many home visits to observe the quality of instruction
offered by SES providers, I had the following conversation with a father:
Me: Ya que batallo tanto para que lo matricularan en estos programas, como se ha sentido
con los servicios?
(Now that you’ve fought so hard to get your [son] enrolled in services, how satisfied are
you with the services)

F: No tan bien. A primero si estaba bien. El muchacho se ponía sus audífonos y se iba al
cuarto a trabajar. Pero días después, siempre se cortaba la conexión. Así que nomas
recibía como veinte minutos de instrucción.
(Not so good. At first everything was good. My son would get his earpiece and go into
the room to work. But days later we always had internet connection problems. He
basically only received twenty minutes of instruction [rather than the allotted hour].)

Me: Nunca les llamaba a la compañía para que los conectaran?
(You never called the company to fix the connection problems?)

F: Si pero nunca contestaban. La única vez que contestaron fue porque le llame a usted. Y
también no estuve muy satisfecho con la instrucción. Mi hijo está en el quinto grado
pero la materia era del tercero. Eso no está bien usted cree?

27
(We did but they never answered. The only time that they answered was because I called
you first.
6
I wasn’t satisfied with the instruction either. My son is in fifth grade but the
instruction was third grade material. Do you think that’s okay?

Me: No de mi punto de vista. Y entonces en que quedo todo? Si termino los servicios?
(Not in my point of view. So then how did all of it end? Did you terminate the services?)

F: Mire, acabe los servicios para mi hijo. Pero no quede muy satisfecho como digamos.
Nos regalaron una computadora que le pueda ayudar hacer la tarea. Pero para decirle
la verdad me siento como si nos dieron puro atole con el dedo.
(Look, I finished the services for my son. But let’s just say that I wasn’t too satisfied.
We did get a free computer which I am sure will help my son with his homework. But to
tell you the truth, I believe that all we got was pure atole con el dedo.)

The father in this scenario felt that not only he but also his son, were duped. During the focus
group interview with other parents, he was very vocal about his dissatisfaction with the services
and wanted to know who to complain to. His reference to atole con el dedo referred back to the
services he was promised by the third party vendor when his wife enrolled their son in the
program. Their son, a small child with a quiet demeanor mentioned to his parents and to me
during the observation, that he felt the material was too easy and that every night he got a chance
to complete three to four math problems within the tutor. As I left their home and listened to
their narrative, I definitely felt that they indeed had received atole con el dedo.
Atole con el dedo makes sense to Mexican parents along with other Latino families that
have lived in predominantly Mexican communities here in Los Angeles. It also makes-sense as
an analytic point to convey parents’ own sense of being tokenized as a stakeholder group. Using
parents’ own language I then coin parent experience with policy as the Atole narrative and set
the stage for the argument I will make in this study. Through the Atole narrative I will argue that
the two choice strategies under study in this dissertation, and potentially others, run the risk of

6
During a home observation, I provided the parent with my contact information just in case he needed to contact me
as I provided reciprocity to all of the study’s participants. During one of the times his son encountered internet
problems, he decided to call me instead of the after-school vendor. Because I had the vendor’s direct information, I
contacted the administrators immediately so the student could receive services.

28
providing false promises to parents, tokenizing their involvement in school matters, and further
bewildering their understanding regarding school reform.
To further understand the Atole narrative and the experiences of parents, the following
study will proceed as follows. I begin Chapter 2 with an overview of the two theoretical
frameworks guiding the study and a summary of parent participation scholarship. I begin by
describing social construction of policy targets in more detail and why I coupled it with sense-
making theory. I then review the parent literature in three parts: general parent involvement in
schooling and the benefits to their children; relative to SES, parent participation within school
choice initiatives; and relative to PEA, parent and community organizing efforts to improve
schools. In summarizing this parent scholarship, I will also address the gaps within the literature.
In Chapter 3, I discuss my reasoning in conducting an ethnographic case study to address
the questions driving this study. I outline the design of the study, explain the data collected, the
analysis strategy, and address the criteria for rigor. In this section, I discuss the difficulty of
building trust with parents, which is an important component to further studies working with
parents from low-income communities.
In Chapter 4, I discuss the experiences of families implementing collective decision-
making through PEA to answer the first three questions driving the study. I begin by providing a
historical perspective about the design of PEA along with some of the early implementations of
the law to argue that as policy targets, parents are socially constructed as contenders. I then
describe the case of parents working to collectively implement PEA in LAUSD within two
different schools: Jefferson and Watts Elementary Schools
7
. Based on their lived experiences I
will argue that organizations like Parent Revolution, although contentious for reasons I will

7
Both Jefferson and Watts are pseudonyms used to protect not only the identities of the parents but of the
communities involved. These names, however, were reflective of the Los Angeles communities where each school
is a part.

29
explain, are critical in helping parents understand and implement the law. Participation of these
organizations is only part of the story. Community and neighborhood contexts are also important
in implementing PEA. Finally, an important characteristic of communities seeking to implement
PEA is the parents themselves. Parents that have an understanding of civic action can help
facilitate the organization process necessary to implement PEA.
In Chapter 5 I further discuss the experiences of families participating in individual
decision-making through SES. I begin with a historic summary of SES to then contextualize the
policy within LAUSD and argue that different than PEA, parents are socially constructed as
consumers of education. I describe the case of parents participating in SES within LAUSD.
Similar to PEA, I will argue that organizations, which include districts and third-party vendors,
are key to parents’ decision-making about SES. In addition to that, individual parent histories are
also important not only in the decision-making process but in the participation of the services as
a whole. Finally, setting where instruction takes place is also a critical feature of remote
instruction provided through SES as it represents an extension of parent engagement beyond
school settings or it can also present itself as a barrier to instruction.
I conclude in Chapter 6 by providing a cross-case summary of the findings within each
policy under study to argue that in one way or another both choice initiatives give parents atole
con el dedo. By this I mean, policy that in the surface provides options for families, but in reality
it patronizes families’ participation by giving them a little bit of nothing. I reflect on parent
narratives to provide specific policy recommendations for each choice initiative. I will also
reflect on the importance of cultural sense-making in efforts to broker knowledge between the
experts that author the policy and the families that live it. The atole narrative as I will argue
throughout, is disempowering specifically to low-income and minority communities that have

30
been historically marginalized. An emphasis in creating symbiotic relationships between
educational experts and parents will help build trust which is not only essential to community
organizing and parent sense-making about other choice initiatives.

31
Chapter 2: Parent Literature & Two Interpretivist Theories
In the book, The Public and its Problems (1927), John Dewey theorized a framework of
governance within democratic institutions where both citizens and experts would act collectively
to not only solve their problems, but to also comprehend the consequences of their actions
(Dewey, 1927). Because democratic institutions are complex in nature, the effects of collective
action cannot be clearly foretold. It is critical then, for institutions to have the ability to
pragmatically react to the unintended consequences of policy decisions. Participation, feedback,
and critique are then some of the essential components of democratic governance further
asserting that the public vis-à-vis both policy experts and lay citizens “collectively recognize and
respond sensibly to societal problems”(Dewey, 1927). In the end, Dewey believed that problem
of modern governance was how to connect with lay citizens and motivate them to participate in
matters of public concern. I believe that schools today are experiencing this problem and are
utilizing policy as the tool to connect parents to broader school matters.
Dewey’s ideas provide a useful framework to further understand parent participation
under the context of schooling and also provide a deeper understanding in how policy is
designed for parents as a target group. On one end and related to SES, I will address the market
movement, which frames parents as active or potential consumers. On the other and related to
PEA, I review the community organizing literature, which frames parents as active or potential
advocates of their children’s school. In addition, Dewey’s ideas help capture the challenges with
collective governance, specifically by highlighting how different stakeholders, or publics as he
calls them, act according to their interpretation of the problem(s). Part of the problem that I am
trying to address is the deficit constructions regarding parents, specifically those from low-
income and minority backgrounds.

32
Deficit constructions assume that certain individuals, in this case parents, lack the ability
to address societal problems because they as a group are part of the problem. In terms of
educational policy and governance matters, I will argue that we need to pay close attention to
how policy design socially constructs the roles of parents while simultaneously attending to how
parents themselves interpret policy. I attend to this problem of governance by leveraging two
theoretical frameworks consistent with a socially constructive epistemology. The first is a
political science approach established by Anne L. Schneider and Helen Ingram (1997) known as
social construction of target populations. The second is a sociology approach grounded in
analysis of organizational behavior known as sense-making theory.
I begin this chapter by explaining the two theories in detail, starting with social
construction of target populations. I then explain how sense-making theory not compliments the
limitations of social construction of target populations but help provide further insight into
community and neighborhood dynamics. I then situate this study within scholarship centered on
parent participation. The research on parent participation regarding schooling matters is diverse
and extensive (Henderson & Mapp, 2003). I will provide a brief overview of the broader parent
participation scholarship and then focus on two specific areas within the literature: market-based
choice options for parents and grass-roots community organizing. Finally, I address the
limitations of parent participation scholarship, which in one way or another continue to frame
parents through a deficit-based lens or as one large monolithic identity. I address how this study
aims to learn from parents’ perspectives, about the challenges of policy implementation.
Social Construction of Policy Targets
In their book, Policy Design for Democracy, political scientists Anne Larson Schneider
and Helen Ingram describe in detail a framework of policy design and implementation driven by

33
social constructions of target populations. As stated in Chapter 1, they follow the assumption that
public policy in the United States is driven by divisive social constructions that separate the
deserving from the undeserving. For them, the social construction process is one where values
and meaning become attached to events, people, patterns of action, or any other phenomena.
More so, these social constructions are so deeply ingrained to the fabric of society that most
people accept them as real to the point that no other interpretation can be imagined. When it
comes down to policy design and implementation, these constructions will interact with the
political power of target populations meaning their amount and ability to mobilize political
resources. For public officials, the relationship between social constructions and political power
of target population is central to the design and implementation of policy. Depending on whether
target populations are socially construed as deserving or undeserving will establish the political
agenda, the terms of debate, and the overall characteristics of policy design (Schneider &
Ingram, 1997).
For example, market and education scholars Chubb and Moe (1990), whom I mentioned
in chapter 1, would argue that parents “should have the freedom to switch from one school
alternative to another when they think it would be beneficial to do so.” (p.32). As a clientele, if
parents or students are unsatisfied with services by any give school, they can exit to another
school that would meet their needs. As a clientele, parents are seen as a deserving population that
is shopping around for the best schools for their children. Chubb and Moe’s assumptions about
schooling would lead to the establishment of an agenda about choice for families along with a
discussion regarding market forms of accountability, necessary to weed out ineffective schools.
All of which determine the characteristics of policies aimed at providing parents with schooling
options.

34
It is important to note that social constructions about target populations are not static and
are constantly being negotiated. Similarly, political power is also in a state of flux depending on
the context of the problem and the political situation. Even though constructions and power
change, Schneider & Ingram do provide a heuristic with an array of some of the groups that have
commonly appeared in contemporary politics which in turn influence policy design. Figure 2.1
describes four types of target populations along two dimensions. The four target populations are
called advantaged, contenders, dependents, and deviants (Schneider & Ingram, 1997). The
horizontal axis depicts social constructions along the spectrum of deserving and undeserving;
positively construed populations are on the left and those with less positive constructions are on
the right. The vertical axis represents political power along a spectrum of influence; populations
with stronger amounts of political influence are on the top while those with weaker amounts are
in the bottom. I explain each of the target populations below to grasp the analytic depth of the
theory.
Advantaged groups are those with strong amounts of political power and carry positive
social constructions. For example, the business sector has considerable influence in generating a
policy agenda and is politically strong based on their ability to allocate financial resources.
Businesses carry positive constructions because they help create jobs. Writing policy for the
business sector is in the best interest for public officials since it is assumed that it will lead to
economic benefits. The same can be stated about the middle class. This group carries influence
in their ability to vote and demographic size. Middle class is positively construed because they
are seen as doing positive things for society, mainly in the forms of paying taxes.

35

Contender groups have political power but carry negative constructions. Big unions for
example, have large amounts of political power specifically in their ability to mobilize resources
and influence larger societal sectors. Unions, however, in education for example, are seen as part
of the problem. Groups like the organization Students First based in California attribute some of
the problems in education as adults within Unions that are too focused on defending “bad”
teachers instead of serving children. The LGBTQ population is also a group with the political
means to mobilize and influence policy. Some states in the nation, however, see this group as a
threat to traditional religious values and are actively working to write legislation limiting their
power.

36
Dependent populations are positively construed but carry little political weight to do
anything about their on social conditions. Historically, low-income populations have been
socially construed as dependents. The more positive constructions about low-income populations
focus on their helplessness or the systemic barriers that condemn them to a life of poverty. More
negative constructions portray low-income populations as lazy, uneducated, and lacking
intelligence. Dependent constructions are also precursors to deficit assumptions about target
populations. Relying on the notion that individuals living in poverty are helpless or lazy may
adversely lead to framing of policy design where they are further problematized. For example,
schools implementing a “no excuses” approach to achievement place the problem on a child
rather than on the conditions that may enable of hinder learning.
Finally, deviant populations are both powerless and carry negative social constructions.
For example, criminals and gangs are seen as violent, dangerous, and a threat to society. In terms
of policy design, public officials and politicians have implemented a tough on crime ideology
which one can argue focuses on punishment rather than rehabilitation.
Social construction of policy targets is important in both policy design and
implementation. Public officials or as I have described above, policy experts, are strongly
influenced by the political power or resources and the social constructions of target groups.
Under a scientifically and professionally constructed lens, public officials have to pay close
attention to these social constructions as they send signals about how to effectively design policy
that will eventually solve the problems it was intended to address. Schneider and Ingram,
however, argue that public officials avoid an objective analysis of social constructions mainly
because there is very little political payoff in designing policy that will benefit groups that have
been socially constructed as deviants. Similarly, there is little political pay off in designing

37
policy that burdens advantaged populations (Schneider & Ingram, 1997). For Schneider and
Ingram, this is a problem and is at the root to what they call degenerative policy design. Target
populations are often identified before the problem is established. Public officials will then focus
more on the target group rather than the problem and whether or not there are any benefits into
designing policy for said group. Similar to Dewey above, the problem then becomes one of
experts looking to exercise their own political power based on the social constructions of target
populations. For Schneider and Ingram, degenerative policy-making leads to a growing citizen
distrust of their government officials along with having deleterious impacts on democratic
governance.
Parents as Target Populations
Social constructions of target populations can then provide insight into how choice policy
was designed for parents from public officials’ point of view. More importantly, the underlying
assumptions from these constructions tacitly embedded within policies, laws, and regulations
send signals to parents about what kind of action and expertise is valued. The framework then
can help provide valuable insight to the political and historical dialogue that led to the design of
both PEA and SES. In other words, the framework is a useful tool to explore the background of
each of the two choice policies. In addition, the theory addresses Dewey’s problem with more
sophistication regarding the responsibilities of public officials in designing policy. As stated
earlier, market reformers believe that parents behaving like consumers have the capacity to
improve schooling through market logics of competition, incentive to innovate, and supply and
demand. Consumer constructions in turn have impacts regarding policy design. Policies like
PEA, however, assume that parents can, through a democratic vote, influence the governance of
a school. This in turn socially constructs parents as an empowered citizenry which can also have

38
deep impacts in policy design. I relied on this framework to look under the hood of both SES and
PEA to understand specifically how the public officials in charge of designing both policies had
socially constructed parents. It is important, however, to mention some of the limitations of this
framework as it pertains to this study. I describe the limitations below.
Limitations of the Framework
For the purposes of this study, I relied on the social construction of policy targets to
analyze the policy design contexts of both SES and PEA from the point of view of policy
officials. This top-down approach to analysis is limited and only provides half of the story.
Mainly, the framework assumes that policy targets are incapable of mobilizing or acquiring the
capacity of solving their own problems. This can be specifically problematic for populations
constructed as contenders. This target group may have a political inclination to be perceived as a
contender rather than an advantaged group. For example, parents participating in grass-roots
campaigns, as I describe further below, may prefer to be perceived as contenders in order to
pressure or incentivize schooling officials to take into account their collective needs. In relation
to this last point, social constructions are constantly being negotiated between different
stakeholders and across social contexts. A target group constructed as an advantaged population
in one situation may be construed as a deviant group in another. For example, parents that rely
on federal choice programs to exit their underperforming local school are construed positively
compared to parents that provide a false address in order to be zoned into a better school. A
commonality between all of this points then, is that they fail to take into account parents’
subjective realities.
Policymaking is a messy process with multiple lines of dialogue regarding design and
implementation. Social constructions of target populations only captured part of the dialogue

39
regarding design. I then decided to couple social construction of policy targets with sense-
making theory in order to address the limitations of the framework and capture a more nuanced
story about the design and implementation of PEA and SES from the subjective realities of
parents. I elaborate on sense-making theory in the following section.
Sense-making Theory
As part of the social construction process, sense-making as a theoretical framework helps
to put into perspective how actors generate interpretations of policy implementation from their
own social context (Spillane et al., 2002; Weick, 1995). As stated in Chapter 1, the theory is
generally driven by a cognitive understanding of how particular individuals or stakeholders take
in information, frame it within familiar schema, and use it to determine their actions (Evans,
2007). Figure 2.2 provides a heuristic into how this process works in the context of education,
however the process works similarly across various organizational fields. Beginning with
individual stakeholders, K12 policy is interpreted based on a working worldview, which is a
socially constructed assumption about reality (Porac, Thomas, & Baden-Fuller, 1989). A
working worldview is a result of cues individuals receive from multiple and overlapping contexts
(Weick, 1995). In turn, individuals interpret these cues differently depending on values, beliefs,
expectations, culture, or ideology. Consistent with a working worldview, stakeholders are
constantly negotiating and contesting their own knowledge base. Stakeholders are then
constantly assimilating (interpreting new information to create new schemas of knowledge) and
accommodating (interpreting new knowledge to fit old schemas) to interpret, understand, and
respond in a sociably accepted way. Since the underlying process is interpretative, sense-making
is also a cyclical process contingent on the context surrounding policy or problem situation.

40

Although sense-making is traditionally used in organization and management
scholarship, an increasing number of education scholars have used it in their research (Coburn,
2001; Spillane et al., 2002). Specifically, education scholars have used the theory to investigate
how school leaders mediate the messages and cues from their personal and professional lives to
interpret policy implementation (Ball, 1994; Coburn, 2005; Evans, 2007; Lin, 1999; Ryan &
Wignall, 1996; Spillane, 2000; Spillane et al., 2002; Yanow, 1996). Educational scholars have
also used sense-making theory to investigate matters of race and socioeconomic status (Ascher &
Branch-Smith, 2005; Buendia, Ares, Juarez, and Peercy, 2004; Duke, 1995; Evans, 2004;
Hargreaves & Goodson, 2006). These studies have suggest that individuals within the school
community associate race and socioeconomic status with the identity of local schools. For

41
example, Buendia, Ares, Juarez, and Peercy (2004) illustrate how race and class based identities
are important factors in determining the identity of communities, educators, and schools within
an urban context. A limited number of studies have explored how school leaders operate within
racial contexts (Evans, 2007; Henze et al., 2000; Ryan & Wignall, 1996). Those few studies that
have focused on leadership and race have found that school leaders are reluctant to discuss or
acknowledge race, racism, or classism in their schools, or those that do, only do so in terms of
overt racial conflict (Henze et al., 2000; Larson, 1997; Shields, 2004).
Larson’s (1997) study is of particular interest to the scope of this study as if centers on
sense-making from a community context. In the study, school administrators and African
American community members disagreed in the interpretation of a student protest. School
leaders saw the protest as an “unauthorized act” punishable by disciplinary action while African
American community members defined it as a justifiable student protest. Tensions grew between
both groups resulting in the school administrators losing their jobs. In this case, community
sense-making trumped the rational bureaucratic sense-making. I build on this political work and
utilize sense-making theory to understand how parents within Los Angeles make sense of
options afforded to them through choice policy. In the Larson study, school administrators lost
their jobs mainly because they underestimated the depth and power of resistance which
highlighted the broader racial tensions which the same administrators failed to address. I take a
slightly similar approach and apply the theory to understand how families and parents interpret
policy designed in their behalf to take greater control of their local schools. My intent is to use
the analytical depth of sense-making and expand it to a community context to learn how parents
interpret their role as consumers through individual decision making like SES or engage in
collective action through PEA.

42
Governance, Constructions, & Sense-making
So far I have discussed three main concepts to provide a theoretical frame guiding this
study. First, I relied on Dewey’s ideas to address a governance dilemma between schooling
experts and lay citizens like parents. I then covered in detail Schneider and Ingram’s social
construction of target populations model as an extension of Dewey’s governance problem, which
I relied on as an analytical tool to understand the policy framing dynamics important for both
design and implementation of both SES and PEA. I then explained the cognitive process of
sense-making to shift focus to policy implementation from the point of view of the parents living
the policy. I also discussed how sense-making has been utilized in educational research and my
goal of extending the framework to focus beyond school leadership from the point of view of
school officials and also encompass leadership from the perspectives of parents, specifically
those from low-income and minority backgrounds. Similar to the Larson study, expanding sense-
making to parents and community members can help provide new interpretations about policy.
Sense-making can also contribute to the already rich scholarship focused on parent participation
as the theory helps place parent perspectives front and center of educational dialogue. Not only
that but studies like this one can also use the sense-making framework to learn from parents in a
language they find confortable to then speak back to policymakers about potential problems or
opinions about policy. Before I situate sense-making further into parent and community contexts,
I move on and discuss the scholarship focused on parent participation in schooling matters. In the
next section I review parent participation under two specific contexts: market reform and
community organizing.

43
Parent and Schools: Participation, Markets, and Community Organizing
In the last decade, the drive to involve families and increase parental participation in
school matters has taken a more serious turn towards policy and program implementation. The
emphasis to include and increase parent participation in schooling matters is in large part due to
the results of research conducted over the last three decades. Since the 1980s, educational
scholars have been paying attention to the relationships between schools and families and the
implications for student success (Mattingly et al., 2002). The majority of this scholarship attends
to what parents, families, and communities bring to the educational development of children and
school systems (Mapp, 2003). More importantly, this research has sought out to argue for the
merits of parent participation in improving achievement.
As stated in Chapter 1, the research on parental involvement is fairly consistent
suggesting there is a strong link between educational benefits, such as higher grades, higher
attendance rates, improved social behavior, and access to post-secondary education, to children
and the various forms of family participation (Baker et al., 1999; Dreyfoos, 2000; Epstein, 1988,
1995, 1996; Epstein & Jansorn, 2004; Henderson & Mapp, 2003). As stated above, these studies
are diverse ranging in scope and design and for the most part have found that parent involvement
is a consistent predictor of student academic achievement (Epstein et al., 1997; Baker et al.,
1999); it leads to lasting effects on children’s success regardless of class, race, ethnicity, gender,
or age (Abdul-Adil & Farmer, 2006; Cochran & Henderson, 1996; Cortes, 1996; Dreyfoos,
2000; Epstein et al., 1997; Giles, 1998; Mapp, 2003; Stevenson & Baker, 1987); it positively
affects attendance and retention rates (Epstein et al., 1997; Giles, 1998; Zellman & Waterman,
1998); it improves student attitudes and behaviors (Barton et al., 2004); and involvement in

44
schools positively influences parents themselves, motivating them to increase their community
connections (Abdul-Adil & Farmer, 2006; Barton et al., 2004; DeMoss & Vaughn, 2000).
As a result, educational policymakers have used this data to make strides in increasing
the roles parents in educational matters at all government levels (Davies, 2002; Epstein, 1987).
At the federal level, parental participation has been a major focus of educational policy design.
During the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, parent involvement
was one of the major areas of concern; specifically, NCLB requires that schools receiving Title I
support allocate funding towards parent participation programs (USDE, 2013). The push from
the federal level has trickled down to policies taking place at the state level. States like
California, Illinois, Tennessee, Texas, Minnesota, and Missouri, have included blueprints to
involve parents in statewide education reform (California Department Education, 2011; Illinois
State Board of Education, 2010; Tennessee Department of Education, 2013; Texas Educational
Agency, 2013; Minnesota Department of Education, 2013; Missouri Department of Elementary
and Secondary Education, 2013).
California for example, has implemented the Family Engagement Network based on
Joyce Epstein’s (1995) research. Through her research, Epstein has designed a typology of
parental involvement, which serves as a tool to guide for local school districts and families to
forming effective working partnerships (CDE, 2011; Epstein, 1995).
8
The model includes the
following types of parental involvement: parenting (i.e. providing conducive environment for

8

While states like Texas and Illinois have followed federal guidelines established by NCLB to foster greater parent
participation in districts that receive Title I funds, California further established a standards-based approach to
improve parental involvement through five overarching principles: building capacity (focusing on the practices
necessary to further involve parents and school staff), build leadership (ensuring that both parents and school staff
have governing bodies leading involvement practices), allocation of resources, monitor progress (measuring and
documenting results), and access and equity (ensuring that parents have the adequate information about school based
decisions) (CDE, 2011).

45
learning), communicating (i.e. between schools and parents), volunteering (i.e. assisting teachers
in school), support for learning at home (i.e. signing homework), participating in decision
making (i.e. voting in board meetings), and collaborating with community (i.e. coordinating
fundraising activities) (Epstein, 1995). Local school districts have also followed suit and have
applied similar guidelines regarding parental involvement including LAUSD, which has further
established the Parents Community Students Service Branch (PCSSB) to specifically work with
parents in various ways. For example, the PCSSB specifically works in training and organizing
parents around School Site Committees and English Language Advisory Boards. In addition, in
efforts to extend the emphasis of recognizing the importance of parent participation, the district
adopted a resolution to establish a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities for parents (LAUSD,
2010)
9
. These rights and responsibilities are connected to the Epstein typology of participation
and based on the language, endorse a social construction of parents as partners of the educational
process.
The scholarship focused on parent participation has also alluded to the relationship
between families and schools. Research has explored the relationship between parents and
schools by focusing on involvement practices which include, but are not limited to, being present
at school meetings, talking to teachers, attending school events, volunteering at school, assisting
children in academic tasks (i.e. homework), responding to children’s academic endeavors, and
talking to children about academic issues (Cochran & Henderson, 1986; Epstein, 1995;
Henderson & Mapp, 2002; Lawrence-Lightfoot, 1978; Mapp, 2003). In the early part of the
nineties, however, parent roles designed within policy began to change in two ways. First,
expansion of market-based educational reform paved the way for school choice initiatives, which

9
LAUSD’s engagement initiative includes 10 rights and 10 responsibilities for parents. The Bill of Rights for
parents is in both English and Spanish and can be accessed at the following website:
http://achieve.lausd.net/Page/888

46
allowed parents/guardians to be involved as consumers of educational services, specifically by
allowing them to choose schooling options outside of their zoned neighborhood school. Second,
through the emergence of community organizing, parents in urban and low-income
neighborhoods began to mobilize, collaborate, and build alliances to improve their children’s
schools. I speak to each of these forms of involvement in the following sections.
Markets, Choice, and Parents
Large urban districts like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New Orleans have
implemented reform policies infused with market logic to address academic achievement
(Lipman, 2013). Part of that effort has been to engage parents by providing them with a myriad
of choices regarding their children’s schooling. In their book, Politics, Markets, and America’s
Schools, educational scholars John E. Chubb and Terry M. Moe (1990) assert that injecting small
dozes of market-based logics will help address the achievement problems in our nation’s public
schools. According to Chubb and Moe, the democratic nature of public school, which is
governed by the bureaucratic weight of rules and regulations, is anathema to effective school
operations (1990). They further assert that, “American public education has been governed…to
be incompatible with effective schooling (p.2). Rather than help students learn, schools succumb
to political pressures consistent with democratic forms of governance. Their prescription is that
schools be subject to market forces.
The idea of infusing market logic to school reform stems from the work of Milton
Friedman (1955). He argued that free market forces would improve public schools more so than
a public school system protected from competition. Part of the rational and drive behind market
reform is also the break-up the government’s monopoly on education (Buckley & Schneider,
2007). Market-based policies avoid the problem of political interference and bureaucratic weight

47
that permeates our nation’s public schools by allowing parents to have greater control over the
allocation of educational funding (Lubienski, 2001). In terms of parent participation, market-
based reform, more popularly known as school choice, allows parents to send their children to
public schools outside of their local neighborhood. Choice policies then socially construct the
role of parents to that of consumers or a clientele that are to shop from a list of schools that meet
their quality requirements and/or curricular preferences (Chubb & Moe, 1990). If parents are
dissatisfied with the outcomes in terms of achievement from their decision, then they should
have the viable option of exiting
10
the school to one that is more efficient and addresses their
children’s needs. Through a consumer-based market then, parents as consumers will encourage
new suppliers to create competition that will in turn revitalize the entrepreneurial energy of
school leaders to improve their school (Meier 1995, 2000).
Choice policy has become the dominant response regarding school reform. As stated in
Chapter 1, these policies are diverse and have been designed, implemented, and documented in a
variety of ways. As more families are offered school choice options, it becomes increasingly
important to understand the implementation of these policies (Henig, 1999). During the last
decade, studies have paid close attention to the several factors, like race and class, that influence
parental decision-making (Bell, 2009; Goldring & Phillips, 2008). According to educational
economists Bast and Walberg (2004), parents choose schools for their children based on three
criteria: cost and benefits or what they call incentives, access to information, and the presence of
opportunities or choices (p. 432). Their criteria, however, are based on a rational model of
decision-making which centers on the idea of reducing costs and maximizing benefits (i.e.

10
Exit as a strategy derives from the work of Albert Hirshman asserting that individuals participating in markets as
consumers had one of three choices regarding services rendered: exit (leaving because of dissatisfaction for another
choice), voice (although dissatisfied, one would stay as a political act to voice their opinion about said
dissatisfaction), and loyalty (staying because you are satisfied with services). (Hirshman, 1970)

48
parents would select options that would minimize time or money spent while their child would
continue to benefit academically). Several studies, however, suggest that parents consider a wide
variety of factors, depending on available information and relative to their own experiences with
education (Goldring & Phillips, 2008; Henig, 1996; Neild, 2005; Meyers & Jordan, 2006). I
elaborate on these below by discussing both academic and nonacademic factors along with the
potential barriers parents face as documented by research (Ball, 2012).
Academic/ Non Academic Factors. Regardless of race, ethnic, or class differences,
parents make schooling decisions to improve the academic gains of their children (Bauch &
Goldring, 1995; Bossetti, 2004; Kleitz et al., 2000; Neild, 2005; Schneider, Marshall, Teske, &
Roch, 1998; Witte, 1996). More specifically, parents claimed that they prioritized high academic
standards and quality of instructors when making decisions about selection of charter and magnet
schools (Goldring & Hausman, 1999; Kleitz et al., 2000; Witte, 1996). When relying on
academic factors, parents have also taken into account teacher reputations, the quality of the
school staff, math and reading scores, and the school’s overall reputation (Bossetti, 2004;
Schneider et al., 1994). Regardless of schooling option, the research clearly asserts that parents
prioritize academic factors when making schooling decisions.
Nonacademic factors are defined by other reasons which parents find important in their
decision-making. These factors range greatly and include but are not limited to school safety,
discipline policies, school demographics, location, and transportation concerns (Bell, 2009;
Buckley & Schneider, 2007; Goldring & Phillips, 2008; Hayes, Phillips, & Goldring, 2010,
Henig, 2009; Nield, 2005; Schneider et al., 1998). Goldring and Phillips (208) surveyed parents
and found that discipline policy and general safety of the neighborhood played an important part
of their decision-making process. Similarly, Schneider et al., (1998) found that racial minorities

49
placed an important value on strong discipline policies within their decision to select a school.
For some parents, race plays an important part of their decision-making process, as they tend to
select schools with similar racial and ethnic demographics of their children (Goldring &
Hausman, 1999; Nield, 2005). In Buckley and Schneider (2007), found that parents emphasized
more on information about school diversity and demographics than the research on parent
participation shows. Parents also place importance on the location of the school. Several studies
indicate that parents select schools that are nearby for both convenience (Holme, 2002), and
neighborhood safety (Bell, 2009). Scholarship on parental decision-making and physical space is
ongoing, yet is an area that is increasing in importance and one that will be covered in more
detail at the end of Chapter 4 with respects to parents and their experience with PEA.
As I have shown so far, research indicates some of the various factors by which parents
make the choice. Regardless of how parents made their choice, emerging research also illustrates
some of the challenges they face regarding their process in decision-making. I elaborate on these
challenges below.
Challenges of Parents Participating in Choice. Research has indicated two specific
barriers parents face when they engage in school choice decision-making. The first is structural
which include the amount of available choices for parents embedded with community contexts.
When faced with options, parents can be limited in their decision-making based on the available
schooling options, local political contexts (i.e. living in a traditional district with minor schooling
options), and amount of available resources necessary for choice making (Bell, 2009; Ben-
Porath, 2009). Structural barriers are important as they provide parents with a knowledge base to
then expand their experience regarding schooling options. For instance, parents with multiple
options, engaged in school choice for prolonged periods of time, may become more seasoned and

50
prone to the process of decision-making. Community contexts are an important part of the
structural barriers to decision-making. For example, Dillon (2008) investigated the schooling
options for families in low-income and low performing school district and found that parents
within these communities have few options to improve their children’s educational opportunities.
Parents within low-income communities have limited options as the majority of the schooling
choices available to them are also categorized as low-performing schools (Dillon, 2008).
The second barrier parents face is in the methods by which they receive information.
Under the market ideology undergirding choice policies, parents and families should have easy
access to information which should also be disseminated in a medium or language accessible to
them. Several studies, however, have found that parents are not getting the adequate and
appropriate quality of information (Acosta et al., 2013; Ball & Vincent; 1998; Bosetti, 2008;
Hastings & Weinstein, 2008; Orfield & Frankenberg, 2013; Nield, 2005; Schneider et al., 1997).
Some of these studies assert that parents make decisions about the educational opportunities for
their children based on limited information. More so, the information parents do receive is
inadequate, inaccessible, or difficult to comprehend (Acosta et al., 2013; Nield, 2005). When
information is not available or accessible, parents rely on informal networks like word of mouth
or knowledge from fiends and family to engage in choice (Ball & Vincent, 1998). The problem
with informal networks however, reifies the point that families are not getting adequate levels of
information about their options from formal sources. Parents are nonetheless are participating in
these choice initiatives and whether or not they receive information from formal or informal
sources, they are oftentimes doing so with limited information.
Beyond structural of information barriers, parents engaging in choice policy do face other
challenges as implementation of these policies may lead to unintended consequences which can

51
have deleterious effects for low-income minority communities. With regards to access to
information or knowledge necessary to make choice, research has highlighted that more affluent,
formally educated, and more privileged families exercise choice in a way that creates more class
and racial segregation within school districts s(DeSena, 2006; Fairlie, 2002; Ranzulli & Evans,
2005; Saporito, 2003; Saporito & Sahoni, 2006). More specifically, this research has found that
more privileged families exit their local zoned school and opting to attend charters, magnet or
private schools. However, as stated above, parental decision-making under the context of choice
is a complex endeavor defined by a multitude of factors. The complexity also thickens with the
portfolio of choices offered to families.
11
Based on this scholarship, it becomes important to
expand on scholarship that investigates beyond how families are determining choice and to delve
to understand how families are experiencing or living choice policy.
In sum, parents are participating and getting involved in their child’s education through
market-based reforms. These reforms are diverse ranging from charters, magnets, permits with
transportation, and voucher waivers. Parents make decisions about these schooling options based
on both academic and nonacademic factors. Although the idea of these policies is to provide
options to families beyond their zoned public school that would in turn improve the academic
opportunities for their children, the process to do that has not been as simple for historically
disadvantaged populations. Parents from low-income and minority backgrounds, as stated by the
research, face barriers that may prevent them from selecting the best option for their children.
The research mentioned above is also part of an ongoing debate which seeks to understand how
choice policies benefit families along with contributing to reducing social inequality. Part of the
debate, however, is still missing how parents are actually interpreting and/or making sense of
these choice policies. I will conclude this chapter then by discussing how this specific research

11
Refer back to table 1.1 to review the various options and their definitions offered to families in LAUSD.

52
will contribute to the ongoing parent choice scholarship by relying on sense-making theory, but
before I do that, I first attend to another form of parent participation: grass-roots organizing.
As stated in Chapter 1, all of the choices offered to families offer them the choice to exit
or to opt out of their local school; this study focuses on the new Parent Empowerment Act (PEA)
which allows parents to collectively make the choice to opt-in and take control of their local
school. To get a better understanding of this new type of choice, I then attend to the literature
focused on parental grass-roots organizing as a type of parental participation model for school
reform. Similar to the objectives embedded within PEA, grass-roots organizing requires a
specific form of civic engagement where parents mobilize, unionize, and petition to improve the
conditions of their local schools. I use and rely on the documented grass-roots efforts of parents
and community members to begin to understand collective action as envisioned by PEA.
Parent Community Organizing as an Approach for School Reform
School choice was an answer to the traditional public school hierarchies, which sought to
fix the shortcomings, and failures of public schooling through carefully designed accountability
mechanisms and improving the effectiveness of working school staff (McNeil, 2000). These
policy initiatives focused on carefully crafted curricula designed to guide classroom instruction
and relied on traditional bureaucratic forms of governance. As argued above, school choice
relied on market logics to improve schools, yet this type of reform was not the only alternative to
public hierarchies or to engage parents in schooling matters. Community
12
organizing for school
reform began in the early 1990s with efforts to improve schools in predominantly low-income
and minority neighborhoods (Anyon, 2009; Shirley, 1997; Warren, 2001). Activists in these first

12
I use Mark Warren’s definition of community meaning a group of interconnected people who share a common
history, a set of values, and a sense of belonging. This is crucial as it delves deeper to the identities of participants
rather than geographical characteristics pushing for reform that takes into account the transformation of culture and
identity (Warren, 2001).

53
efforts included local organizers, parents, and other invested community members mobilizing to
change some of the deplorable conditions in their children’s schools which included, but were
not limited to overcrowding, dirty bathrooms, high truancy rates, and low levels of student
achievement (Anyon, 2009; Oakes et al, 2006; Shirley, 1997; Warren, 2001). Small victories
during these first efforts led both organizers and parents to develop a deeper understanding
regarding the institutional contexts of the individual schools and school systems they were trying
to change (Warren & Mapp, 2011).
Evidence of success. Early momentum for community organizing can be attributed to
various campaigns in large urban school districts (Mediratta et al., 2009). With the help of
community organizations, parents and families began campaigns focused on a range of school
and district improvement goals. For example, dissatisfied by the achievement levels in local
schools, the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) in Austin worked closely with parents, church
groups, and some educators to adopt the “Alliance Schools” model which placed a collaborative
accountability framework between parents, teachers, and principals in sixteen elementary schools
and five secondary schools (Mediratta et al., 2009; Shirley, 1997). These schools afforded
parents with greater control over curriculum and hiring practices which resulted in strong
cooperation between parents and school staff.
Community organizing movements have also helped families develop their civic
capacities to participate in school governance matters. For example, organizing efforts were
central in helping parent councils participate in local governance decisions. With the help of the
Association of Communities Organized for Reform Now (ACORN), parents in Chicago were
trained on school reform and what to specifically look for to improve teacher quality in the
poorest neighborhoods (Hong, 2011;Mediratta et al., 2009; Warren & Mapp, 2011). Similar to

54
ACORN’s work in Chicago, the families in the Logan Square Neighborhood Association helped
build specific parent led projects that trained and developed parents to be more actively engaged
in their children’s education (Hong, 2011). The efforts of these two Chicago organizations have
helped transform schools from community-disconnected institutions, to parent-friendly centers
(Fung, 2004).
Similar to IAF example above, parents with the help of intermediary organizations, have
organized to start their own schools. People Acting in Community Together (PACT), an
organizing group in San Jose, organized to create design teams and petition the district to allow
them the opportunity to open a small autonomous school controlled by community members
(Ishimaru et al., 2011). With a greater sense of ownership, parents worked closely with the
instructional staff to help produce solid achievement gains. From the first to the second year of
operation, the first parent-run school in the district achieved the highest Academic Performance
Index score in the district (Mediratta et al., 2009).
One of the greatest areas of focus of community organizing has been in building working
relationships and coalitions with other stakeholders. For example, communities in South Central
Los Angeles began to organize and build sustainable relationships with Los Angeles Unified
School District personnel and faith-based organizations. The result was the foundation of the
Achievement Academies which focused on engaging parents to participate in their children’s
schooling. Further, by identifying parents as leaders, local organizers were able to engage parents
to participate in other local affairs affecting the community. This specific work helped parents
organize a campaign to close a local dump-site which was causing cluster cases of asthma in
students of the nearby school (Catone et al., 2011).

55
Similarly, parents organizing in the South Bronx created the Community Collaborative of
District 9 (CC9) –a coalition between low-income parents, the United Federation of Teachers,
and the New York City Department of Education worked together to strategize and redirect local
education reform efforts (Fabricant, 2010; Kuttner et al., 2011). Through extensive research with
the help of the Institute of Education and Social Policy, the CC9 established that teaching was
critical to improving local schools. The coalition organized, petitioned, demonstrated, and
engaged a direct action campaign to obtain funding resources from the Department of Education,
with parents at the forefront of the campaign efforts. In April of 2004, the CC9 secured 1.6
million dollars for professional development to be applied in every grade level in each of the 10
district schools to give teachers the necessary skills to be successful in the classroom and remain
in the community (Anyon, 2009).
Similar to the success in South Los Angeles and the Bronx, efforts by Southern Echo, a
Mississippi-based civil rights group, has focused on leadership development to empower African
American communities in addressing matters of local concern (Russell & Tieken, 2011). In the
early 1990s, Southern Echo began to focus on educational issues. The organization provided
training and technical assistance to help local community groups campaign for reform. The most
noticeable outcome from these community efforts occurred in October of 2002, when the
Mississippi State Board of Education agreed to fully comply with federal guidelines of providing
services to students with special needs for the first time in 35 years (Anyon, 2009).
Similar efforts were documented in Denver, Oakland, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and
Miami (Mediratta et al., 2009; Warren & Mapp, 2011). Although some organizing efforts have
resulted in the foundation of charter schools (i.e. San Jose example above), it is important to note
that these efforts are not synonymous with the market choice initiatives. In some cases,

56
community organizations have fought efforts to privatize or implement market logics within
public schools (Anyon, 2007; Hong, 2011; Lipman, 2011; Mediratta et al., 2009; Warren &
Mapp, 2011). Not until the authorization of PEA in California has a choice policy relied on
policy levers similar to the actions utilized in grass-roots organizations. As I will argue in
Chapter 4, educational reformers designed California’s PEA to emulate community organizing
techniques to offer parents and families more choice. The parent and community organizing
literature here, serves to provide context to a new choice policy that requires parents to utilize
grass-roots actions while simultaneously build coalitions with the help of intermediary
organizations. Not only does the literature help to further contextualize collective parental
actions, buy it also helps provide a platform to learn from and contribute to regarding parental
perspectives as they participate in these reforms. I now move on to the limitations of the parental
participation research and argue that beyond rational models of parent participation, a sense-
making framework can help us further understand parent subjective realities when implementing
choice policies.
The Value of Sense-making in Parent Participation Scholarship
In their book, Beyond the Bake Sale, Henderson et al., (2007) argued that parents play a
critical role in building strong school partnerships. Despite their argument and their contribution
to parent engagement, research and practice continue to socially construct parents in deficit-
based ways, more specifically parents from low-income and minority backgrounds. According to
Quiocho and Daoud (2008), teachers and administrators often perceive that parents from these
communities, specifically Latina/o parents, do not care about their children’s education or that
they misunderstand their role because they did not understand the concept of involvement as
defined by the school. Not all school officials have negative perceptions about families and have

57
worked to engage parents in schooling processes (Epstein, 1987). Yet many school officials rely
on typologies of engagement that delineate specific parental obligations, which can hold specific
sociocultural practices higher than others (Epstein, 1987). For example, parents are supposed to
involve children at home by contributing to their basic skills in education. If parents do not meet
these obligations, administrators can in turn proceed to perceive the lack of parent involvement
negatively. However, we have learned that parents from different backgrounds exercise different
funds of knowledge to participate in their children’s schooling (Moll et al., 1992).
Market and choice research has also painted low-income parents in deficit ways. For
example, Goyette (2008) hypothesized from the on going parent choice research that low-income
parents do not participate in choice because they have limited networks for gathering information
and those networks are predominantly from family members whose information about choice
may be redundant. In contrast, Goyette (2008) assumes that middle class parents gather their
information from networks from their work rather than family members. The working
assumption here is that low-income families rely on relatives who have limited knowledge about
choice programming. In addition, other studies have concluded that middle class families feel
that they are more qualified to engage in complex decision-making offered through choice
(Lareau, 1996; Reay & Ball, 1998).
Much of the market-based literature may lead to deficit-based assumptions mainly
because most of the research evaluating how families engage in choice relies on economic
rational choice analyses. Through this lens, parents will choose educational options in an
objective manner in order to maximize benefits while simultaneously working to reduce any
potential costs (Bast & Walberg, 2004). Parents are socially constructed as rational actors will
weigh their options based on levels and quality of information. And if operating under market-

58
conditions, parents should receive perfect and complete levels of information. Based on their
rational evaluation of the information, parents then will assess which options will maximize their
child’s educational experience. In other words, parents are to make cost benefit analyses about
their options using objective criteria. Based on previous scholarship, however, we have seen that
the objective nature of rational choice theory driving the design of choice policy fails to take into
account parents’ subjective realities.
Families and their lived experiences are important to fully understand how parents arrive
at their decision-making. Subjective realities play an important part in the decision-making
process. As stated in Chapter 1, I contend that in order to begin understanding the utility of
market-based reforms, educational leaders and research should pay closer attention to how
participation and choice is experienced and interpreted by parents, specifically those living in
under-resourced communities. To do that, I contend that sense-making theory can provide a
critical lens in understanding the several dimensions regarding parent decision-making. First, the
will expand parent literature in the sense that it will help put parent voices about choice front and
center of educational dialogue. Second, sense-making can provide new narratives about choice
through a language familiar for parents. Third, educational leaders can utilize the research to
begin or continue building partnerships with parents. Finally, this type of work can provide
researchers like myself, the analytical space to exercise their own identity and broker knowledge
to school officials about parent interpretations about the policies which they live through and
experience.

59
As low-income African American and Latino communities begin to take educational
matters in to their own hands, research on choice and engagement may provide new narratives,
not of apathy, but of political consciousness. Furthermore, relative to new collective choice
models like PEA, parents and community members can directly contribute to our understanding
of participatory and democratic methods of governance within school reform. As argued by the
research above, the roles of parents are complex. Relying on research that voices parent
perspectives can provide scope to the sociocultural diversity within low-income communities
that are perceived to racially monolithic. In addition, in local efforts to build partnerships with
parents and community, analysis of parental participation can have purchase to the way reform is
further understood and implemented.
Chapter Summary
I started this chapter with an ethical dilemma posited by Dewey regarding the roles of
school officials and parents in terms of schooling and educational policy. My intent was to
further situate the dialogue regarding the drive for school districts to implement policies and
programs that involve families and community in the educational process. To further situate the
dialogue regarding the relationship between schools and families, I then discussed the two
theoretical frameworks that will drive this study. In addition to these two frameworks, I also
provided literature regarding a general consensus of parent participation, the drive of market
models to involve parents as consumers, and parents using grass-roots organizing to address their
dissatisfaction with schools. I then argued why sense-making as a theoretical model can
contribute greatly in expanding parent voices and provide space for researchers to broker a
dialogue between school officials and parents. I now turn to how I brokered information from
parents engaged in the two choice policies of SES and PEA.

60
Chapter 3: Research Design and Methods
As I argued in Chapter 2, existing research on parent choice has been conducted through
economic models like rational choice theory. I, however, take a step in a different direction to
address the problem through the lived experiences of families. I draw from social constructions
of target populations and sense-making theory to buttress both frame and design of the study. My
objective is dialectical, comparing realities situated within policy design and compared with the
sense-making process of parents. The underlying assumption is that understanding the unique
insights of individuals from their own point of view will refine and reconstruct a more
sophisticated understanding of parents as decision-makers.
In this chapter, I describe the research methods I used that helped me capture parent
experiences with SES and PEA. I first argue that a qualitative approach was the most appropriate
method to examine the lived experiences of parents with choice. Second, I describe how a
comparative ethnographic case study design was particularly generative for a study seeking to
understand parent experiences with two distinct choice policies. I then detail my research
methods of each case including, sample selection, data collection, and analysis. I end the chapter
explaining the steps I took to build trust with participants and ensure trustworthiness of the
findings.
Qualitative Research Design
Consistent with both social construction of policy targets and sense-making theory, a
qualitative study approach provided the best means of capturing the complexities of reform and
the socially constructed realities from participants’ perspectives (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007;
Creswell, 2007). More specifically, because qualitative methods employ a variety of data
sources, this allowed me to examine and understand participant experiences in detail (Hakim,

61
1987). Qualitative research is rich in description of people, places, and conversations, which
relies heavily on fieldwork necessary to capture participants’ viewpoints and experiences
(Creswell, 2007). Grounded in qualitative research traditions, I then employed an ethnographic
case study approach, which I define below, to get a better understanding of how parents engage
in decision making through both SES and PEA.
The case study approach was well suited to answer the questions of this study as it allows
for an in-depth understanding of a problem through the use of multiple data sources (Merriam,
1998; Stake, 1995). As mentioned above, LAUSD provides a rich and complex environment to
expand our understanding of choice in large urban school districts. In addition, policy practice is
a sophisticated and complex endeavor (Ball, 1994). A case study approach is best suited to
capture the complexity embedded within each of the two policy cases of this study. With regards
to SES, LAUSD has a history of out-of-school programing through the Beyond the Bell Branch,
which offers various options in before and after school services. Within SES, there are multiple
stakeholders involved including parents, third-party vendors, and public school officials. With
regards to PEA, LAUSD has a history of portfolio reform which lends to ongoing governance
changes within local district schools. Similarly to the SES case, there are multiple stakeholders
involved in the implementation PEA including parents, intermediary organizations like Parent
Revolution, district officials, and philanthropic foundations. In addition to multiple stakeholders
and in relation to both policies, all of the communities where SES and PEA take place, have been
majority low-income, African American and Latina/o neighborhoods thus providing further
insight into how parents’ identities play a part of their worldview in their decision-making.
Second, case study research involves ‘exploration of a bounded system or a case over
time through detailed data collection involving multiple sources of information rich content.’

62
(Creswell, 1998, p.61). This study consisted of two embedded cases of two choice policies
within the context of LAUSD. Embedded cases involve more than one unit, or object of analysis
and the data is investigated in stages or sub-units, which focus on different aspects of the case
(Yin, 2009). In SES, for example, the main unit was the policy bounded within Los Angeles, and
the smallest units where the parents selecting after-school vendors. For PEA, the main unit was
the law within LAUSD and in the context of tow different school communities while the smallest
units where parents organizing to overhaul their schools.
Finally, I conducted an ethnographic case study approach to expand the analytical depth
of the whole study. Traditionally, ethnographies are long term investments with researchers
spending two or more years in the field. Ethnographies also tend to focus on few cases and in
generally small-scale to facilitate in-depth study (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007). An
ethnographic study then is defined as prolonged observations over a period of time in a natural
setting within a bounded system (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007; Van Maanen, 2011, Yin,
2013). As stated earlier and consistent with the case study approach, the use of ethnographic
methods allowed for data to be gathered from a range of sources, which included interviews,
observations, collection of documents, and fieldnotes. The ethnographic case study also allowed
me to capture people’s actions in their everyday contexts meaning that I was out in the “field”
collecting data. Being in the field amplified a cultural context of data collection consistent with
ethnography. Since all of the participating parents were Latina/o, I shared a cultural and
linguistic bond that facilitated my understanding of their lived experience.
For SES, I had been engaged in one way or another for four years. For PEA, I had been
engaged for more than a year conducting a pilot study before engaging in this particular study. I
focused on data collection and analysis on the 2012-14 academic school years. Consistent with

63
both social constructions of target populations and sense-making theory, the following questions
sought to understand how parents perceived their roles within the two choice policies:
1. How does policy design socially construct the role of parents, specifically those in low-
income, minority communities?
2. How do parents construct the policy, in particular as related to their roles and
responsibilities, and act on these interpretations?
3. How do assumptions of policy clash or converge with perspectives and/or interests of
parents?
4. What are similarities and differences in the social construction of parents and the sense-
making of policy in two specified LAUSD choice reforms?
5. What are implications of this analysis with regards to choice policies for large urban
school districts like LAUSD and the role of parents, specifically those in historically low-
income minority communities?
Although equally bounded to LAUSD, each of the policies under study represented two
distinct cases by which parents participated in choice. Based on the design of each policy, I
approached data collection and sampling for each case somewhat differently. SES provides
parents with individual choices and the implementation of services takes place all over Los
Angeles. I had to work closely with third-party vendors and district officials to connect with
parent participants. In contrast, PEA took place in two school communities within South Los
Angeles which facilitated access to parents. In addition, parents participating in PEA were more
visible to an outside observer as they were organizing and protesting around their local school.
The following section will describe specific data collecting procedures for each SES and PEA
policies.

64
SES and Individual Choice
The SES case builds from a larger multisite, mixed-method case study aimed at
examining the implementation and efficacy of SES (Acosta et al., 2013; Burch et al., 2012; Good
et al., 2011). Part of this larger study collected data from multiple sources including, tutoring
observations, provider and administrator interviews, and focus group interviews of parents
regarding their knowledge about SES. Table 3.1 summarizes the data collected for this specific
case, which expands from 2012 to 2014. I collected data for the SES study beginning in the
2012-13 academic school years, which I explain in table 3.1. Given that for the 2013-14 school
year, LAUSD no longer offered SES as a choice option for parents, I sought out parents that had
participated the previous year to investigate on their perspectives regarding the end of SES.
Consistent with theory and design, I collected data in the form of observations, focus groups,
interviews, and documents.
Table 3.1

Comparison of Data for LAUSD SES Study

Data Collected
2012-13
Data Collected
2013-14
29 Observations of full tutoring sessions

8 Personal Interviews with provider staff

2 Interviews with state administrators

2 Focus Groups (16 participants total)

Documents:
Curriculum from 4 SES vendors
(Aavanza!, ETS, LION, Tutors with
Computers); DOE SES policy
guidelines; CA Dept. of Ed. SES
policy guidelines; LAUSD SES
enrollment information
8 Interviews with parents regarding their
experience with SES

Documents:
CA Office to Reform Education;
LAUSD memos about SES;
Beyond the Bell website;
Parent Communities Service Branch
parent documentation

65
Sample. I used a purposive sample of participants that included parents that participated
in SES. Qualitative researchers use purposive sampling to select participants because they can
purposefully inform the understanding of a problem (Creswell, 1998). More specifically, I used
criterion sampling, to specifically identify parents that had qualified to receive SES tutoring for
their children. Part of the earlier multisite study relied on embedded sampling to capture SES
vendors which in turn, helped to capture parents. To do that, I then relied on snowball sampling
to identify individual parents who had participated in SES to zoom in on their perspectives and
interpretations with regards to their experiences with the policy and SES vendors. Snowball
sampling yields participants through referrals made among individuals that share common
characteristics that are relevant to the case (Creswell, 1998). Table 3.2 summarizes demographic
data about parent participants for the 2013-14 academic school year.
Table 3.2
Summary of Parent Participant Demographic Information for Data Collected 2013-14
Participant Name* Race/Ethnicity/Nationality Socioeconomic
Status
Language
Doña Durcal Latina/Mexican Working poor Spanish
Doña Gomez Latina/Mexican Working poor Spanish
Doña Gonzalez Latina/Salvadorian Working middle
class
Bilingual, Spanish
and English
Don Jimenez Latino/Guatemalan Working poor Spanish
Doña Pinal Latina/Salvadorian Working poor Spanish
Don Valderrama Latino/Mexican/Zapotec Working poor Zapotec and Spanish
Don Zepeda Chicano Working middle
class
English and Spanish
Doña Zepeda Latina/Mexican Working middle
class
Spanish
Note. *All participants names were omitted and replaced with pseudonyms in order to secure
their confidentiality. All of the participants with the title Don are male while all of the
participants with the title Doña are female. All of the participants here participated in the data
collection phase of 2012-13. Through snowball and convenience sampling I was able to obtain
follow-up interviews with each about SES.

66
Data Collection. Ethnographic case study relies heavily on the collection of rich data
from multiple sources and stakeholders to illuminate the complexities, nuances, and issues
relevant to the case of interest (Stake, 1995). It is important to note that although SES and PEA
are both choice policies, they do differ in design and implementation. Similarly, the strategies for
data collection varied based on the implementation of each policy. For example, two different
observation instruments were used for each respective case. For SES, I collected data, which
included parent interviews, focus group interviews, instructional observations, administrator
interviews, vendor interviews, and any relevant document about SES
13
. Each of these data points
served to compare, contrast, and potentially extrapolate any relevant information with regards to
the social construction of parents as a target group. Consistent with the theoretical frameworks
driving this study, the forms of data collection helped to uncover how participants interpreted
SES. Specifically how the parents acted upon it, how they adapted or challenged such policy, and
in the end how they defined their roles in context to the policy. I discuss these in detail below.
Focus group interviews. The focus group interview is a technique involving the use of
in-depth or semi-structured group interviews in which participants are selected because they
represent a purposive sample of a specific population (Tomas et al., 1995). More so, participants
are selected to participate on the criteria that they have something to say on the topic or have
similar experiences in where they would be comfortable talking to an interviewer or themselves
(Rabiee, 2004). This data were collected to examine the factors influencing parents’ decision to
participate in the SES program, the criteria they used to select providers, and their assessment of
program quality. In addition, the focus group interview also allowed parents to listen to each
other and learn about their experiences with SES. My objective was to compare and contrast
parent experiences to determine how they socially constructed their roles and actions within the

13
Each of these are listed in Table 3.1

67
boundaries of SES. I also wanted them to hear each other’s narratives about their experiences
from SES.
I conducted the focus groups with parents of students who were eligible to receive SES
and/or who received SES services during the 2012-2013 school years. I scheduled two parent
focus group sessions, with one focus group taking place at the university located in the south
region of the district and the other in Bell High School in the east region. I started by reaching
out to the third party vendors within our study to ask parents about participating in the group
interviews. I also worked with LAUSD administrators and created a recruitment flier which
offered a compensation of 25$ for their participation. I specifically selected Bell High School
because it is the biggest and most populated campus in the district. At the time, the school was
the only campus on a year round schedule, which could help as more parents could potentially
still be receiving SES tutoring as it was getting closer towards the end of the year. Sixteen
parents from the south and east regions of the district participated in the focus groups. All of the
focus group interviews were semi-structured and lasted no more than an hour. All of the
interviews were carried out in Spanish.
Interviews. Interviews are also an important data source for case study, as they provide a
window into participants’ thoughts, opinions, and perspectives that may not be observable
(Bogdan & Biklen, 2007; Creswell, 2007). I conducted one-to-one interviews to understand how
parents continued to understand their roles within a choice policy that ceased its operation for a
year. I conducted shorter semi-structured interviews that probed into their identity as decision-
makers of after-school programs. Driven primarily by social construction frameworks, I inquired
about how parents interpreted and made sense of SES as a policy of choice. During these
interviews, I asked questions that: 1) address their awareness of choice for parents and how they

68
understood their participation with SES; 2) what specifically about SES made sense as a viable
option; 3) their understanding regarding the function and implementation of SES; 4) whether or
not, and if so, how was SES able to directly address respective cultural or socio-economic
realities for their families; 5) and if or whether the policy returned to LAUSD, what
improvements or changes would parents like to see with regards to SES or potentially any new
market-based tutoring initiative.
Observations of instruction and setting. I relied on observational data to help capture
how parents made sense of their participation with SES. More so, and similar to previous sense-
making scholarship, the structure within these observations provided a window into the multiple
contextual experiences by which parents make sense of SES. I relied on a structured at-home
instructional observation instrument which was designed to capture: 1) the quality of SES
instruction, 2) the complex and structural contexts in which after school programming occurs,
and 3) provide analytic points from several sources of information (Acosta et al., 2013; Burch &
Good, 2009). I helped design the instrument which was calibrated through review of previous
observations and evaluation of different observational items. Each of the observations also
provided the space to use techniques grounded in ethnographic field notes, which served as
corroborating data to analyze parent roles (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2003). I specifically relied
on the note taking space to document my conversations with parents along with any other
observable feature from the environment. I then used the data from the instrument to develop
descriptive vignettes about parent experiences with SES. I collected this data during the 2012-13
academic school year and used it primarily to verify my findings from the interviews and focus
groups. During the observations, my role was to capture the quality of instruction and in all of
the cases parents were present.

69
Documents. Finally, I obtained numerous documents relevant to SES to capture how
parents where socially constructed in comparison to the data collected from interviews and
observations. I collected data from providers of SES for the 2012-13 academic school years, on
staffing levels, curricular focus, length of tutoring sessions, student grouping practices, and
physical descriptions of where the tutoring took place (i.e., in-person, on-line, etc.). This data
also included information on recruitment and retention strategies, communication formats (e.g.,
flyers about services or individual progress reports) with various stakeholders (e.g., parents), and
assessment strategies (both diagnostic and summative). Other documents collected include
materials developed by providers to market their programs, train tutors, and record student
attendance along with the letter of the policy as envisioned by NCLB and the California
Department of Education. In addition to this data, I also collected new documents from the 2013-
14 academic school years informing parents about the transition or end of SES. During the same
school year, I also collected data regarding the participation of LAUSD as part of the California
Office to Reform Education known as CORE. The district’s involvement in CORE led to
application of a federal waiver that led to the termination of SES. I will discuss how I analyzed
the data below, after first describing the research design of PEA.
PEA and Collective Choice
I started working with issues regarding PEA with from a previous pilot study I conducted
during the 2012-13 academic school years. The reform was in the early stages of implementation
and focused on parent actions within the context of a different school district. The data collected
for this study is from the 2013-14 academic school years and it is centered within LAUSD. Only
two schools have been overhauled in LAUSD using PEA. These two school sites comprised the
case for PEA relative to this study. Consistent with sense-making theory, each of these petitions

70
resulted differently. Even though there are only two schools, each of the case was covered
thoroughly by media outlets. Parents were very vocal about their participation with PEA during
the early stages of implementation within LAUSD; so much so that during interviews, parents
did not care much for anonymity. I nonetheless provided pseudonyms for each of the focus
schools to help pay more attention to the narratives of parents rather than the results of a petition
within a school context. As stated before, the strategies for data collection where slightly
different since the policy implementation levers for each policy are different. I nonetheless
collected the data consistent with the ethnographic case study approach which included
interviews, observations, fieldnotes, and relevant documents. One big difference from SES, is
that I began collecting data for PEA at the local school sites and the surrounding community,
while I started with the vendors in the case of SES. I define the components of data collection
below.
School Sites. As stated before, only two elementary grade schools have been overhauled
in LAUSD through PEA. I call these two schools Jefferson Elementary and Watts Elementary
based on the local characteristics surrounding the schools. I will describe the context of
implementation in each school, paying attention to key actors, events, and outcomes within each
site. Both schools offered unique opportunity to learn about the law, the implementation of the
policy, and central to this study, a deeper understanding about how parents made sense of this
choice policy. Table 3.3 provides a comparison between each of the sites.
Jefferson Elementary. Jefferson Elementary is situated in the Jefferson Park community,
which is south of Mid City and adjacent to the West Adams neighborhoods. The school is also
three blocks northwest of the University of Southern California campus just south of the 10
freeway. Jefferson Elementary is surrounded by large Turn of the Century style homes along

71
with lots of green space like Benny H. Potter Park, which is only a block away from the school.
In addition to the surrounding green space, Jefferson Elementary is also home to a community
garden which the community tends to. Parents relied on this green space, specifically the park, as
safe space to begin organizing in order to implement PEA.
Jefferson was the first school overhauled or “triggered” by parents within LAUSD.
Before the petition, parents at the school had protested in front of the school in order to voice
their concerns with the school’s underachievement and leadership. Mainly, parents were upset at
the way they treated by the principal. Their first protest got little attention from district officials,
but it did garner the attention of the intermediary organization Parent Revolution. Soon after
their first protest, Parent Revolution sent organizers to work with the parents and help them
mobilize in efforts to implement PEA to change the leadership of the school. Organizers began
mobilizing parents at Benny Potter Park, or more popularly known as the parque de las bancas
(the park with the benches).
Parents and Parent Revolution started their organizing efforts at the park with the
benches by establishing a union of lead parents. The Jefferson Parents Union wanted to remove
the principal and started mobilizing to collect the necessary signatures to implement PEA.
Parents gathered more than sixty percent of the votes necessary for a PEA petition to remove the
principal. Parents originally opted for a restart option which would in turn change Jefferson to a
charter school. During a request for proposals, which Parent Revolution helped sift through,
parents found the options presented before them lacking. Specifically, parents wanted the new
charter operators to be clear about the maintenance of the community garden. Unsatisfied with
the proposals, parents in the end voted for a co-located district partnership option. Parents would
send their children to Jefferson Elementary for kindergarten through fourth grades and then they

72
would transfer to the co-located charter school for grades fifth through eight. In addition, parents
asked the district to provide funding support for the other co-located pre-kinder school.
The new Jefferson Elementary started the 2013-14 academic years with a new principal, a
set of new teachers (teachers had to reapply for their jobs), a new community liaison, and a
group of politically reinvigorated parents that were interested in the academic growth of the
school. The school also became part of the district’s Intensive Support and Innovation Centers
which focus on all schools which have been reconstituted or transformed. In context of PEA
within the state of California, Jefferson was the third school to be overhauled by parents.
Compared to the previous two cases, which were met with heavy political resistance from their
respective districts, LAUSD leadership openly accepted the trigger petition and worked
alongside parents and the new charter organization to reconstitute the school. Parents continue to
be actively involved at the school including participation in School Site Councils and English
Language Advisory Councils. The continued participation was a point of difference between the
two school cases implementing PEA in LAUSD. I elaborate further on the second case below.
Watts Elementary. Watts Elementary is an area known as Jordan Downs in the Watts
neighborhood, situated in South Los Angeles. The school is near the Alameda strip, which is a
large street surrounded by industrial and auto-parts commerce. The homes in the surrounding
neighborhood are smaller bungalow style houses and contrary to the Jefferson area, there is very
little green space. Quite the opposite of Jefferson, the Jordan Downs area is surrounded by tire
shops, lumberyards, and automobile junkyards. With a lack of a community center like the one
afforded to Jefferson parents with the park with the benches, parents at Watts Elementary began
organizing and setting up meetings at individual community member homes.

73
Prior to the PEA overhaul, parents had also displayed discontent with the school
leadership. A group of pre-school parents had been informed that they could dress up their
children with caps and gowns to commemorate their passage onto kindergarten which they
where then later informed, by the principal, that based on LAUSD policy, only high school
seniors could do that. The denial of the cap and gown celebration created tension between a sub-
group of parents and the principal. This tension escalated as many other parents became
frustrated with the schools perceived academic stagnation. Although parents began voicing their
discontent with the lack of academic growth, the school principal and her team submitted a
proposal to implement a PSCI intervention, which the district approved. Regardless of the new
accepted proposal, parents continued to grow impatient with the leadership and contacted Parent
Revolution to help address the academic stagnation and potentially remove the principal.
Similar to the Jefferson case, Parent Revolution began by mobilizing parents in the Watts
Elementary community. After building awareness about the community’s needs, Parent
Revolution helped parents establish a parents’ union chapter to begin making actionable
decisions. Watts Parents United also decided to move ahead with a PEA petition and opted to
replace the principal. Watts Parents Union began mobilizing to gather signatures, but opposite of
the Jefferson case, this group of parents faced stiff opposition from district personnel and other
parents.
Watts Parents United along with organizers from Parent Revolution began setting up
meetings at different parent’s homes to collect signatures to implement PEA. In addition, parents
began to organize and picket outside the school to inform other parents about their efforts in
overhauling the school. Other parents that opposed the petition efforts, however, also picketed
outside the school in support of the principal. Watts Parents Union also faced opposition from

74
district personnel who came to the school and warned parents to be weary of Parent Revolution.
In the end, Watts Parents United and Parent Revolution managed to gather 51% of the necessary
parent signatures and opted to remove the principal. The LAUSD board openly critiqued the
petition, yet they voted in favor of the PEA overhaul. After the petition, and before the end of the
school year, 21 of the 22 teachers filed for inner school transfer bewildering both parents and
Parent Revolution.
In the end, Watts Elementary became the second school to be overhauled by PEA within
LAUSD and the last case within the state since its adoption. The outcome of the petition resulted
in the hiring of a new principal. The unintended outcome of the petition resulted in the district
having to hire 21 new teachers. Even though the school started with anew leader and a whole
new staff, parents however, were not content with the course of events. Parent participation
suffered and some of the leading parents from the Watts Parents United left the chapter. The
school also became part of LAUSD’s Intensive Support and Innovation Center focused on
transformed schools. The leadership and staff are faced with rebuilding the school structure
while simultaneously having to rebuild the school’s parent community.
In sum, both school sites represent the only two PEA cases in LAUSD, which make them
ideal for the scope of this study. More so, both cases provide different parent experiences within
the same school district in implementing the law. In addition, both school communities received
help from the intermediary organization Parent Revolution. I approached Parent Revolution
during my pilot study in Compton and followed their work in these two LAUSD communities.
Parent Revolution is the only intermediary organization that has taken a serious interest in PEA
campaigns and as I will argue in Chapter 4, the stakeholders within the organization were critical

75
to the authorship and eventual implementation of the law. I will discuss their participation further
in the section below.
Table 3.3
Comparison of 2012-2013 PEA School Characteristics

School Site Jefferson Elementary Watts Elementary
Demographics Total 685
Latino 548
African American 126
White 4
API 4
Other 3

Total 427
Latino 349
African American 77
White 0
API 0
Other 1

Academic Performance
Index (2011)
660 687

Intermediary
Organization

Parent Revolution

Parent Revolution

Petition Result

Parents vote for partnership
Charter partnership

Parents remove principal
21 of 22 teachers transfer
District partnership
Note. It is important to note that although there is a larger concentration of an African American
population at Jefferson Elementary, African Americans had a larger presence within the Watts
community. In addition, most of the Latina/o parents that participated in the study where from
Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Data source, CDE (2011).

Sampling. Similar to SES, I used a purposive sample of participants that included parents
that participated in in PEA campaigns along with stakeholders that helped parents. I also
employed a variety of sampling strategies including maximum variation, opportunistic, and when
necessary convenience sampling in order to address the questions driving the study (Creswell,
2007; Jones et al., 2006). Maximum variation consists of gathering data from diverse
perspectives that helped identify important patterns thus getting a more nuanced and multifaceted

76
understanding of the case (Creswell, 2007). For example, I collected interviews from parents that
were elected to be lead petitioners, from parents that gathered petitions, parents that were
dissatisfied with PEA outcomes, Parent Revolution organizers, school parent liaisons, and local
community members. Table 3.4 captures some of this variation. Through ongoing fieldwork and
discovery of the case, I employed opportunistic sampling following new leads and taking
advantage of emerging information (Creswell, 2007). In one instance, after interviewing one of
the parents in her home, she felt comfortable to begin calling other parents from the
neighborhood to come and talk to me. Based on word of mouth and parents’ own social networks
I was able to seize the opportunity and learn from different sources about the case.
The choice of participants, however, was important in defining the appropriate coverage
of the phenomenon studied (Jones et al., 2006). The sample included parents from both Jefferson
and Watts school sites. The sample also included organizers from both Parent Revolution and
LAUSD; both which helped parents mobilize to implement or stop the trigger petitions. I chose
these groups because each played instrumental role in the petition process and were relevant in
how these trigger options continue to play out.
In some cases it is important to have diverse samples in order to get the various
perspectives under the phenomenon. It is important to notice that the majority of the population
in both Jefferson and Watts Elementary were of Latina/o descent. That, however, did not mean
that there was a lack of diversity within the sample. Each of the schools is situated in a different
neighborhood within Los Angeles defined by unique demographics and community dynamics.
This is an important characteristic of urban spaces, in that they can change drastically within the
same city, within a matter of neighborhoods, streets, and minutes. The Latina/o parents I
interviewed were from Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Mexican parents were from the

77
southern states of Michoacan, Puebla, and Oaxaca; all which share socio-cultural characteristics
with their Central American counterparts.
Data Collection. I worked with community organizers from both Parent Revolution and
the Parent Community Students Services Branch (PCSSB) division in LAUSD to learn about
active parents engaged in the reconstitution process. I started with Parent Revolution and
connected with lead parents in each of the petitions. Parent Revolution uses a union model to
organize parents, which facilitated my contact with them. In addition, I volunteered for the
PCSSB division as an act of reciprocity to possibly recruit parents, specifically at Watts
Elementary. I also approached the principals from each of the schools and parent liaisons in
order to inquire about parent participation in the study.
Interviews. Learning from the SES case, I expanded data collection as part of narrative
inquiry as the best way to capture unique perspectives and experiences of parents as decision-
makers. More importantly narrative inquiry provided me with the better way of thinking and
writing about parental experiences bringing to life a policy and its impact on their understanding
of educational reform (Clandinin & Connelly, 2004). In order to capture the complexity of the
law in practice, I interviewed parents from both school sites, Parent Revolution organizers,
parent liaisons, and non-parent community members. I conducted semi-structured interviews
with each of the participants to help abridge the knowledge accessed from other sources, like
media stories, documents, court cases, other interviews, and even my own researcher
assumptions and connect it to the unique perspectives of the interviewee. The interviews took
place in a setting comfortable to the participant such as school or private domicile. The
interviews consisted of questions aimed at capturing parent perspectives in their understanding of
1) the conditions of their local school that would deem it necessary for a PEA petition; 2) their

78
understanding of the law; 3) their interpretations of the choices afforded to them by the law; 4)
their interactions with intermediary organizations; and 5) any challenges in organizing to change
their school. All of the interviews lasted no more than an hour and were translated in Spanish for
non-English speaking participants.
Limitations. It is important to note that there were differences in conducting interviews at
each site. At Jefferson Elementary, parents were eager to talk to me. During interviews, parents
would suggest that I speak to other parents and sometimes would ask me to wait while they
called other parents that participated in the petitioning process to come and tell me their story. At
Watts, parents were distrustful of institutional figures and in many cases were reluctant to talk to
me. One major point of contention was my relationship to the University of Southern California.
Parents at Watts were displeased with the involvement of Parent Revolution, which they
associated to private interests because of the organizations funders. Parents then assumed that
because I was associated with a private institution that I was in many ways associated with
Parent Revolution too. Many of the parents at Jefferson, in contrast, had spoken publicly and had
been on television. They had positive momentum with regards to their PEA campaign and were
eager to continue talking about their school.
In addition, the new school administration at Watts was also reluctant to participate in the
study and wanted to put the trigger petition in the past. Without school support and Parent
Revolution being in an unfavorable position with parents, it became difficult to find parents that
were willing to talk with me. In addition, one of the “gatekeepers” of information I worked with,
was fired from Parent Revolution, which also hindered my connection with parents. I resorted to
visiting the local community and attending religious services to begin building trust with
families. I will speak more on this in the section on validity and trust below. I would have liked

79
to collect more interviews from the Watts community but many of the parents did not want to
sign any of the IRB protocols. I did however talk to parents and collected data in the form of
fieldnotes.
Observation of parent meetings. Pertinent to the issue of collective action by the parents
in order to trigger reform, I observed parent meetings conducted either independently, with the
help of Parent Revolution, or any LAUSD personnel. These meetings consisted of parents
discussing actions to petition or how to go about collecting signatures, discussions between them
and district personnel, or adversarial forms of engagement like protests outside a school. I also
observed district board meetings in order to find out how district administration responded to the
petitions and requests from parents. During the observations, I was a complete observer utilizing
techniques grounded in ethnographic field notes and recording to capture the experience of the
research participants (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2003). In each of these observations, I looked
for some of the specific categories derived from my interview protocols. I used a different
observation protocol from the one used in SES. This protocol helped me capture various
dynamics of parent organizing which included access to information, decision procedures,
beliefs about choice, and challenges of implementing the trigger reform.
Related to observations, I also collected extensive fieldnotes. Consistent with the
ethnographic nature of this study, fieldnotes are as Johnson and Johnson (1990) assert,
“humanistic documents to the extent that they enhance our understanding of behavior and beliefs
by illuminating their meaning within cultural context of related meanings” (p. 161). In this sense,
I used fieldnotes to enhance my understanding of how parents organized to implement PEA. I
also used fieldnotes for pragmatic reasons. For the parents at Watts Elementary, I used fieldnotes
as a one method of building trust. Many of the parents were reluctant to be formally interviewed

80
so I opted in having informal conversations with them and take fieldnotes during our
conversations. This eased their tension in participating and in the end provided valuable insight
to their decision-making.
Limitations. I selected the observations above because they yielded the most data
regarding how parents acted, gathered information, and interpreted what was taking place at their
school. I would have, however, wanted to capture more observations from the first organizing
efforts to capture how parents began to build coalitions for or against PEA and in ways capture
the process of collective sense-making. This has started to take place in other communities
around the West-Adams area in Los Angeles which has been helpful in capturing multiple
vantage points regarding parent sense-making and community organizing. These new organizing
efforts are, however, outside the scope of this study but are worth follow up for future PEA
studies.
Documents. Document gathering follows the same line of thinking as interviews and
observations (Stake, 1995). I analyzed the actual PEA text, including the law’s regulations, to
compare the responses of interviewees and gauge their understanding of the policy. I also
collected any school or district correspondence with parents regarding information about the
trigger interventions and community organizing. I accessed these from the school archives,
district and state websites, or parent advocacy groups. With regards to parents advocate
organizations, I collected any information distributed to parents from either Parent Revolution or
LAUSD. I also analyzed any pertinent document used for parent outreach for example the annual
brochure about parent choice. Finally, I also reviewed current media coverage on each of the
PEA petitions within LAUSD. I compared each of the documents amongst each other and among
the other forms of data. The documents were concurrently analyzed with interviews,

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observations, and fieldnotes to capture the nuances of the entire case. Table 3.4 summarizes the
data collected for the PEA case.
Table 3.4

Data for LAUSD PEA Study

School Sites

Jefferson Elementary Watts Elementary

Semi-structured Interviews
18 Parent Interviews
3 Parent Revolution Organizers
2 LAUSD Organizers
Parent Liaison

Observations (12)
Parent meetings/organizing
ELAC meetings
Conversations with district
administrators
Press conferences
Special events
House meetings

Fieldnotes
Neighborhood walks
Parent conversations

Documents
PEA law & regulations
Media coverage

Semi-structured Interviews
10 Parent Interviews
2 Parent Revolution Organizers
2 LAUSD Organizers
Parent Liaison
Community member/Pastor

Observations (23)
Parent meetings/organizing
After-school picketing lines
Parent conversations
Special events
House meetings

Fieldnotes
Neighborhood walks
Parent conversations

Documents
PEA law & regulations
Media coverage
Note. There is a difference between interviews and observations at each site based on building
trust with parents. I compensated for the difference in interviews at Watts with more
observations. I supplemented fieldnotes as interviews in the cases were parents did not want to
be formally interviewed.

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Data Analysis
Data analysis involves organizing all of the collected data to figure out what has been
learned to make sense of what the researcher has experienced (Glesne, 2011). I analyzed data in
three different stages using what Saldaña (2013) calls cyclical coding. Saldaña divided coding
into two cycles. First cycle coding methods help in organizing data while second cycle coding
generally connect coding to build themes from the data (Saldaña, 2013). For stage one, I focused
on analyzing the text and design of both choice policies relying primarily on social constructions
of policy targets as the analytical lens. During the second stage, I analyzed parent interviews and
observations, relying primarily on sense-making theory to capture the interpretations of parents.
Finally, during the third stage, I compared across each case. I explain each of these stages below.
Stage 1: Coding the Text
I started this study by analyzing the actual wording of the text within each of the choice
policies to capture tacit assumptions about target populations embedded within design. I began
with descriptive coding to begin organizing the data from both cases. Descriptive coding helps
assign labels to data to summarize in a word or short phrase in order to provide an inventory to
categorize the data (Saldaña, 2013). For example, whenever a parent talked about the dynamics
of the neighborhood or I observed a particularly distinguishable feature about the community, I
used the code labeled setting.
During the same process, I also conducted provisional coding which helps the researcher
create a start list of codes based preparatory work before the actual investigation. I started with a
list of codes utilizing the tenets of social constructions of target populations. To begin coding the
data then I used the literature and media sources to begin capturing what components of the
policy socially constructed parents as advantaged, contender, dependent, and deviant target

83
populations. I also conducted jottings (analytic sticky notes) or memos throughout each of my
coding sessions in order to capture broader analytic patters that eventually led me to a secondary
cycle of coding. Memos are reflections that help free your perspective to new directions and
understandings of the data (Glesne, 2011). I wrote memos in order to reflect and (re)develop my
thoughts in order to embed them into the analysis process. For example, I analyzed whether or
not parent actions where consistent with any of the four constructions of target populations. I
continuously memoed to ask whether or not the construction fir across other situations or
whether there was a newer more nuanced perspective regarding the social constructions.
Stage 2: Coding the Narrative
The second stage of analysis focused specifically on how parents made sense of each of
the choice policies. Connected to the problem of how parents socially constructed their roles
while participating in choice, this stage utilizes the tenets of sense-making theory as the main
lens of analysis. Similar to the previous stage, I started with descriptive coding to begin
categorizing the data in feasible analytical chunks.
Different from the previous stage, I began the coding parent interviews, observations, and
fieldnotes using a grounded theory approach (Charmaz, 2006; Glasser & Strauss 1967).
Consistent with sense-making theory, I used a grounded theory approach to inductively code that
data. Picking up on parent interpretations with their experience with choice, I began developing
new codes and categories from parent experiences. My goal was not to test theories but to build
new dimensions to sense-making in where researchers can apply the theory within a community
context and flesh out the salience of race, class, gender, immigrant status among other identities
in sense-making. The title of this dissertation is a result of a grounded approach. I started with a
code called worldview to understand how parents make sense of their options with either SES or

84
PEA and expanded it based on parent interviews to cultural worldview compared to a the rational
worldview espoused by policy.
Similarly to stage 1, I also implemented provisional coding to help categorize inductively
discovered data. For example, I approached SES data with a market-based framework focused on
how parents made individual choices. For the PEA component of the study, I relied more on the
community organizing literature and framed the coding scheme to capture collective decision-
making. This process was iterative, where I would go back and forth between provisional macro-
coding and a grounded theory approach. In that process, I created sub-coding which is a method
of providing additional dimensions, detail, and depth to primary codes (Saldaña, 2013). For
example, when coding PEA I looked for examples of civic engagement; within the broader scope
of the code, I then looked for examples of adversarial engagement compared to symbiotic
relationships between parents and administrators.
Similar to stage 1, I also completed memos during both data collection and analysis. I
completed memos after each interview in order to capture specific topics of importance relative
to the questions driving the study. I also completed memos after each day of coding as they
helped capture analytic thoughts and possible new directions regarding the study of both cases.
More so, these memos helped in code solidifying specific codes or vice versa, helped winnow
non-essential codes. I generated a code tables to differentiate among each case and between
social constructions and sense-making analyses within and across cases. These tables helped
organize, distill, compare, and saturate data in order for it to be siphoned to generate patterns and
eventually themes to explain findings in each of the cases. The memos also served as an internal
holistic way of having a conversation with the data.

85
In the end, I summarized all of my reflective memos into one monthly report. These
reports provided the adequate analytical space to dialogue with my findings and find out where I
am at and where I need to go. These reports also provided the opportunity to go back with the
parent participants and serve as member checks and communicate the progress of the study.
Stage 3: Comparing the Cases
I engaged in secondary cycle coding for most if not all of this stage. Using the memos
from both stage 1 and 2, I began to group the summaries into smaller categories and themes. I
then focused in conducting a cross-case analysis between SES and PEA, to begin to see
similarities and differences in parent experiences within both choice policies. In addition, this is
one of the first studies comparing individual versus collective decision-making. I engaged in a
cross-case comparison to deepen our understanding of how we envision parents within policy
design and more importantly how parents are participating in collective decision-making. Similar
to my memoing in stage 2, I created lists to compare the cases as a strategy to facilitate analysis.
Table 3.5 summarizes how I approached the data analysis in this study.
Qualitative data analysis is a tremendous organizational task. I stored all of the data in my
laptop and in an external hard drive. I transcribed all of the interviews myself, not only because
they were in Spanish, but to capture any cultural dynamics that could be lost in translation. I also
transferred all of my notes into Word files in order to code them. All of the coded data was kept
in a Word file and chunks of the coded data were stored in lists within an Excel spreadsheet. For
my own cognitive purposes, I created maps for each of the codes, within each of the cases and
placed them on my wall similar to a police detective solving a crime. This helped me in many
ways to keep my eye or mind on the ball and focus my train of thought or help me discover new
information in a visual and tangible way.

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Table 3.5

Data Analysis for SES and PEA

Stages of Data Analysis

Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3

Focus
Analysis of the law, policy,
regulations, and media
coverage
First Cycle Coding
Descriptive coding
Provisional coding
(Emphasis on Social
Constructions of target
populations)

Memos and Jottings
Summary of coding
Build secondary analysis

Second Cycle Coding
Review of memos
Larger analytic memos

Focus
Analysis of participant
interviews, observations,
and fieldnotes
First Cycle Coding
Descriptive coding
Grounded Theory/Inductive
Provisional Macro coding
Sub-coding
(Emphasis on Sense-
making theory)

Memos and Jottings
Summary of coding
Build secondary analysis

Second Cycle Coding
Review of memos
Larger analytic memos

Focus
Cross-case comparison
Second Cycle Coding
Cross-case analysis
Review of memos
Larger analytic memos
Thematic construction
Pattern mapping

Note. As mentioned before memoing and jotting was conducted throughout the entire analysis
stage.

Limitations
This is an ethnographic case study which relies on the interpretations and sense-making
of parents whose actions are contingent on the implementation of two distinct choice policies. I
did not examine parent perspectives in order to generalize across schools, neighborhoods, or
communities. Those that participate and engage with this research must also partake in sense-
making (and sense-giving) to determine which of the findings relate, or not, to other urban

87
landscapes and participant experiences. I designed the study to capture and depict the
experiences of parents, guardians, and families engaged in educational choice policies within the
context of Los Angeles. More so, I designed the study to discover ways that parent experiences
can contribute in learning how policy is lived by historically disadvantaged populations from
their point of view.
As I have argued above, I implemented different strategies regarding each case to do my
best at capturing parent perspectives form each of the two choice policies. With regards to SES, I
would have liked collected more parent interviews for the 2013-14 academic school years. I,
however, was limited to connecting to the parents that participated the previous year mainly
because I recruited parents through the vendors. With no new vendors for the 2013-14 school
years, it then became difficult to recruit new parents.
With regards to PEA, I chose to specifically focus on the perspectives of parents. I
included other participants like community organizers and members from an intermediary
organization because they were relevant to how parents accessed information. The goal was not
to study and evaluate the policy directly. For that then I would have tried to include the teachers
and their perspectives on the law too. Nonetheless, teachers may play an important role into how
parents distill information. It was however, difficult to include teachers even if I wanted to since
all of the teachers from both schools were no longer rehired after the PEA intervention. At the
Watts site, the new administration was reluctant in participating, as they wanted to put the
intervention behind them.
At Watts specifically, parents were also reluctant in participating. These parents again,
had opted to organize to remove the principal and when they did, 21 out of the 22 teachers
transferred from the school. Parents that had participated in the intervention either left the school

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and those that did felt tokenized. In many cases, parents I talked to were apprehensive about
signing anything least of all documents to participate in a study. The mere act of signing
anything reminded them of their petition. For these parents I had to work in building trust. Those
that let me speak to them, I did so but in an informal manner, which is why I substituted their
participation through an interview with ethnographic fieldnotes. I address how I specifically built
trust as a measure of validity in the next section.
Trustworthiness and Validity
All knowledge is reflexive of the process, assumptions, location, history, and context of
knowing and the knower (Altheide & Johnson, 1994, p. 488). Validity is then a subjective
dialogue within interpretive communities – these may span to populations beyond academe
(Altheide & Johnson, 1994). Consistent to the scope of the study juxtaposing between social
constructions and lived experience, validity was interpreted a variety of ways (Altheide &
Johnson, 1994). I want to ensure for the reader that the purpose of the evidence presented
through both studies was to shed light onto policy centered on parents as active decision-makers
and to further address matters of equity through policy design. With respect to both studies, I
held the standard of trustworthiness by applying strategies of prolonged engagement and
reciprocity to participating members, various forms of triangulation, and member checks. I speak
to each of these below.
Deep Engagement & Reciprocity
In the field, the researcher makes decisions about what is salient with regards to each
specific case study (Creswell, 2007). To do that for both studies, I worked closely with each of
the participants in the field, to build trust and rapport, helping to provide further access to new
forms of data and strengthening the validity and credibility of information previously gathered.

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Trust was an important factor specifically with the PEA case at Watts Elementary. First, for SES,
during the observations of instructional sessions, I began to build rapport with families by talking
with them and having continued engagement regarding their participation with services. In some
cases, parents felt confortable enough to call me instead of the SES provider to troubleshoot with
internet connection problems. For PEL, however, building rapport and trust was slightly harder.
I started by volunteering for an academic school year with LAUSD and Parent
Revolution in order build relationships with parents. During all of my interviews I dressed
professionally (tie and suit) and treated parents with the same professional decorum as I would a
district superintendent. Parents at Jefferson wanted to be heard and were quite happy to volunteer
and participate in the study. Parents invited me to their home and introduced me to other parents.
As I mentioned, the case at Watts was different. As the findings will show in Chapter 4, parents
had lost trust based on the outcome of their intervention petition. As a result, many were
reluctant to participate in the study. I began to build trust by building a presence within the
community. I attended local churches and spoke to community members. Eventually I began
building relationships with some of the lead parents from the Watts petition process, which
helped me attain valuable insight to the organizing that took place within the community.
Along these lines, I continued to engage with the parents from both cases by providing
reciprocity to participants in various ways. After each of the interviews or conversations with
parents, I gave each my business card and told each that they could access my help in any
educational matter that they needed. And some parents and community organizers did. I helped
parents in some of the following ways: I attended Individual Educational Plan (IEP) meetings to
support parents; I helped parents with high school aged students to fill out college and FAFSA
applications; and I helped the one pastor in her study provide outreach in one of her gang

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intervention programs. Although there were other cases of interactions with parents like sharing
cooking recipes to helping parents enroll in the Covered California program, the important part
of building these relationships helped provide valuable insight to constructing the narrative
regarding this study.
Triangulation
I employed various forms of triangulation to ensure the credibility of my data for both
studies (Denzin, 1970, in Maxwell). First, data source triangulation helped establish that parent
observations, interviews, and fieldnotes carried the same meaning under different circumstances
(Stake, 1995). Second, to further increase confidence of the study’s results, I employed
methodological triangulation. This allowed, in a metaphorical sense, for every data point to
interact in a dialectical sense. Since every parent created their own interpretation of the case,
comparison amongst interviews, observations, and fieldnotes provided a comprehensive
representation of the case as a whole. Third and final, I achieved theoretical validation through
presentations, discussions, and emerging conclusions comparable to existing parent choice
literature (Maxwell, 2004).
Member Checks
Finally, and consistent triangulation techniques, I validated my results by discussing
findings of the study with the respective interviewees and research participants through the
process of member checks (Maxwell, 2004). Member checking is the process where the research
participants examine rough drafts of the proposed study. Actors of any study play a major role
within a case study (Stake, 1995). For PEA specifically, the stakeholders have a diverse
understanding of how organizational efforts have been implemented. I talked to community
organizers from both Parent Revolution and LAUSD, to ensure that my findings resonated with

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their experiences. With parents, I made community and home visits, bought a dozen of fresh Pan
Dulce and had conversations with groups of parents about my findings. These gatherings were
small but rich with culture where I not only shared my findings, but also got a chance to share
general experiences of our Latino/a identities. During these charlas, or talks, I was able to
understand more about the desire of these parents to participate in their children’s educational
process and the challenges they face. For example, in one of these charlas, we began talking
about our immigrant experiences regardless if we were talking about Mexico, El Salvador, or
Guatemala. Each of the mothers talked about their experience as children and what their
schooling process was like and how different it was from what they had to do as parents within
the context of American schooling. When I shared my findings with them, these charlas
eventually evolved into oral histories regarding their participation with SES or more actively
with PEA. With their help, I was able to create this entire narrative. In the following chapter, I
begin by discussing the PEA case.

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Chapter 4: Parent Empowerment Act & Contending through Choice Reform
August marks the start of the school year for LAUSD. For two specific school
communities, the 2013-14 academic school year marks a new start. In one area of Los Angeles,
Doña Vargas is excited to walk her son to Jefferson Elementary. Last year, she worked with a
group of parents in mobilizing to bring about change regarding the leadership of the school using
the new Parent Empowerment Act (PEA). Doña Vargas was excited about working with a new
principal and at the possibility of improving the academic achievement of the school with the
collaboration of other parents. Several freeway exits down the 110, in a community of South Los
Angeles, Ms. Tapia is also getting her son ready for the first day of school at Watts Elementary.
She, however, has mixed emotions about the changes made at the school. She also worked with
other parents to bring about change in leadership using PEA. Similar to Jefferson, the parents at
Watts opted for a new principal, but their actions also resulted in the unintended consequence of
witnessing all but one of the twenty-two teachers transferring from the school, leading to feeling
of stress on the part of parents. Ms. Tapia is unsure of what to expect from the new
administration at Watts Elementary.
This chapter will focus on the experiences of families implementing PEA within two
school communities: Jefferson and Watts Elementary. I rely on the language and experience of
parents to then address the challenges of collective choice policy and argue that under certain
conditions parents may be able to change the governance structure of their school to one that is
more representative of their community’s needs. Based on the implementation of PEA in Los
Angeles, I will also argue that under a different set of conditions and circumstances, parent
actions may result in unintended consequences, such as teachers leaving or growing animosity
between community members, which can in turn bewilder and tokenize their decision-making.

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In the following, I attend to the first three questions driving the study as they were
designed to be descriptive to provide both background and foreground detail of the PEA case as
a whole. I begin with a policy background using the history of the law, which includes a
discussion of stakeholders and early implementations of the law critical to the establishment of
design. Part of that section, I define the working elements of the policy’s design to argue that
parents as a target group, are socially constructed as contenders. From there, I will review the
implementation of PEA within two school communities in LAUSD: Jefferson and Watts
Elementary. As part of that discussion, I describe the problem each community faced, what
strategies were used by parents to collect signatures and implement the law, and as a reflection,
what each community may potentially face moving forward after the petition. I then provide
three lessons learned from the two cases, which I argue are critical to implementing PEA. These
lessons are: 1) intermediary organizations play a key role in helping parents organize to
implement the law; 2) the socio-cultural identity including racial demographics, physical
characteristics, and neighborhood history of community are also critical to implementing PEA;
and 3) parents with a more developed civic capacity serve as assets to the rest of the community
to build coalitions and consensus regarding implementation of the law. I conclude by returning to
the atole con el dedo narrative as a cultural lens to explain the problem that parent choice
policies face and the broader implications for parents and communities working to implement
PEA and potentially, as the Mexican idiom suggests, get a little bit of nothing.
Policy Background
History
The Parent Empowerment Act (PEA) was signed into law in California on January of
2010. As described in Chapter 1, the policy initiative enables parents and legal guardians who

94
are dissatisfied with their children’s school to voice their discontent and, through collective
action, overhaul the structure and operations of their schools. The law relies on similar actions
used in community and parent grass-root organizing, which include but are not limited to,
gathering signatures, petitioning, unionizing, and engaging in adversarial action like protests.
Generally, educational policy is not designed with levers that incorporate grass-root organizing
as an act of implementation (Oakes & Lipton, 2006). Instead the studies focus on individual
decision-making. Particularly in the context of these next generation parent choice policies,
grassroots organizing, as the PEA case demonstrates, is a critical element of implementation. As
defined here, grass-roots organizing is driven by non-traditional stakeholders who may be
dissatisfied with people, institutions, laws, or institutional actions, as in the case with parents and
the intent of PEA.
The first versions. The first version of PEA was authored by California
Assemblywoman Julia Brownley, which only allowed parents to petition in efforts to set up a
meeting with school leaders. The version was criticized by organizations like Parent Revolution.
Ben Austin, the executive director of the organization, criticized Brownley’s version of the bill
as follows:
“I can't imagine how such toothless legislation is supposed to attract competitive federal
Race to the Top dollars to California. I've been advocating school reform for years, and I
can tell you it doesn't come just by giving parents a hearing. (Austin, 2009, Dec. 16)

This critique and echoes of this critique that appeared in media outlets, played a powerful role in
shaping how the public, specifically educational reformers, interpreted the meaning of PEA. The
ensuing dialogue added meaning to the debate regarding the adoption of an empowerment act for
parents. The second version of PEA, introduced by Senator Gloria Romero, which incorporated
some of this critique, was more prescriptive and focused on involving parents while

95
simultaneously attracting federal funding from Race to the Top (RTTT) (Paulson, 2010; Wood,
2010). The new version specifically included the four intervention options which are part of the
RTTT funding initiative and which I will discuss further in the design discussion.
The first petition. Soon after the ratification of the law in 2010, the first attempt to help
parents restructure a school took place at McKinley Elementary in the Compton Unified School
District (Rizga, 2011). The first ‘parent trigger’ petition captured national headlines and in many
ways started a broader debate regarding the power parents had, or should have, in deciding
matters of school reform. The parents from Compton collected the necessary signatures and
opted for a charter conversion. The district, however, rejected their PEA petition claiming that
intermediary groups had preselected the option for parents (Watanabe 2010). The district was
unsatisfied with the petition and wanted to cross-reference all of the signatures with a photo
identification, which led Parent Revolution to help parents file a lawsuit against Compton
Unified (Wilson, 2010). During litigation, Celerity Educational Group, the charter school
operator which parents had selected, ended up opening a school two blocks away from McKinley
Elementary which diffused any restructuring intervention (Dwyer, 2011). Despite the failure to
implement PEA, the challenges resulting from this first petition helped to establish precedent
about the law.
Establishing the rules. After the Compton case, the new Superintendent of Public
Instruction Tom Torlakson recommended that the state board of education review and possibly
amend the regulations that governed PEA with a clean-up bill. Advocates of PEA such as Parent
Revolution, fearing that the law would be scaled back or repealed altogether, drove to
Sacramento with a bus loaded with parents to participate in the review of PEA.
14
The new

14

On February 10, 2011, five dozen parents from Compton and other municipalities within Los Angeles drove in a
school bus to speak to the State Board of Education.

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Superintendent along with the newly appointed state board of education were interested in
reviewing the Compton petition to ameliorate any issues that arose from that case. Mainly, the
board was interested in reviewing the actual petition and how signatures were captured. After
months of dialogue and lobbying efforts from Parent Revolution, the state board of education
established new regulations for future PEA petitions.
The new regulations required that the state provide a website with a sample petition to
avoid conflicts like the one from Compton. Because the Compton parents had received pro-bono
assistance from a local law firm to file a lawsuit against the district, the board of education
established that parents had to disclose any community based group that provided financial or
any other forms of support during a petition campaign. Opponents of the law, like members from
the California Teachers Association, focused on increasing measures of transparency, lobbied to
ensure that districts were also required to cross-reference the parent signatures from those that
they had on record such as an emergency card. Despite the establishment of the law’s
regulations, both proponents and opponents of PEA continued to debate the legitimacy of the law
in terms of school reform. Proponents like Parent Revolution continued to laud the law as a
genuine vehicle for parents to exercise their decision-making power. Opponents of the law, like
the teachers’ union, argued that the law was a backdoor policy for venture capitalists to expand a
pro-charter agenda. Regardless of the ongoing contention between supporters and opponents of
the law, PEA regulations were approved which provided a clear blueprint to the design of the
law and guidelines to future petitions, including the two in LAUSD.
Civic Engagement as a Principle of Design
The objective of the law is to provide parents of students enrolled in low-performing
schools with the option to petition local educational agencies to reform the governance of their

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local school through one of four options
15
. As stated in Chapter 1, all choice options, especially
in Los Angeles (refer back to table 1.1) allow for parents to exit or opt-out of their local school.
PEA, however, provides parents with the choice to opt-in and not just voice but act to improve
their local school. As part of design and to allow parents the necessary to opt-in, PEA is in turn
undergirded by assumptions of civic participation and citizen engagement. The guidelines
established after the Compton case further legitimized principles of civic engagement embedded
within the law. Table 4.1 covers core components of the PEA California law including the theory
of action, setting, eligibility points, the choices offered, the logics undergirding choice, the role
of the government, and the intended outcomes of that choice.
As stated before, the goal of the law is to provide an option that would allow for parents
to have greater control in the governance decisions of their local school. Through democratic
action and a majority vote represented via a collection of signatures, parents could in turn
redesign the governance structure of their school in one of four ways. Similar to other choice
initiatives, PEA provides a choice for parents to improve the academic achievement of their
children. A point of contrast, embedded within design, is that PEA relies on civic engagement
rather than market-based logics. Under the spirit of civic engagement, the law provides a vehicle
where parents can collectively petition the government i.e., their local educational agency, and if
successful, restructure their local school and bring about a change in leadership. The role of the
government, in turn, is of overseeing the implementation of the intervention model selected by
parents.

15
As of 2013, parents have a fifth choice which is to opt for an alternative model where local educational agencies
partner with other educational or charter management organization (CDE, 2014)

98

The reliance on civic participation as a lever of policy design is critical as it differentiates
PEA from all other choice initiatives, which typically operate under some semblance of market-
based ideology. As stated in Chapter 2, choice policies operating under market logic socially
construct parents as a client or a consumer who in turn will select the best schooling option for
their child. The elements of PEA’s design, which rely on logics of civic engagement, however,
require parents to be socially constructed in a different way. Rather than consumers or clients, I
will argue that under the design of PEA, parents, as engaged citizens, can be seen as the new
contenders of education reform.
!
Table 4.1
Elements of Design within PEA
Policy Element Parent Empowerment Law
General theory of action in
the implementation of
policy towards school
improvement
Parent choice around the redesign critical to school wide
improvement

Setting

California; Los Angeles Unified School District

Eligibility Point Focus schools in their fourth year of program improvement
and with an API score below 800

Targets

Type of parent choice

Parents in underperforming schools and nearby community
Four redesign options triggered through a petition
containing signatures from at least 51% of the parent
population in a local school

Logics of choice

Civic principles:
Association for collective action, emphasis on citizen
participation, right to petition government
Role of Government State (CA): Limited to adhering to parent petition requests.
Can accept/reject parent petitions.

Intended outcomes

School wide improvement through increased local
autonomy via parental organizing

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The New Contenders of Education Reform
The term contender has been used before in political science and policy literature to refer
to populations that have power to move political and economic resources yet they are treated
with suspicion rather than respect. As stated in Chapter 2, contender populations have political
power but are socially constructed in a negative way. In terms of policy design and depending on
the target group, authoring policy that favors contenders is regarded as a political risk as these
groups are viewed as undeserving for a variety of reasons. For example, historically
disenfranchised groups like minorities are categorized as contenders because policy initiatives
may provide them with new levels of institutional power. They are, however, casted in a
negative and undeserving light because they are perceived to be asking for too much too fast,
unable to understand the effects of their actions, undermining traditional values, and receiving
unfair advantages as part of undeserved benefits or entitlements. Framing parents in any negative
way however, reinforces deficit assumptions about their role in education reform. I take a
slightly different approach and expand on the contender motif, which is closer aligned to ideas of
civic engagement embedded within the law.
Arnstein (2007) defines citizen participation as the redistribution of power that enables
those that have been excluded for political and economic reasons, to be deliberately included in
the future. It allows those that have been excluded to join in determining how information is
shared, goals are determined, policies are set, and/or programs operated. In the case of PEA, the
policy brings parents to the table in providing the necessary levers to overhaul local schools,
which was an action historically left to school officials. I rely on Arnstein’s idea of citizen
participation to define contender as a stakeholder that has an equal political footing in relation to
other stakeholders, to participate and take action in the struggle for school reform. In the context

100
of education, PEA allows parents to contend and vie for control to restructure the governance of
their local school in relation to the interests and actions of other more powerful stakeholders like
teachers unions or school officials. More so, the civic engagement undergirding the intent of the
law adds further meaning to the contender construction envisioned for parents acting to
implement the law. Based on the wording of the law, I describe four dimensions that help expand
the contender construction below.
Four Dimensions of Contender Construction
Decision-makers. Parents can be thought of as contending stakeholders because PEA
affords them the same decision-making options that were traditionally only granted to school
personnel. Grounded by the theory of action, the goal for PEA is to allow parents greater control
of their local school especially if these are not meeting specific academic expectations. In
addition, their decision-making becomes more nuanced if parents select the restart or charter
option as they have to set up a Request for Proposals from different charter management
organizations and eventually select the best option for the whole community. Finally, through the
decision to implement or the threat of implementation, PEA indirectly grants parents the policy
initiative to collectively bargain with schools and districts that had been reluctant to meet with
them.
Experts. The social construction of parents as experts is embedded within the wording
and intent of the law. PEA assumes that through their choice, parents will take on the role of
school experts. Specifically, the four options provided by PEA have usually been part of a
decision-making process left to educational experts. In contrast, PEA then, operates under the
assumption that parents have the capacity of understanding and addressing the complexity of
implementing this type of choice. For starters, parents are entrusted to read through the technical

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language used to write the law. Parents not only have to understand the text of the law but have
to be ready to respond bureaucratically to districts that may accept or reject any trigger petitions.
For example, parents have to know simple logistics like what is a subject school; what
constitutes an eligible signature; and what are the proper channels for submitting a signed
petition with more than the 51% necessary signatures. Beyond logistics of implementation,
parents have to also be aware of district bureaucratic protocols and how to address them. All
which are explicitly detailed in the law.
Secondly, the wording of the law assumes that parents are aware of school intervention
language. Parents should know the difference between transformation and turnaround models. In
addition, parents should also know that restart models are synonymous with charter schools. The
reading of technical language is minor, however, compared to the larger task of organizing after
a petition to directly engage in the task of redesigning the new governance of their new school.
These two last points lead me to the other two dimensions about parents operating within the
law.
Design Agents. Consistent with socially constructed roles as decision-makers and
experts, parents are granted the policy power to redesign their school. Again, this was an option
that was presumably left to school officials and district administrators. PEA, however, envisions
parents as having the same decision-making power, mainly through the RTTT intervention
options. Strictly based on the wording of the law parents can directly fire the principal, replace
the majority of the staff, or restart the school as a charter. Under the design agent social
construction, parents are thought of as contenders as their participation carries with it more
political weight than involvement in school site organizations or classroom based support.

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Parents do have to decide on the design collectively and for that they need to establish a group of
lead petitioners, which leads me to the final contender dimension envisioned by PEA.
Leaders. PEA’s implementation relies on collective action through organizing techniques
which require some form of leadership. Although rather vague, the law provides guidelines
regarding leadership avenues for parents. Explicitly, the law specifies that parents can select up
to five local members to represent their unified interests. Comparative to administrative
leadership, this group of lead parent petitioners is entrusted to manage all of the organizing to
implement the law which may include the following: manage other parents; organize the
collected signatures to then be submitted to the district; respond to the district regarding any of
the signatures; carry out any negotiations with school and district staff; evaluate any request-for-
proposals; and potentially help in hiring new staff, including school leaders. Parents can be
thought of as contenders here because they traditionally are not expected to have this kind of
administrative workload in relationship to their participation in local schools. PEA as a choice
initiative then, focused on collective rather than individual gains, provides parents with an
avenue to apply their own local knowledge, which may include any type of community
relationships, to participate in school improvement conversations. Table 4.2 summarizes each of
the dimensions described above.
Looking Under the Hood of Policy: A Deeper Look at the Contender Construction
So far, I have provided background context regarding the design and early
implementation of PEA. I began with describing the early history of the law including the
relevant stakeholders that were instrumental in the adoption of the choice initiative along with
the first implementation of PEA in Compton, which resulted in the establishment of clear
guidelines. I then described the elements of civic participation tacitly embedded within PEA’s

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design to argue that parents, as a target group, are socially constructed as contenders of education
reform. I also expanded the contender construction because by design, PEA allows parents to
hold relatively equal power in addressing school site decisions similar to that of educational
experts.
Table 4.2
Four Dimensions of the Social Constructions of Parents as Contender Groups
Dimension of
Contender
Construction
Definition of Dimension Examples within the wording of the law to
support socially constructed dimension
Decision-makers Access to participate in
matters of whole school
improvement
“where at least one-half of the parents or
legal guardians of pupils attending the
school… sign a petition requesting…”

Transformation, Turnaround, Restart, and
Close options

Experts Capacity to understand and
address the complexity of
whole school improvement
Definitions on constant bureaucratic
language (ie: Eligible signature, subject
school, interventions, parent or legal
guardian)

Content of the petition including the
identification of the requested intervention

Design Agents Robust understanding of
decision-making regarding
whole school improvement
“…petitioners [have] the option to solicit
charter proposals from charter
organizations”

A petition that requests that a ‘subject’
school be reopened under a specific
charter school operator, CMO, or EMO
may be circulated for signature with the
proposed charter for the school.

Leaders Ability to organize and
address school improvement
challenges equitably to
school officials
“the petitioners shall submit a separate
document that identifies at least one but no
more than five lead petitioners”

“The role of lead petitioners is to assist
and facilitate communication between
parents who have signed the petition and
the LEA.”

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From the outset, PEA seems to provide parents from low-income and minority
backgrounds a promise to improve neighborhood schools through collective action. As a
contender group, parents can participate in the reform process with the same institutional power
as school leaders and administrators. More so, the expanded contender construction strays away
from a deficit vision of parents and rather focuses on the actions they as a group can work to
implement. There are however, caveats to consider regarding the contender construction.
Although policy aimed at emerging contender groups seems to promise amends for historical
disadvantages experienced by under-resourced communities, a closer look under the hood of
policy design and implementation show that little to no redress is actually achieved. Policy
authored for contender groups tends to be complex or ambiguous, making it difficult to discern
who the actual beneficiaries of the policy are. In the following section, I will expand on the
intent of the law along with the contender construction through the experiences of parents
implementing PEA in Los Angeles.
The Story of Planning and Implementation of PEA in LAUSD
In the following section, I will describe the implementation of PEA in the two school
sites that make up the case: Jefferson and Watts Elementary. For each school community, I will
describe the process of planning leading to the implementation of PEA. I begin by describing
both school-based and organizing problems faced by the parent community and how these
problems were addressed. In part of that description, I will discuss the strategies utilized by
parents to address these problems along with the assistance provided, mainly from Parent
Revolution. In the end, I discuss why each PEA implementation occurred as it did and what the
school might face going forward. I begin with the experiences of families at Jefferson
Elementary.

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Parents at Jefferson Elementary are Ready to Contend
Problem. Parents from Jefferson Elementary voiced concerns about the
underachievement at their school. As I began talking to parents and listening to their narratives,
it became clear that they were upset at the school’s leadership. The following are excerpts from
parents that participated in the PEA campaign at Jefferson Elementary:
No pos que le digo. Mire la escuela ya tenía problemas por un buen rato. Es que cada
rato cambiaban al director. Nos dieron uno bueno por un rato, pero lo cambiaron. (What
can I tell you. Look the school was having problems for some time. That’s because they
changed principals all the time. We had a good one for a bit but they changed him.)

Nomas no nos hacía caso. La directora era muy irrespetuosa. Una vez fui a reclamarle
que porque había quitado el snack. Y nomas me ignoro y hasta se burlo de mí. (She never
listened to us. The principal was rude. I went to complain about removing the snack
program and she ignored me. She even chuckled at me.)

El desempeño de los estudiantes estaba muy bajo. Yo me di cuenta que mi hijo batallaba
en la escuela. Le preguntaba siempre de que había aprendido y él no sabía cómo
contestarme. Es más, para decirle la verdad, ni le gustaba ir a la escuela. (Student
achievement was low. I noticed that my son struggled in school. I always asked him what
he had learned in school today and he could never answer me clearly. To be honest, he
didn’t like going to school.)

Es más, unas cuantas madres ya habían protestado antes de que viniera Parent
Revolución, porque ya estaban hartas de la falta de respeto y de liderazgo en la escuela.
(More so, some mothers had already protested before Parent Revolution came because
they were fed up with the disrespect and the lack of leadership in the school.)
16

In different ways, these excerpts from my conversations with parents from Jefferson
Elementary captured the discontent with their school and the constant change in leadership. The
first excerpt was from a parent unsatisfied with the leadership at the school. The second excerpt
specifically recounts a negative experience with leadership. The third is about a parent unhappy
with what their child is learning. The last excerpt is from Amanda Vargas, one of the leading
mothers who had been active at the school before Parent Revolution organizers showed up. Doña

16
Doña or Don translate into Ms. and Mr. and I use them throughout to differentiate between Spanish speaking
parents and English speaking parents.

106
Vargas was part of a small group of mothers that were very active in their involvement at
Jefferson. This group of mothers was already civically engaged and had staged a protest before
any knowledge of PEA in effort to get attention about their discomfort with the principal.
Si, nosotras ya habíamos protestado antes. Hasta unos de los maestros nos ayudaron y
protestaron con nosotras. Pero nadie del Distrito vino. La directora nomas nos tomo
fotos y castigo a los maestros. Después de ahí ya los maestros no nos quisieron ayudar.
(Yes, we had protested before. We even got the help of some teachers and they joined us
in the protest. But no one from the District came. The principal just took pictures and
admonished the teachers that helped us. After that we got very little help from teachers.)

Strategy. The first effort to organize and bring about awareness and change to the school
leadership was from the parents’ perspectives, fruitless. Undaunted, these mothers continued to
organize. They would drop their children off at school and go to the local Benny H. Potter Park
to talk about their efforts to change the school leadership. The park was split in half by a street
with one side having a playground and the other a large awning with a set of lunch benches,
which were perfect for organizing. It was not soon after that organizers from Parent Revolution
caught wind of what parents at Jefferson were doing:
We were canvassing throughout various neighborhoods in Los Angeles when we began
receiving calls from parents and even some teachers about the challenges at Jefferson.

With the help of Parent Revolution, parents began to organize in order to create a more
concrete strategy to change their school. First, parents created a leadership committee called the
Jefferson Parents Union to begin delegating tasks. The parents already had their established
networks and all overwhelmingly voted for Doña Vargas to lead the group. Organizers from
Parent Revolution began holding meetings with key parents from the community to discuss the
problems about the school. During this time, each parent told his or her story. Each story helped
create a collective voice regarding the next steps in efforts to begin collecting signatures. Lead

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parents started going out to the neighborhood and inviting local parents to the meetings held at
the local park with the benches.
Word spread to other parents within the Jefferson community. With more parents joining
the organization efforts to change the leadership at Jefferson, Parent Revolution and the Jefferson
Parents Union, began the process of collecting signatures and overhaul the school. Starting at the
park, the Jefferson Parents Union with the help of Parent Revolution worked quickly to gather
signatures. In addition to signature gathering, Parent Revolution used their political capital to get
media attention calling popular Spanish speaking news reporters from Univision and Telemundo
to cover Padres tomando acción (parents taking action). Organization efforts to collect
signatures continued as parents and Parent Revolution began making home visits to garner the
majority number of signatures necessary for a PEA overhaul.
In the end, parent leaders gathered signatures from 69% of the parents at the school, but
before they could submit their petition to LAUSD, the principal was removed.
Si nos dimos cuenta que la señora ya no estaba de directora. Pero de todos modos fuimos
a las oficinas del distrito para entregar nuestra petición. Hicimos hasta una conferencia
de prensa y luego nos subimos todas a unos bases. Todas con las camisetas de Parent
Revolution fuimos y le entregamos las firmas al señor Deasy. La semana después, el
señor Deasy vino al parque donde nos organizábamos para hablar con nosotras sobre
nuestras opciones. (Yes, we found out that she was no longer the principal. She wasn’t
there anymore. But we still went ahead and submitted our signatures to the District. We
made a press conference and then boarded some buses to get there. We were all wearing
our Parent Revolution t-shirts when we gave Mr. Deasy the signatures. A week later he
came down to our park where we organized to talk to us about our options.)

As mentioned in the excerpt above and distinctly different from the Compton case,
Superintendent John Deasy was open to working with the parents. He publicly heralded parent
efforts and mentioned that as an organization, LAUSD would have to rebuild the trust with the
Jefferson parents. He began by visiting parents on their own turf at Benny H. Potter Park or how
it was popularly called by parents, el parque de las bancas (the park with the benches).

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Implementation strategy. After the petition was signed, the same group of parent leaders,
which included Doña Vargas, was given the task to evaluate all of the plans submitted from
charter or educational management organizations to take over the school. With the help of Parent
Revolution, lead parents established a Request-for-Proposals process to find out which
organization or agency would take over Jefferson Elementary. Parent Revolution helped set up
voting booths at the school where parents could come and cast a ballot regarding their selection
of school selection.
17
The voting strategy was used to capture the collective decision-making
about the new school governance from a majority of parents that voted for a PEA overhaul.
Parents had originally been inclined towards the charter option but they were not fully convinced
by the proposals under revision. Different than the previous two petitions, the Jefferson Parents
Union opted to use PEA as a barter chip and begin negotiating changes at their school. The
following example provides a parent’s point of view on these events, which is important in
capturing how parents used their own knowledge, wisdom, and authority to establish their
choice:
Parent Revolution nos ayudo a leer los planes que se nos presentaron. Fueron varias
charters que presentaron planes. Pero todos los planes se enfocaban en lo académico y
no nos daban espacio para negociar. Mire, una de las cosas que nosotras queríamos era
que se cuidara el jardín. Es un jardín bien bonito. Ah de ir a verlo. Y nomas no. También
queríamos una nueva posición de coordinador de padres y familia. Pero como le digo,
las charters parecían que no querían negociar con nosotras. Pero el distrito si. Asi que
trabajamos con el distrito para implementar una coordinación entra la escuela charter
que ya estaba ahí y el distrito. (Parent Revolution helped us read all of the proposals
presented to us. There were many charter school proposals. But all of the proposals
focused too much on academics and were unwilling to negotiate with us. Look, one of the
things that we wanted was that the school help maintain a garden. It’s a beautiful garden.
You should go see it. But we just got a no. We also wanted a new position of parent
engagement coordinator to work with families. But like I was telling you, charters
seemed unwilling to negotiate with us. But the district was. So we worked with the
district to implement a partnership between the co-located charter and the district.)

17
Not all of the parents that signed for the overhaul petition were present for the second round of voting regarding
the approval of the submitted proposals. All of the lead parents were in attendance.

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Unsatisfied with charter school proposals, parents began negotiating with district leaders
in efforts of making systemic changes at Jefferson Elementary. First, parents asked for support
for the other co-located pre-school which serviced pre-kindergarten students. Parents then kept
Jefferson as a district school as part of the PSC initiative. Since school leadership was the biggest
problem for parents before, with the petition they got the chance to participate in the hiring
process of the new principal. The school would also only serve K through 4
th
grade; 5
th
graders
would automatically enroll at the co-located charter. Partnership with the district also helped to
keep and maintain a prototype garden project which the parents were quite fond of. The Jefferson
garden spans over an acre and includes an orchard with fifty-five fruit trees, native California
plant life, sixteen vegetable beds, and a shaded area for instructional purposes.
18
The garden
again, was a critical non-negotiable point for parents.
Parents were also aware of the dialogue and in some cases debate, regarding charter and
traditional public schools. One of the leader parents stated it the following way:
Nosotras sabíamos que una gente prefiere las charter porque según son mejores. Yo de
eso no se. También sabemos que hay conflicto con las escuelas publicas. Y de eso ya no
queríamos mas. Por eso escogimos que hubiera una persona que trabajara con las dos
escuelas. (We knew that some people prefer charter schools because they are supposed to
be better. I don’t know about any of that. We also know that there is conflict with the
public schools. We didn’t want any more of that. That’s why we chose that there be a
person to work with both schools.)

Knowing that there is a perceived conflict between charters and public schools, parents decided
to hire a community liaison to mediate any problems and provide a dialogue between Jefferson
and the co-located charter school. In addition, the community liaison was also in charge of

18

The garden is part of the Garden School Foundation who works with Title I schools to implement a curriculum of
experiential standards-based lessons in all academic subjects, as well as cooking and nutrition.

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ensuring collaboration between the schools along with supporting any ongoing parental
engagement.
In the end, Jefferson parents, with the help of Parent Revolution, worked with
Superintendent John Deasy and administrators from the Intensive Support and Intervention
Centers to change the leadership of the school. The new principal also worked to hire new
teachers and asked the old teachers to reapply for their positions which was also part of of the
agreement between parent leaders and the district. For parents, it all represented a new start as
stated by the following statement from one of the parents that had originally organized with
Doña Vargas:
Teniamos nuevos maestros y una nueva directora. Parecia que si nos escucharon esta
ves. (We had new teachers and a new principal. It seems that they heard us this time).

The new start was exciting for many parents as it represented the beginning of a new partnership
between LAUSD and a local charter operator, the maintenance of their community garden, and
with a new leader the potential for whole school improvement.
Reflection. Parents successfully implemented the first PEA petition within LAUSD, with
very little political resistance. Parents leveraged their leadership networks defined by a set of
mothers with diverse civic capacities. In addition, parents used their own experience to make
decisions about the direction in design of the new Jefferson Elementary. Parents organized and
actively engaged in the reconstitution of their local school, which reaffirms the contender
construction of parents as assumed by the design of the law. Different than all other
implementations of the law, PEA worked the way it did at Jefferson, mainly because of
LAUSD’s PSC initiative. As part of the contender construction, parents used the law to
implement a school site intervention similarly to school leaders doing so under PSC. Parents
were also more united in terms of their beliefs or sense-making regarding the perceived problems

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with the school. The case of PEA at Jefferson occurred the way it did because of strong parent
leadership, a united corps of parents, a little opposition regarding their collective organizing.
Moving forward, after the implementation of PEA parents at Jefferson continue to be
active and engaged in school and other educational matters. After the petition, more parents are
actively participating in English Learner Advisory Committee (ELAC) to be continuously
plugged into different site based decision-making. Parents also began to be more active in other
school reform matters through the Los Angeles region. For example, parents at Jefferson
Elementary actively engaged in anti-bullying campaigns across the district and led leadership
workshops at the Parent Empowerment Conference
19
, which brought together parents from all
over the United States to discuss parental engagement and advocacy in school matters. In terms
of the school and in relation to the ever-developing levels of civic participation, parents may play
a critical role regarding the relationship between Jefferson and the co-located charter school.
Parents were front and center in the decision to establish a partnership between district and
charter.
In addition, two different forms of accountability will be crucial to evaluate the perceived
success of the Jefferson intervention. Ongoing parent participation in collaboration with school
leadership will represent public forms of accountability. Academic gains and achievement will
then be measured through testing forms of accountability.
Despite the future challenges for parents, and educators alike, at Jefferson, media and
supporters of the law, like Parent Revolution, framed the PEA petition as a success. Parents had
a problem with the school’s leadership and used the law to make the necessary changes. The
success of PEA in LAUSD is, however, very much connected to relative to the context in which

19
Parent Revolution hosted the Parent Empowerment Conference to bring parents from the seven different states
with PEA laws and talk about their experiences and support in grass-roots organizing using these laws.

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it occurs. As I will describe below, community context matters in the implementation of PEA.
The perceived success of PEA in one community may not be interpreted as such in another as
exemplified by the parents in Watts Elementary.
The Unintended Consequences of PEA for Parents at Watts Elementary
Problem. Parents at Watts Elementary had also been struggling to improve the academic
underachievement of their school. Before the PEA petition, Watts had been in Program
Improvement for fourteen years. Similar to the other PEA school sites, parents were specifically
dissatisfied with the school leadership. The following quotes capture some of the parent
sentiments about the leadership at Watts:
Mala, mala no pero si estaba como estancada. No veíamos progreso de nuestros hijos.
Entonces pos nos estábamos preocupando. Pero eso si, había un ambiente negativo en la
oficina de la directora. Y claro si nos afectaba a nosotras como madres. ([The school]
wasn’t that bad, but it was stagnant. We saw little progress from our children. So we were
getting worried. I will say this, there was a negative vibe from the main office.)

I’ve been fighting Watts for years. The school is bad and has been so for a long time.
Now, I never had no problems with the principal but I knew some people that did. The
way I see it school can’t get anywhere if the principal and the parents don’t see eye to
eye.

The school was struggling academically and the parents were aware of this. Part of the problem
was that most principals never stayed for long periods of time. The most recent principal worked
hard and many teachers and parents liked the enthusiasm from her first year in the leadership
position. From conversations with parents and the school’s liaison, part of her early success
could be attributed to an enthusiastic team of teachers that she brought with her from her
previous school. But parents saw the academic growth after her first years was minimal and felt
frustrated by what they deemed was academic stagnation. In efforts to address the lack of
academic growth, the principal and her team submitted a PSC proposal to the district to
restructure the school; a plan which LAUSD approved. Parents, however, had a different plan

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about how best to improve the school and began organizing to gather the necessary signatures to
implement PEA and remove the principal.
Strategy. Unlike parents at Jefferson, parents at Watts Elementary had not been
organizing or collaborating with each other regarding school conditions. There was however, a
group of the parents were in disagreement with some of the principal’s actions. There was a
small group of parents that wanted their children to graduate or transition out of pre-school with
cap and gowns and the principal rejected their request. Still upset about the denial of their
request, some of these parents then sought out the help of Parent Revolution and invited them to
Watts. The organizers from Parent Revolution tell the story a little differently. They stated that as
opposed to being invited to Watts, they were canvassing the area and talking to parents picking
up their kids when they found out that there was something awry at Watts.
We talked to various parents picking up their kids. Many of them were unhappy with the
way things were at Watts and it all ends with the principal. We’ve just heard horror
stories after horror stories about the way she addresses some of the parents. We knew that
there was something here so we began canvassing and talking to more parents.

During the canvassing, the organizers found some local roadblocks that were absent from the
Jefferson case. To continue canvassing, the organizers needed the permission of local Crips gang
to ensure that they were not up to anything ‘fishy’ or out of the ordinary within the Jordan
Downs community. This account was also narrated by a local newstory, covering the Parent
Revolution and the Watts case. Organizers requested the help of a local pastor to mediate a
conversation between Parent Revolution and the local gang leaders. During that conversation,
after Parent Revolution organizers explained in detail their work they received a stern demand
from one of the Crips, “Just make sure you fix it. I went to that fucking school and I didn’t learn
anything.”

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With local gang blessings, Parent Revolution organizers helped parents establish the
union chapter known as Watts Parents United. Their main goal was to replace the principal.
Parent Revolution organizers and some of the Watts parents began knocking door to door to
gather signatures. Parents participating in signature gathering mentioned that the process was
exciting and galvanizing in terms of feeling like they were acting to make positive change. One
of the lead parents, Jessica Tapia mentioned the following:
I was never particularly involved in school. Only minimally you know. But the school’s
lack of academic growth started getting to some of the parents, including me. It wasn’t
until I came across the organizers from Parent Revolution that I noticed that I could
actually do something about the state of things at Watts. Like I said, I had never been
involved but this feels good. Like I was doing something that mattered.

Some parents, however, did not share Ms. Tapia’s enthusiasm for civic participation in
restructuring her school, mainly because she was organizing to remove the principal. During the
canvassing, many parents supportive of the principal began to protest against the organizing and
Parent Revolution’s involvement. During after school hours, parents wearing blue Parent
Revolution shirts passed out information about the petition while parents opposing them also
organized outside the school with signs stating “No Charter Schools and No Parent Revolution!”
Parents like Ms. Tapia not only faced opposition from other parents supportive of the
current Watts leadership, they also faced opposition from district personnel, mainly from
UTLA
20
members. Under the law, the district is not supposed to use resources such as buildings,
parent information, equipment, or personnel to fight or disrupt the petition process
21
. Based on
media reports, observations, and parent interviews, the district did not directly oppose the
petitioning taking place, but they did, however, question Parent Revolution’s participation.
During interviews, some of the parents mentioned getting fliers that warned them about sharing

20
United Teachers Los Angeles
21
Districts are to remain neural in the petition process. Districts are supposed to only respond to parental organizing
actions as well as inform them which schools are subject to the law.

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their information with outside organizations. One of the organizers mentioned that parents were
told that if Parent Revolution knocked at their door to call the police.
The community conflict regarding the implementation of PEA began to divide the parents
at Watts even further, which adversely affected the signature collection. Despite opposition from
other parents and school and district personnel, parents continued to go door to door around the
neighborhood to gather signatures. In the end, parents managed to get the necessary number of
signatures and the PEA petition at Watts passed by a close majority vote of 52% leading to the
removal of the principal. Parents continued to face opposition, well after the signature process.
Many parents came out and voiced that they did not know what they were signing or in cases that
they had been misled. The following captures this sentiment from a conversation I had with one
of the mothers:
P: Mire, yo firme el papel que me dieron porque me preguntaron si es que yo quería
mejorar la escuela. Semanas después me doy cuenta que van a correr a la directora. Eso
nunca me lo aclararon y yo no quería que despidieran a esa señora. (Look, I signed the
paper because they asked me if I wanted to improve the school. Weeks later I come to
find out that the principal is getting fired. That was never real clear to me and I didn’t
want that lady to be fired.)

R: Y quien vino a presentarles la petición? Fue un organizador de Parent Revolucion?
(Who came to give you the petition? Was it Parent Revolution?)

P: Creo que si? Pero también había madres de la comunidad. Yo las e visto cuando recogen
a sus hijos. (I think so. But there were other mothers from the community. I’ve seen them
around when they pick up their kids.)

Various parents shared the same sentiments, where they expressed some confusion and
bewilderment at what was taking place in their school. Their confusion attributed mainly to the
conflict between stakeholders (e.g. Parent Revolution vs. district personnel) and the information
each disseminated. Just after the principal and her team celebrated a victory regarding their
school intervention model, teachers then found that due to parent petitioning, she would have to

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leave Watts Elementary. The petition dismayed the teachers. In one of the news stories covering
the petition one of the teachers said that the petition “devastated their morale”, and that they “felt
betrayed”
22
. In reaction, LAUSD personnel, union administrators, and district board members
began to publicly ask whether PEA offered parents too much power. After the petition and
before the end of the year, parents were further bewildered and found out, as I will explain
below, that their power were otherwise limited compared to that of educational experts.
Implementation strategy. Watts marked a victory for local parents and the third
intervention victory for Parent Revolution. Parents had collected the necessary number of
signatures to change the leadership at Watts Elementary. As part of the law, the local educational
agency would be in charge of hiring a new principal with the help and input from Watts Parents
United. Unexpected to everyone, however, during the last day to ask for a school transfer, 21 out
of the 22 Watts school site teachers filed for a school site transfer. Parents were blindsided and
felt betrayed:
This is not what we had asked for. We liked our teachers. We feel duped.
Yo no vote por eso. Es desafortunado que los maestros hagan hecho eso. (I did not vote
for that. It is unfortunate that the teachers did that.)

The actions of the teachers trumped any decision parents had made through PEA. Parent
Revolution struggled to explain to parents that in addition to a new principal they were going to
get a whole new teaching staff, but parents were not buying it. During this time other parents
came out and stated that they had been misinformed about the petition that they signed. Feeling
duped and betrayed, many parents simply left the school.
LAUSD personnel were also non-too pleased by the decision. First, the district honored
all of the transfers and was now in charge of finding a new principal and a completely new

22
Phrase captured from the Los Angeles Times (May 24, 2013)

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teaching staff. For the district then, PEA created more work. The new principal was left with the
task of rebuilding the school first by having to hire twenty-one new teachers. Dismayed by the
decision of the teachers, Members from Watts Parents United did not participate in the hiring of
the new principal as parents did at Jefferson. Parents were still struggling to make sense of the
events that had just transpired. In the end, although parents were afforded power through PEA,
teachers, principals, and any other school related staff had more experience in finding and
navigating through policy loopholes thus circumventing the collective decision made by parents.
Reflection. In the end, the principal and all but one of the teachers left Watts by the end
of the year. Watts Elementary would have a whole new staff. Many of the parents who voted for
the overhaul opted to leave the school community because they felt disenfranchised by their
implementation of PEA and with the organizing support provided by Parent Revolution. The loss
of trust seeped well into the following academic school year. Watts’s parent liaison saw a drop in
parent participation because parents had in some ways lost institutional trust in Watts, the
district, and Parent Revolution. Slowly though, and towards the end of the 2013-14 academic
school year, the parent coordinator began to see increases of participation and felt better about
running parent workshops as stated below:
Parents were really upset at what happened. Many blamed Parent Revolution. Some
blamed other parents. All of the feelings of resentment affected parent participation.
During the first semester of the school year, I held a couple of workshops and almost no
one came. New parents to the school came because they didn’t know. But it took a while
for many of the parents to come back.

Some parents along with Parent Revolution critiqued the actions of teachers but
perceived the result as an opportunity for a new school with a new school leader. Some of the
parents, similar to Jefferson, also began to expand their civic participation in educational matters
like Ms. Tapia. As for the parents that opposed the petition saw the events at Watts as the

118
unnecessary removal of a good school leader. The district perceived the events at Watts as more
work since as a stakeholder group, they would be in charge of hiring a new leader and twenty-
one new teachers.
Moving forward, Watts is likely need a multi-pronged approach to address new
challenges as a consequence to the PEA overhaul. First, the district and Parent Revolution have
to engage in reconciliation work at Watts to rebuild trust among parents. Both Parent Revolution
and the district have the possibility to work in training parents in matters of community
involvement in order to be civically engaged. Part of that will include supporting parents in order
to maintain engagement efforts regarding school matters. Finally, the new Watts leadership will
be under the microscope in order to enact quick change regarding academic growth. District
leadership can help by providing information to parents about the specific growth steps that are
being carried out at Watts.
The perceived success of these petitions is an important part of the dialogue as it
influences how parents make sense and use these laws. Towards the end of my ethnographic
work in Jordan Downs, I ran into an older Mexican man, grandfather to a student at Watts
Elementary who had chosen not to participate in the signature process and summarized the
petition in the following way:
De que la escuela estaba mal, mal, eso si no se. No por seguro. La directora estaba
trabajando para mejorar la escuela. Estaba haciendo su lucha como cualquier otra
persona. Y para decirle la verdad, muchos de los padres que empezaron a que
organizarse para mejorar la escuela en mi opinión, se estaban ahogando en un vaso de
agua. Pero yo no soy nadie para juzgar y si querían actuar para mejorar la escuela
adelante. Al fin, según ganaron, y terminaron dándoles atole con el dedo cuando los
maestros se fueron.
(That the school as bad as in bad, that I don’t know. Not for sure. The principal was
working to improve the school. She was making the struggle like any other person. And
to tell you the truth, many of the parents that started to organize to improve the school, in
my opinion, were drowning in a cup of water. But I’m nobody to judge and if they

119
wanted to improve the school then by all means. In the end, even though they supposedly
won, they ended up with Atole with the finger once all the teachers left.)

The perspective of this Latino grandfather provides depth and a window onto to the diverse
levels of civic engagement regarding school reform of this type described in my narrative while
adding meaning to the implementation of PEA. This is his personal story but the problem he
describes is in essence – why it is so important that we take a careful look at what is happening
with these choice policies from parents’ point of view. He chose not to participate mainly
because he did not understand the work that principals and teachers do. He also did not
understand the reasoning that led parents to take action and overhaul the school. He did,
however, understand that in the end, parents did not get what they had organized for. For all of
their troubles, parents ended up with a decision that they did not bargain for. As the Mexican
idiom suggests, parents promised a rich more democratic method of school choice were largely
disappointed. They might have gotten a new principal with a whole new staff, but in the end,
they felt duped. Even though the law promised the implementation of action from their collective
voice, for all their efforts, parents could not shake of the feeling like they got a little bit of
nothing.
Summary of PEA Cases in LAUSD
In this section I provided a deeper explanation of the two PEA cases that took place
within LAUSD. For each case I provided the problem each school faced, the strategy parents
carried out their collective choice, and a reflection about the implementation of PEA in each
school. At Jefferson, parents collectively organized to change the leadership and the structure of
the school as a whole. At Watts parents faced some challenges in collecting the signatures and in
implementing their collective decision. Both Jefferson and Watts provide a set of lessons

120
regarding the implementation of this law. I will elaborate on these as the main findings and
themes of my ethnographic work in the section below.
Lessons from Jefferson and Watts Parents
In the following section, I will describe the three main findings regarding the
implementation of PEA in both Jefferson and Watts. First, I will argue that intermediary
organizations like Parent Revolution play a key role in implementing the law. Second, I will
argue that, although intervention from groups like Parent Revolution is important, it is however,
not enough and that community, school setting, or other actors matter in the implementation of
PEA. Finally, the process of collective organizing necessary to implement PEA requires that
parents have a particular kind of civic capacity; absent that and it will be difficult to mobilize and
build unity around a collective form of choice. I elaborate on each below.
Intermediary Organizations Play a Key Role in Establishing PEA’s Intent
In order for parents to be contenders – policy actors with the power to significantly
transform school- as envisioned by the law, they require the help of intermediary organizations.
Although the law provides strict guidelines regarding the implementation of four intervention
options, it is ambiguous on how parents are to organize, mobilize, and collect signatures to
restructure their school. With little guidance on how to organize, the underlying assumption of
PEA’s design is that parents will have the civic capacity to act collectively with other parents to
overhaul their school. In an effort to provide families with more support, the law allows for
parents to leverage the help of intermediary organizations as stated by the following text from
PEA:
Parents may contact community-based organizations or work with individual school
administrators and parent and community leaders to understand the school intervention
options and provide input about the best options for the school.

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More than just provide guidance regarding information about PEA interventions, the non-profit
intermediary organization Parent Revolution has played a key role in the implementation of the
law. In addition, Parent Revolution has also helped to frame the terms of debate part of policy
design, and with each PEA campaign, the organization has been instrumental in how parents
understand and make sense of the law.
Parent Revolution. In 2008, galvanized by the mission to empower parents, Ben Austin
started the community-based organization known as Parent Revolution. A former state board
member during Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration, Ben Austin previously
worked in various educational projects in Los Angeles including work with the First 5 California
early childhood initiative and the transformation of Locke High School into a Green Dot charter
school. Parent Revolution’s goal is to help transform underperforming schools through advocacy
and grass-roots community organizing led by parents. They do so by training parents in
leadership development, community organizing, unionizing formation, and navigation of school
system protocols.
23
Parent Revolution works to support parents in a variety of ways including 1)
leadership development and training to help parents navigate school systems; 2) training in
organizing techniques which include creating parent union chapters; and 3) training parents in
techniques that improve and/or expand civic engagement. More so, since its founding, Parent
Revolution has established itself as one of the leading actors in support of PEA.
Parent Revolution’s presence during PEA petitions, however, has been contentious and
has adversely influenced how school and district personnel perceive parents in terms of
implementing the law. Critics of the law have called into question the intentions of the organizers
running Parent Revolution focusing on the organization’s funding sources. Critical to the sense-

23
Parent Revolution’s mission statement is as follows: To transform underperforming public schools by
empowering parents to advocate for what is good for children, not adults, through grassroots community organizing
(parentrevolution.org)

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making process for parents and educators alike, Parent Revolution’s presence represents part of a
different discourse regarding venture capitalism and philanthropic interests in the funding of
educational projects like PEA. Although Parent Revolution has publicly voiced that the money
received is not earmarked, nonetheless, the funding from specific educational foundations has
steered the dialogue beyond that of parents organizing to improve schools.
Since its founding in 2009, Parent Revolution has received nearly 15 million dollars from
philanthropic foundations that represent how private interests influence and impact public
institutions. More specifically, part of this discourse centers on a neoliberal debate which extols
the expansion of choice initiatives while diminishing government intervention including the role
of teacher unions, whom happen to be the biggest critics of the law. For example, the Walton
Family Foundation, which contributed 6.3 million dollars to Parent Revolution, states on its
website that their core strategy is “to infuse competitive pressure into America’s K-12 education
system by increasing the quantity and quality of school choices available to parents.”
24
Between
2005 and 2010, the Foundation provided nearly 700 million in funds to voucher programs,
charter schools, and advocacy groups devoted to promoting school choice initiatives.
25
The Gates
(1.6 million), Wasserman (1.5 million), and Broad (1.5 million) Foundations have also donated
millions to other choice initiatives including several charter programs.
In addition to the funding, Parent Revolution has publicly aligned itself with other
educational campaigns that support an anti-union agenda. For example, Parent Revolution
organized a Parent Empowerment Conference, which brought parents from different regions in
Los Angeles, Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Ohio to discuss development of trigger laws.
The conference held at the Los Angeles Trade Technical College, allowed for parents from

24
Retrieved from http://www.waltonfamilyfoundation.org/educationreform
25
This is based on the grant funding as listed in the Walton Family Foundation website.

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different parts of Los Angeles to tell their stories regarding their struggles with their local
schools or the ways they implemented PEA. At the end of the conference, organizers asked
parents to create an agenda and as a stakeholder group support specific educational items
including trigger laws, anti-bullying campaigns, and the Vergara v. California decision
26
. The
Vergara case is a particularly contentious decision which stakeholders like the teachers union has
vociferously opposed. In supporting the Vergara decision, Parent Revolution has also helped
steer parents towards one side of a debate regarding teacher employment and protection policies.
The critique regarding the funding sources and the alignment with a specific reform
agenda that seeks to expand the role of choice or private interests in education reform are
important points to consider with regards not only to parental decision-making, but to framing
the way parents as a group are socially constructed. The involvement of educational foundations
leads to a set of bigger questions regarding the philanthropy of education; I am not ignoring these
but rather choose to focus on the type of information that is closer to parents. Parent Revolution
has through their actions, aligned itself with a particular type of reform crowd and by proxy has
aligned any parent organizing through PEA as such. Nonetheless, Parent Revolution has
positioned itself as a parent empowerment group and has, through PEA campaigns, worked to
expand the narrative of parents as contenders in educational reform. Despite the critique, it is
important to note that without Parent Revolution there would be no PEA cases. Every single
PEA petition that has taken place in California has had the support and involvement of Parent
Revolution
27
.

26
The court decision of the case struck down specific teacher laws including tenure, dismissal statutes, and seniority
protections; all which where protected by the union. The case continues to be a contentious topic among teachers
and other educators alike.
27
Without intermediary organizations like Parent Revolution, parents in other states that have piloted similar laws
have had little success in implementing the law.

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Parent Revolution is currently the only organization involved in helping parents
implement PEA. There are other community organizations in LAUSD that have centered in
parental involvement and engagement, but none have taken to help parents implement PEA. By
design, the law expects parents to have some expertise necessary to implement this collective
form of choice, but in all actuality parents need help in navigating parameters of the law and
leveraging resources necessary to begin organizing and make PEA happen. I explain the
importance of their participation with each school below.
Jefferson. Parents at Jefferson welcomed the assistance of Parent Revolution and found
their help crucial to the mobilization of resources necessary to implement PEA. Again, parents at
Jefferson had organized before and nothing happened as a result from that effort. Some of the
same parents that helped create Jefferson Parents Union had protested in front of the school
asking for the removal from the principal. One of the parents summarized that effort as follows:
Protestamos en frente de la escuela con el apoyo de los maestros. La directora salió,
tomo fotos de nosotras y se burlo. La protesta salió en el periódico pero el distrito no
hizo nada. Nos organizamos para nada. Hasta perdimos el apoyo de los maestros. (We
protested in front of the school with the support of teachers. The principal came out, took
some pictures, and laughed at us. The protest was even covered in the newspaper but the
district did nothing. We organized for nothing. We actually lost the support of teachers).

It was not only until Parent Revolution organizers stepped in to help that parents utilized
their local resources to overhaul their school. Parent Revolution first helped parents in training
them how to get organized to voice their concerns through the parent union model. They then
helped parents understand several of their options moving forward to bring about change at
Jefferson including PEA. One of the leading parents from Jefferson Parents Union stated the
following:
La organizadora de Parent Revolution nos ayudo organizarnos. Ella nos dio consejos de
cómo empezar a compartir la voz. Ya que estábamos mas organizadas, ella nos dio
sugerencias de lo que podíamos hacer para hacer cambios en la escuela. Uno delos cual

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eran, la ley de parent trigger. (The Parent Revolution organizer helped us get organized.
She helped to spread the word. Once we were organized, she gave us various suggestions
about actions we could take, one which was the Parent Trigger).

Once parents voiced that they wanted to move forward with the law, Parent Revolution
organizers helped parents to strategize in amassing resources to collect the necessary signatures.
After the collected signatures were handed over to the district, Parent Revolution further helped
by assisting parents in the evaluation of school proposals.
In part of the ongoing implementation of the law, Parent Revolution helped translate the
proposals in Spanish and further explain to parents what each offered. The organization also
helped facilitate discussions with the district once the parents had opted to keep Jefferson as part
of the district. Parent Revolution was present assisting parents make-sense of the law at every
step of the way from collecting signatures to the implementation of the school’s overhaul.
I asked parents about their opinions regarding Parent Revolution and the critique about
their funding sources. Jefferson parents mentioned that they were more concerned with
improving their school and rather appreciated the help they received from Parent Revolution.
One of the leading parents with a little more knowledge regarding the critique about Parent
Revolution mentioned the following:
Al punto que estábamos, nomas queríamos cambio. Nadie nos ayudo la primera ves que
nos organizamos. Llego la muchacha de Parent Revolution y nos escucho. Ellos nos
ayudaron y si el dinero viene de organizaciones privadas pos que venga mas. Aquí todo
el trabajo lo hicimos nosotras. También nunca nadie nos dijo que debíamos cambiar la
escuela a una chárter. Nadie nos metió nada en la cabeza de que era lo que debíamos de
hacer. Parent Revolution proveyó ayuda y orientación bien recibida. (At the point where
we were, we only needed change. No one helped us the first time we organized. Then the
woman from Parent Revolution came and she took the time to listen to us. They helped
us. If the money comes from private organizations then let more of it come. We did all of
the hard work. Also, no one told us that we should chose the charter option. No one told
us what we should be doing. Parent Revolution offered all too welcome, help and
guidance).

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As this parent stated, Parent Revolution was welcome in the community despite an ongoing
critique about the organization. More so, parents continue to wear the blue shirts provided by the
organization, which serve as a marker of solidarity in organizing efforts to implement PEA or to
signify parent engagement, with a sense of pride. Based on the process of sense-making
however, what takes place in one community may be interpreted differently in another
community or setting as the parents at Watts had different feelings about Parent Revolution.
Watts. Similar to the parents at Jefferson, the parents at Watts also relied on the help of
Parent Revolution to help leverage resources in mobilizing to implement PEA. Unlike Watts
however, parents organizing with the help of Parent Revolution faced stiff opposition from
district personnel and other parents who rejected and resented the organization’s presence in the
community. Parent Revolution’s presence adversely influenced how quickly parents build a
collective corps necessary to implement PEA. During the same time that parents organized to
remove the principal, other parents also organized to protest Parent Revolution’s presence at
Watts. The opposition to Parent Revolution made it more difficult to implement PEA. Despite
opposition, parents still managed to get the necessary signatures to remove the principal. The
unexpected transfer of the twenty-one teachers at Watts however, was a turning point regarding
how parents interpreted Parent Revolution’s participation and the impact of PEA.
After the teachers left, parents were upset at Parent Revolution organizers. Parents were
bewildered by the sequence of events and blamed Parent Revolution. I spoke to a Mexican
grandfather that had his grand-children at Watts and he mentioned the following about the
petition efforts at his school after the teachers transferred:
Nomas vinieron aquí para hacer un alborote y al fin perdimos nosotros como padres. Y
mire, ya no se ve nadie de Parent Revolucion por estas partes. (They just came to make a
mess and in the end we lost like parents. And look, you don’t see anyone from Parent
Revolution in these parts.)

127

Parents were left confused by the teacher’s actions, and attributed their dismay to Parent
Revolution for not adequately preparing them for this type of action as a result from their PEA
petition. Parent Revolution worked to add meaning and provide parents with means to make
sense of the event by telling parents that not only were they going to get a new principal, but they
would also get a new start with a whole new teacher corps. The teachers leaving was, however,
not what parents wanted. Many that participated in the parent led intervention, stopped
participating in other school related affairs or left the community altogether. Parents also
remained confused about the teacher actions and believed that the petition they signed explicitly
led to the teacher transfer. These parents came out and informed district personnel that they had
received mixed information regarding the petition they were signing. Parents receiving the mixed
or faulty information asserts the basic assumption that parents are limited in power and in their
ability to contend.
In sum, participation of intermediary organizations has been critical to the
implementation and presence of the law. In addition, participation from organizations like Parent
Revolution also represent the involvement of private interest groups vis-à-vis educational
foundations, in the funding of public schooling initiatives. Parent Revolution helped parents in
both Jefferson and Watts to gather the necessary number of signatures to implement PEA.
Parents at Jefferson welcomed the help in terms of resources necessary to implement the law. At
Watts, however, not all of the parents welcomed the support and involvement of the
organization. In the end, many of them attributed the teacher transfers to Parent Revolution’s
participation. Parent Revolution’s participation, although key in helping parents not only
implement but to also make sense of the law, is only part of the story. In their efforts to help
parents, intermediary organizations need to take into account both the political and physical

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attributes within each community seeking to implement the law. In other words, community
context matters in the success of parents deciding collectively as envisioned by the law.
Setting is Critical for Parents in Collective Decision-making
The physical and political differences of the setting within each of the two school
communities proved to be critical in the implementation PEA. Part of parental sense-making
involved their cognitive worldview regarding the physical surroundings that defined their
neighborhood. In short, parents made sense of how to organize based on their knowledge of their
community.
Starting with the political setting, LAUSD played a key role in the setting of both PEA
petitions comparatively to the other two districts where PEA petitions have taken place. All of
the Parent Revolution organizers I spoke to echoed the sentiment that because of LAUSD’s rich
history with choice initiatives, implementing PEA was a much easier endeavor than in the other
districts where they have worked with communities to overhaul schools. Specifically, organizers
mentioned that the Public School Choice Initiative (PSC) helped facilitate the reception of the
district in implementing PEA petitions.
The PEA petitions that took place outside of LAUSD were in two districts with limited, if
any, choice initiatives. In contrast, LAUSD has various choice and governance options beyond
the traditional public school model. For instance, with the PSC initiative, LAUSD allowed
various stakeholders to compete in overhauling the districts lowest performing schools (Marsh,
Strunk, Bush-Mecenas, & Huguet, 2014). Both Jefferson and Watts, based on achievement data,
were focus schools meaning that the district wanted to transform them, potentially through PSC
initiative. With the case of Jefferson, the parents acted as an external stakeholder seeking to
overhaul the school. In some ways, the parents acted like many of the educational management

129
organizations that are actively submitting PSC proposals. From conversations I had with district
personnel, LAUSD had been trying to overhaul Jefferson for quite some time and parent actions
facilitated the transformation the district had sought for. The district did not necessarily interpret
parent led transformations as a positive thing. At Watts, the district already had a proposal for
PSC reform from the current school principal and her team. The district was not expecting a
petition from parents to get that same principal fired. The important point out of both petitions is
that different from the other two districts where PEA took pace, community organizers from
Parent Revolution had a policy structure within PSC to knit into PEA efforts. Organized through
PEA, parents acted as an external stakeholder seeking to transform their local school.
In addition, LAUSD is large in terms of geographical space. The space covered is not
monolithic in identity. In terms of urban space, the neighborhoods and communities represented
within the boundaries of the district are socio-culturally diverse. Yet, the identity of a
community, which includes racial, ethnic, and socio-economic demographics, can change quite
drastically in a matter of minutes and from one street to the next. The differences in community,
neighborhood, and school were critical in the way each case played out. I explain further below.
Jefferson. Parents at Jefferson Elementary were facilitated in their organizing because of
a local park. Again this park had benches covered by an awning which were ideal for organizing.
The park is also conveniently two blocks away from the school so school officials could not
interfere in any of the organizing efforts. This park was vital to the organizing and it was a place
where parents felt comfortable and open about their problems with the school. I conducted most
of my interviews in this park where parents informed me that during one of their organizing
meetings, Superintendent Deasy paid them a visit to hear about their concerns with the school.

130
As stated in Chapter 3, the community surrounding Jefferson is relatively safe. The
school is about three blocks northwest of the University of Southern California campus and is
surrounded by large Turn of the Century style homes. The streets surrounding the school are
wide and there is a lot of green space. Based on these physical surroundings, parents felt safe in
walking around and collecting signatures. Parents echoed this sentiment when I asked them
about it:
Si, aquí el vecindario no tiene muchos problemas mas que la escuela. Pero como le dije,
la mayoría del tiempo nos organizábamos en el parque. (Yes, this neighborhood doesn’t
have many problems other than the school. But like I told you earlier, most of the time
we organized starting at the park.)

In addition to the physical neighborhood characteristics and critical to parents sense-
making their decision-making, Jefferson parents had experience with charter organizations
because the school was already in a co-located campus. Parents had prior working knowledge
about charter organizations and school governance in a shared campus. One of the leaders from
their parent union stated the following:
Sabíamos de la escuela charter que aplico porque ya estaba aquí. También estaba una
escuela pre-escolar del otro lado de la escuela. Así que ya teníamos una idea de como
iba a funcionar si escogíamos que su juntaran las tres escuelas. En vez de que hubiera
tres escuelas diferentes, íbamos a crear una escuela mas comunitaria, pero con un líder
que nos escuchara. (We knew about the charter [organization] that applied [in the
proposal process] because they were already here. We also had a pre-school on the other
side of the school [that was also co-located]. We had an idea how it was all going to
function if we elected to join all three. Instead of having three different schools, we
created one community school just with a leader that listened to us.)

Parents opted-in to their school by navigating around the four options provided by the law,
selecting to work with district and charter operators based on their experience with aspects of a
co-located campus. New families coming into the school would start at the pre-school center,
continue onto Jefferson for grades kindergarten thru 4, and end with the local charter for grades 5
thru 8. They also got two leaders instead of one: one for Jefferson which parents participated in

131
hiring, and one for the local charter. The search for a leader at Watts however, was not as smooth
based on a set of different neighborhood conditions.
Watts. Parents also began to mobilize to organize and build consensus around key
problems at Watts. Parents created the union charter and began to spread the word about bringing
about change to the school. In their efforts however, parents were limited in their ability to
organize due to certain physical conditions. Compared to Jefferson, parents at Watts have very
limited green space, which included local city parks. In contrast to the green space, Watts is
nearby the Alameda strip, which is a large street full of automobile commerce including junk
yards, tire shops, and mechanic chops; none of which are conducive to organizing. Again parents
at Jefferson used the park to set up meetings about moving forward with the organizing process
regarding PEA. Parents at Watts did not have this and were relegated in doing the organizing in
people’s homes. This provided some limitations in organizing and capturing signatures as many
parents and community members perceived the local Watts community to be relatively unsafe. I
spoke to one of the local pastors about the events at Watts and she echoed the sentiments
regarding the safety as a barrier for organizing:
I’ve lived in Jordan Downs for over fifty years and as far as I know there has always been
one problem or another with that school. I support what the parents at Watts did and the
organizers too. But you have to realize that it was going to be hard for a collective effort.
Some parents just don’t want to participate. Not that they’re bad people or that they don’t
care. But they’re just afraid of the neighborhood. This is South Los Angeles and as much
as I love my community I also understand the problems here. They don’t want to be out
at dark collecting signatures. Some of them just don’t understand why the school is doing
bad. Some don’t speak English. There are more problems here than just Watts
Elementary.

The pastor’s statement captures a broad picture of the challenges in organizing at Watts. More
so, her point about language leads to a broader problem regarding race, culture, and assumptions
about collective decision-making.

132
Different than Jefferson, the Watts community is going through a racial demographic
shift which has brought about tensions between the African American and Latina/o community.
The following statement from an older African American parent can exemplify the racial tension
within the Watts community:
I don’t understand why the meetings have to be in Spanish. This is an English speaking
society. School meetings should be held in English.

I add this quote not to demonize the subtle racism of a parent, but rather to speak about a
sentiment of angst regarding a very honest feeling of displacement by the African American
community, specifically from an individual that had lived in Jordan Downs for five decades. This
is one example of some of the racial and cultural tensions taking place in this community. In the
last five years, there has been an increase of Latina/o families moving into the Watts
neighborhood which has historically been an African American community. Part of this shift can
be documented from the student population at Watts Elementary alone as described in Table 4.3.
According to the table the number of African American students has been decreasing since the
2008-2009 academic school year while Latina/o population increased. Although it can be argued
that the enrollment of African American students is decreasing overall in Los Angeles, the
community around Watts Elementary has a documented history of racial tension, which includes
the riots of 1965. There is potential for African American parents to interpret these shifts and
community actions differently.

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Table 4.3
Racial and Ethnic History at Watts between African American & Latina/o Populations
African American Student
Population
Latina/o Student Population
Academic Year Total Percent Total Percent
2012-13 51/407 12.5 356/407 87.5
2011-12 58/414 14.0 356/414 86.0
2010-11 77/426 18.1 349/426 81.9
2009-10 70/407 17.2 336/407 82.6
2008-09 83/423 19.6 336/423 79.4
Note. Data was retrieved from lauds.net.
Ignoring matters of race, which includes a deep exploration of neighborhood histories,
can have serious impacts regarding collective organizing. From observations of the organizing
meetings at Watts, African-American parents were visibly absent. In some cases, many of the
African-American parents were absent because of language barriers with Latina/o parents who
were Spanish speakers. Some of the younger African-American parents did attempt to work
around perceived language barriers and worked collectively with Spanish speaking parents with
the help of interpreters. Some of the African American parents I talked to mentioned that they
thought the organizing was an argument between the Latina/o community. Here is what one
African American mentioned:
I saw the protests outside the school. Some had banners against one thing others had the
blue shirts and were talking about the principal. They were all Hispanic so I thought it
was a Hispanic thing you know. I knew that many folk around here were upset with the
principal, from the whole cap and gown thing. And they were mainly Hispanic.

The parent here perceived and made sense of the situation based on race and excluded herself
from participating further. She decided not to sign the petition not because she was in

134
disagreement with the quality of leadership, but because she thought the Latina/o community
was arguing with each other.
28
Not all African-American parents omitted to vote and sign a
petition, but collective choice as assumed by PEA requires abridging lines of difference between
community members around matters of race and culture, which includes language. As stated by
one of the community organizers from Parent Revolution, “organizing and capturing more than
51% of the signatures is hard.” Disregarding racial and cultural dynamics about school
neighborhoods will make it harder.
In sum, community context is important to the collective decision-making envisioned by
design of PEA. In terms of broader community contexts, districts of choice like LAUSD, may
provide the necessary conditions to facilitate the implementation of PEA petitions. At a more
granular level, however, there are key differences within neighborhoods that may facilitate or
stymie collective decision-making necessary to implement PEA. One of these differences, which
I will address in the following section, is the actual parents that live within these communities.
Each individual parent has her or his own history, experience, and knowledge to add to the
collective necessary to execute PEA. In part of that experience or knowledge base, parents and
individuals with a specific skill set aimed at civic engagement can help in facilitating the
implementation of PEA.
Parents with a Developed Civic Capacity Facilitate the Implementation of PEA
Parents with a developed sense of civic engagement are necessary to facilitate PEA
interventions. To implement PEA, parents have to build consensus and deliberate collectively in
how to proceed in terms of collecting signatures, selecting one of the four options, and if
necessary, responding to district personnel queries about their proposed intervention. Parents

28
The ousted principal identifies as Latina/Hispanic

135
with a developed sense of civic engagement help to build consensus; absent this group of
individuals increases the difficulty of organizing to implement PEA.
Jefferson. Parents at Jefferson were already engaged in civic action prior to
implementation of the law as they had already been organizing to address the conditions at their
school. The law served to supplement and legitimize their ongoing civic action.
This helped in selecting lead petitioners as envisioned by PEA. Based on informal networks
composed of community and neighborhood relationships, parents already relied on the leadership
of individuals like the Vargas sisters whenever they encountered a school-based problem. Here is
what one of the parents had to say about them:
Esas dos señoras siempre nos ayudaban. Cuando la directora quito el snack, ahí estaba
Amanda discutiendo con ella para que les dieran de comer a los niños. Eso que sus hijos
traían su propio lonche. (Those two women always helped us. When the principal took
away the snack program, Amanda was talking to her to the students would get fed again.
This was so, even though her children brought their own lunch.)

When I talked to one of the Vargas sisters about her leadership role in the community, she said
the following:
Nomas queríamos que nos escuchara el distrito. No queríamos lo que le paso a mi hija
de llegar a la middle school sin saber leer y escribir. (We just wanted to be heard. I
didn’t want what happened to my daughter, to get to middle school without knowing how
to read and write, to happen to anyone else.)

The Vargas sisters had become engaged in school matters for personal reasons and were vocal
about school site decisions. The eldest Vargas sister started engaging in school matters after she
was informed that her daughter could not read by her middle school teacher. This propelled her
to begin getting involved at Jefferson:
No era posible que mi hija no supiera leer. Estuvo en la escuela Jefferson desde el kínder
y nunca nadie me dijo que mi hija no sabia leer. ¡Hasta que llego al sexto grado en otra
escuela me dicen que mi hija no sabe leer, haga me el favor! Algo estaba mal en
Jefferson y no iba a dejar que le pasara lo mismo a mi hijo. (It was impossible to know
that my daughter couldn’t read. She was at Jefferson since kindergarten and no one ever

136
told me that she couldn’t read. It was until she was in sixth grade and in another school
that they tell me she can’t read. Do me the favor! Something was off at Jefferson and I
was not going to let the same happen to my son.)

After she found out of her daughter’s challenges, she became active in the Jefferson community.
She was one of the parents that helped organize the first protest against the principal. Even
though this first attempt failed to get any notice from district administrators, they nonetheless
continued to work within the community and eventually with Parent Revolution to implement
PEA. Parents at Jefferson were not familiar with the law but thanks to parents like the Vargas
sisters who where civically engaged, the parent community mobilized quickly to learn how to
implement it and eventually remove their principal.
In terms of civic capacity necessary to associate, mobilize, and petition as envisioned
within the design of the law, the Vargas sisters, who spearheaded the leadership committee at
Jefferson, were more seasoned than other parents in their civic approach to school improvement.
They had organized to help Guatemalan women in Mexico with regards to fair wages before
eventually making it to the United States. They used what they new about organizing with
regards to their first attempt to improve Jefferson by removing the principal. Although other
parents involved in the petition process were not as seasoned in organizing, they were however
galvanized by the Vargas sisters’ drive to reform the school. After the petition, parents became
more active in their participation with school matters.
Leadership from parents like the Vargas sisters not only helped in facilitating the
collection of signatures, but their presence in the community was influential in how other parents
made-sense of their decision to organize and implement PEA. With the help of influential parent
leaders, the Jefferson parent community was able to continue participating in the intervention
after the principal was removed to then be adamant about what was negotiable and what was not.

137
For example, parents were dismayed that charter operators were unwilling to negotiate regarding
up-keep of the community garden as stated below:
Las escuelas charter no ofrecían negociaciones. Una de las partes importantes para
nosotras era el mantenimiento de un jardín. Pero las escuelas charter no sabían qué
hacer con eso porque se enfocaban en lo académico. Y muchas de las opciones nomas no
querían negociar. Así que elegimos trabajar con el distrito porque ellos si querían
trabajar con nuestros intereses. (Charter schools did not negotiate. One of the things that
interested us was the maintenance of the garden. But charter schools did not know what
to do with that as they focused on the academics. Many of the options did not want to
negotiate. So we elected to work with the district because they wanted to work to ensure
our interests.)

Parents were then able to not only use their decision-making capacity to select an option based
on PEA, but actually used their own interests to negotiate with the district to design a hybrid co-
located school; the first charter/district partnership school in LAUSD. In terms of civic capacity,
these parents had the wherewithal to act collectively in order to petition their school and bring
about change as envisioned by the law.
Parents that had limited civic capacities learned from the Vargas sisters and from Parent
Revolution. The perceived success of the Jefferson petition has had a trickle effect with regards
to the development of civic capacities to the parent community. Parent engagement continues
beyond Jefferson Elementary as many of them have joined with other parents in other
communities in Los Angeles to help engage their school administrations. As stated before,
parents with a civic knowledge serve as assets to the community as a whole and are critical to the
success of collective forms of choice. Without these leader parents, it becomes much harder to
organize and contend as was the case at Watts Elementary.
Watts. Unlike Jefferson, parents at Watts did not have a clearly defined collective ready
to contend for school improvement. There was a group of parents that had been angry about the
principal’s decisions regarding an end of year celebration. These parents were dismayed but they

138
were not organized. Parents at Jefferson, were dismayed, however, the critical difference was
that they were also organized and had an established leadership network. In contrast, the
established leadership at Watts had limited experience with organizing or collective action.
Many of the parents I talked to mentioned that the organizing was new to them. They did not
know that they could be this involved in school reform. These limitations in civic engagement
stem from cultural sense-making, meaning that their individual interpretations are embedded to
their respective cultural background. Many of the parents, mainly from Latino backgrounds,
mentioned that culturally, for them school was between teachers and students. Because of this
perception or cognitive sense-making, they had historically low levels of participation within
school. They trusted the schools to do the job right. Even some of the lead parents stated the
following about her participation:
Yo nunca pensé que iba a cambiar una escuela. Antes yo nomas dejaba y recogía a mi
hija de la escuela. Como mi hija nunca se portaba mal, es muy callada, los maestros
nunca me llamaban. (I never thought I would change a school. Before, I only dropped
and picked up my daughter from school. Since my daughter never misbehaves, teachers
never called me.)

Watts did not have parents like the Vargas sisters who had been organizing prior to any
knowledge of the law. It was through the help of Parent Revolution that parents began to learn
components of grass-roots organizing as well as the parameters of what they were trying to do
with the law. Without the local leaders who are nodes to all of the social networks within the
neighborhood, organizing for any collective decision-making is a difficult process. Specially
when there are perceived limits in defining the civic capacities of individual parents.
Mutual respect. Civic engagement is not just limited to parents and their actions. One of
the important conditions for collective decision-making for contender groups, is that there is a
sense of symbiosis between district and parents. A symbiotic relationship is one that assumes a

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mutual respect between individuals in order to build or maintain community. Based on my
observations, interviews, and fieldnotes, parents at Jefferson, after they implemented the law,
perceived there to be a symbiotic relationship with district personnel. The dialogue from district
leadership, reflected a symbiotic approach to parents organizing as stated by the following
remarks from two district leaders:
“Its my absolute desire and my administration’s to work side-by-side with you all at
Jefferson Elementary,” (Superintendent John Deasy)

“We wish to work as a team. We cannot [improve the school] as adversaries.” (UTLA
President, Warren Fletcher)

The welcoming language allowed parents to feel right about their decision process to gather
signatures to improve their school. The same, however, was not the case at Watts Elementary.
Parents faced opposition from other parents, teachers, the principal, and the district. Although
Superintendent Deasy continued to be an open supporter of the law, other district personnel were
not. Different from Jefferson, district leadership critiqued the organizing work of parents at
Watts with some of the following statements:
“This [trigger] process is out of control and needs to be fixed.” (Board Member Bennett
Kayser)

“If [Parent Revolution] knocks on your door, call the police!” (UTLA Activist Ingrid
Villeda)

“It could take more than three years to rebuild this school to get it back on track.”
(District instructional director, Kathleen McGrath)

The difference in symbiotic relationship between parents and district from these two cases
represents a critical condition not only in the success of PEA but in the aftermath of the petition
too. As stated above, many of the parents at Jefferson continue to be engaged in several other
initiatives with regards to education reform while parents at Watts are not. During conferences
hosted by Parent Revolution, parents from Jefferson show up with bells and whistles enthusiastic

140
about their participation in school reform events. The section reserved for Watts, however tends
to be empty. The parent liaison from Watts echoed this sentiment when it comes to parent
participation in community workshops. She quoted, “parents just don’t show up. They are slowly
coming back, but for the most part, this petition may have left a bad taste for them.”
In sum, differences of civic capacities among parents is a critical condition that can
determine the success of collective organizing specifically since the law is limited in design
regarding civic language. The law assumes that parents will collectively and democratically
restructure their school as exemplified by Jefferson. The law however, does not specifically tell
parents how to organize, petition, or build coalitions, all which are critical ingredients of grass-
roots organizing. PEA does specify who qualifies and what parents can do in terms of submitting
the signatures. There are no clear instructions, however, in how parents are to communicate to
gather these signatures and how to respond collectively if the district denies their petition
request. As stated earlier, intermediary organizations assist parents to develop a more nuanced
sense of civic engagement necessary to implement PEA. Without a core group of parents with
these skill sets already in place, it becomes much harder to build the consensus necessary to
make collective decisions. More importantly, without an understanding of what it means to be
civically engaged which is necessary to implement PEA, the law becomes a tokenizing and
placating option for parents. Parent empowerment becomes symbolic based only on the name of
the law. The law will only give parents what the Mexican idiom referenced in the title of this
study suggests, atole con el dedo or otherwise a little bit of nothing.
Chapter Summary: PEA as an Atole Initiative
I started this chapter describing the experience of two mothers getting ready to take their
children to their first day of school. Doña Vargas was excited to start the new year with a new

141
administration and an new outlook at the possibility of what Jefferson Elementary could be in
terms of its connection to the community. In addition, parents at Jefferson had been successful in
collectively deciding the governance structure at their school. On the other hand, Ms. Tapia was
apprehensive about the events that transpired at Watts. Although parents got the principal
removed, they never opted for the teachers to leave too. Both district officials and Parent
Revolution framed the outcome with silver lining, stating that patents would have a new school
with “many young teachers from schools like UCLA” ready to work in schools like Watts, yet
the fact remains that parents did not select this option. To the dismay of many parents in the
Watts community, the atole con el dedo feeling may be hard to shake off; especially if the
decision impacts the place of schooling of their children.
I began this chapter by providing a history of PEA along with a discussion of design to
argue that parents are socially constructed mainly as a contender group. I then provided a deeper
description of how parents came to interpret and enact the two PEA cases as contenders in
LAUSD, which included describing the problem in each school; the strategy parents took in
gathering signatures to implement the law; and a reflection to discuss what the future holds for
each school community. I then provided three main lessons learned from Jefferson and Watts to
argue that collective decision-making is rather more complicated than other more traditional
choice policies. To implement PEA parents need: 1) the help of intermediary organizations like
Parent Revolution to mobilize resources, train parents, and make-sense of district actions. 2) The
help of these organizations, however, is not enough. Community context matters in the success
of implementing PEA, as what works in one neighborhood, may not work in the context of
another. 3) Finally, a specific type of civic capacity is necessary for parents to implement PEA,
which include organizing, mobilizing resources, building relationships, and establishing

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consensus with other parents. Ultimately, organizing to implement the collective decision
envisioned through PEA is a difficult endeavor with multiple parts that need to come together in
order for this choice model to work. Without these components parents will be recipients of a
policy that offers them atole con el dedo.
As I described in Chapter 1, the popular Mexican phrase atole con el dedo (atole served
with the finger) is used to signify a pacifying or tokenizing gift or redistributive form of action.
The phrase was uttered quite often throughout my work in both of these communities and my
conversations with parents. Parents made sense of what was taking place in their community and
the opportunities offered to them as such.
At Jefferson, which was portrayed by the media and Parent Revolution as a success,
parents originally had organized and nothing came of it. Parents used their own knowledge,
wisdom, and rectitude as envisioned by the civic engagement components embedded within the
law, which are analogous to the construction of parents as contenders yet they were ignored.
They eventually worked with Parent Revolution to then continue what they were already doing
and implement the law. Their success was only relative to the participation of an intermediary
organization. Parents are then not necessarily empowered as stated by the law, but rather they are
dependent on the help and resources of organizations like Parent Revolution. Parents made some
critical decisions about the new direction in governance at Jefferson but based on this study, it is
difficult to divorce the role of Parent Revolution had in overhauling Jefferson Elementary.
Although the organization lauded the transformation as an example of “true parental power”, the
unfortunate reality is that their power is limited in relation to the district or Parent Revolution in
general. That is not to say that parents did not gain anything from the experience of petitioning to
transform their school, which included a better grasp at engaging their public institutions.

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Nonetheless, without the help of intermediary organizations, PEA becomes as Ben Austin
suggested, a ‘toothless’ policy providing parents with atole con el dedo.
As for Watts, the atole narrative may have greater deleterious consequences to the way
parents participate at their local school along with building trust, which is necessary to
collaborative partnerships with school officials. Although the policy represents collective
decision-making from parents, they ultimately had little power to counteract the collective choice
from teachers. Parents felt tokenized by the outcome so much so that it is hard to measure the
depth regarding their future in civic involvement and school participation. Many parents may not
want to participate in this capacity of choice making in the future. Similar to Jefferson, this set of
parents could not have gotten a PEA intervention off the ground without the help of Parent
Revolution. In addition, there were community characteristics that influenced parental sense-
making that could have prevented them from participating fully. Parents at Watts were also
missing parents with a developed sense of civic engagement necessary to begin organizing
towards the implementation of the law. Parents at Watts not only felt it, but voiced it loud and
clear, in that their participation in implementing PEA resulted in them getting an unsavory dose
of atole con el dedo.
I relied on the atole idiom as a device to foreground how parents made sense of their
participation in the collective choice afforded to them by PEA. Ultimately, in terms of parent
empowerment, the law itself is rather limited by certain conditions regarding what parents can do
to reform their local schools. Although it was successfully implemented in two schools in Los
Angeles, it has done so only when the three conditions I argued above have been met in one-way
or another. There are a lot of moving parts necessary for PEA to come to fruition utilizing grass-
roots and community organizing techniques. Although the assumption is that parents should be

144
able to organize on their own as has been the case in other communities as stated in Chapter 2.
The law actually sets a limit of schools that could be “triggered” by the law to 75 per year. Since
the adoption of the law however, there have been three schools that have been overhauled in
total, including Jefferson and Watts. Compared to the traditional forms of choice which provide
options for parents to improve the individual success of their children, PEA in contrast asks for
more which can ultimately result in parents receiving as the idiom suggests, a little bit of
nothing. That is not to say that parents selecting individual choices are exempt from receiving
atole con el dedo too. I will address how the atole narrative finds its way in the experiences of
families selecting after school programs through SES in the following chapter.

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Chapter 5: Consumer Parents and the SES Market
Doña Sara Gonzalez and Don Roberto Jimenez are two of the thousands of parents in
LAUSD that qualify
29
for the federal SES after-school tutoring programs. Not long after the
beginning of the academic school year, the Beyond the Bell Branch of LAUSD will mail parents
like Doña Gonzalez and Don Jimenez a brochure and an application in order to participate in the
program. Doña Gonzalez selected a provider that would come to her home and give her daughter
one-to one instruction in math. Don Jimenez opted for instruction via an online format where his
son would receive instruction through a laptop. At the beginning of services, both were excited at
the opportunity for different reasons: this was the fourth time Doña Gonzalez had participated
and knew how much her daughter liked the services and after various applications, this time
marks the first time Don Jimenez and his family participate in SES. At the end of the program
however, each of them would have a different take regarding their participation in SES.
This chapter will focus on the experiences of individual families participating in the
selection of after-school tutoring programs provided through the implementation of SES. I rely
on the language and experience of parents to address the challenges of individual decision-
making through SES. Based on the implementation of SES in Los Angeles, I will argue that
parents with previous experience and knowledge with individual decision-making made the best
out of SES for their children. In contrast, parents novice to the policy struggled to make sense of
specific components of SES, mainly out of digital formats of instruction.
The following chapter follows the same structure similar to Chapter 4 and I attend to the
first three questions driving the study. First, I begin again with a discussion regarding the policy-
making context that led to the framing of design and implementation of SES. I specifically

29
Eligible parents are those that have their children in Title I schools, which have been in program improvement for
two or more years.

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discuss NCLB’s drive towards parent involvement through market reform and what that looked
like in LAUSD. Second, I will argue that based on the elements of policy design as envisioned
by policy experts that framed SES, parents are socially constructed as consumers, which I will
further argue is a dependent target population. From there, I again compare the contender
construction embedded within policy design to the experiences and expertise of parents to argue
three points: 1) districts and third-party vendors play an important role in parental sense-making
about SES. 2) Individual histories of parents matter in decision-making. 3) Finally, the setting of
instruction is important as it represents an extension of parent engagement beyond school
settings. Yet in some cases, the setting can also represent a limit to SES instruction. I conclude
with the notion of the atole narrative to further explain how parents felt like they got an inferior
product than what was originally promised along with a vignette of how they learned from each
other to be critical about future choices.
Policy Background
SES is part of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) mandate which requires districts to
offer extra academic assistance to students in Title I schools; specifically for those schools that
have failed to meet state academic benchmarks for two consecutive years. Different from PEA,
under SES, parents make individual choices selecting from a state approved list of service
providers. These providers or organizations are able to offer after-school study and tutoring
programs to eligible students. The structure and characteristics of these organizations vary
widely along multiple elements such as hourly rates, tutor qualifications, tutoring session length,
instructional strategies, and curricula. The law requires that these organizations align the content
and educational practices of SES to the state’s academic content standards, as well as applicable
federal, state, and local health, safety, and civil rights laws, and should be based on high-quality
research with evidence of their effectiveness in increasing student academic achievement. In

147
accordance with the law, districts and states are responsible in ensuring the quality of these
programs along with creating the conditions where there is an adequate and responsive supply of
services for parents. I describe this process in more detail below as part of the federal
government’s effort to explicitly build capacity around the issue of parent involvement.
History of SES
Under NCLB, SES was part of a partisan compromise between Republican policymakers
that supported vouchers and Democrats that opposed such policies. SES is a mini-voucher
program, which socially constructs the actions of parents to that of consumers. Relying on
market principles, SES increased the role of parents in improving the achievement of their
children by selecting services from third-party educational organizations. Through their choice,
parents, specifically those from low performing schools, would have the power to redistribute
public funding from schools that have failed to meet annual accountability benchmarks and shift
it to private vendors. Districts and states were afforded limited authority to regulate these third
party vendors along with creating the adequate market conditions for parents to select services
for their children.
In order for parents to effectively exercise their buying power and shop around for the
best service provider, SES policy mandates that “each State Education Agency identify
organizations that qualify to provide these services” (USDE, 2009). In accordance with this,
“districts must make a list available to parents of state-approved supplemental educational
services providers in the area and must let parents choose the provider that will best meet the
educational needs of the child” (USDE, 2009). This list includes providers from the nonprofit
and for-profit sectors, faith-based organizations, and/or local school districts. Districts must also
disseminate this information in an understandable and uniform format in a language parents can

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understand. Communicating with parents is also one of NCLB’s explicit drive to increase parent
involvement embedded within the spirit of SES.
In the authorization of NCLB, policy-makers incorporated part of the suggestions from
research centered on parent participation, as discussed in Chapter 2, and explicitly defined parent
involvement. NCLB specifically states that school agencies work to build partnerships with
parents via:
…regular, two-way, and meaningful communication involving student academic learning
and other activities. (USDE, 2014)

NCLB specifically provided the incentive for districts to begin designing policy aimed at
involving parents. SES, however, may be perceived as a sanction for local school districts, which
may then serve as a disincentive to engage parents or affect the way parents receive information
about services.
Even though state and local educational agencies may help establish the conditions for
families and provide consumer protection vis-à-vis parental decision-making, in policy terms,
they see SES as a sanction due to the accountability measures established by NCLB, which
penalize schools for not meeting annual achievement benchmarks. Part of these sanctions
included informing parents that their child attended an underachieving school and that they had
choices with one of them being SES. Policy regulations required that school districts spend an
amount equal to at least twenty percent of their Title I allocation to fund choice-related
transportation services and/or SES. For large urban school districts like LAUSD, twenty percent
of the district’s Title I funds represents millions of dollars
30
. The resulting expansion of public
responsibilities and the loss of public funding will impact districts differently specifically in the

30
For the 2012-2013 academic school year, LAUSD received $655,060,206 from federal Title I funds which at least
$81,142,127 allocated to SES programs (CDE, 2014).

149
way the SES market is established and how families receive information about vendors. I now
turn my attention to LAUSD and their SES market.
SES in LAUSD. As the second largest school district in the nation, LAUSD has been
providing parents with an SES market for the last decade. Because LAUSD is so large both in
geographical space and student population, it has its own division, better known as Beyond the
Bell, to oversee all after-school and out-of-school time activities. For the majority of districts
SES oversight is traditionally delegated to the Title I office. In LAUSD, the Beyond the Bell
Branch has been in charge of SES since its first implementation, due to the sheer size of the
students enrolled and a rich history of after-school programs. In Chapter 1, table 1.2 summarizes
the task for the Beyond the Bell Branch, SES division for the last five years. For the 2012-13
academic school years the district provided SES services for 30,965 students. Table 5.1
specifically breaks down the characteristics of the students that participated in the program. This
number, however, only accounts the number of students that attended SES, which is a small
portion of the nearly 400,000 students that are eligible for the services. Administrators at the
Beyond the Bell Branch are in charge of notifying all of these families.
Table 5.1
Characteristics of students attending SES, 2012-13
Total number of students
attended
30,965

Student Characteristics

Percent from total population
Female 45.5
Latina/o 89.7
African American 7.0
White 1.6
AAPI 0.8
Other Race 0.7
Free Lunch 95.6
English Learner 45.1
Special Needs 23.8
Note. Data provided by LAUSD Beyond the Bell Branch

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Beyond the Bell administrators begin by meeting with all of the intermediary
organizations to discuss their specific responsibilities regarding matters like marketing to
families, enrollment to the programs, and submitting attendance. Before the 2012-13 academic
year, all enrollment for SES programs by families were done through mail. The district would
send a flyer with all of the district-approved vendors along with all matriculation information to
families, which they were to send back with their SES selections. Staff was to sift through all of
these applications and provide information back to vendors so they could reach out to families
and start services by November or December of the academic year. To alleviate all of the paper
work, LAUSD implemented online enrollment of SES for the 2012-13 academic school year.
Families still had the option of sending in a paper format of their intent to matriculate in SES but
they also had the option to do it through an online format
31
. As stated by the opening vignette,
families get a brochure with a list of over thirty vendors which they must sift through in order to
select the most appropriate and adequate instructional service for their child.
In terms of options, families are offered SES instruction in either English or Mathematics
and via traditional or digital instruction. For the 2012-13 academic years, the digital providers
controlled two thirds of the SES market in LAUSD. This trend is popular in other large school
districts and in many ways it benefits the student population in LAUSD. Digital providers offer
students a small laptop to complete instruction along with internet connectivity if the family does
not have any. This option is convenient for families in that students can complete instruction in
their home and in the end they can keep the laptop. Beyond the digital providers, families were
also able to select one-to-one tutors that went to the student’s address or small learning centers
with small student to teacher ratios. Vendors offer families from twenty to thirty-six hours of

31
One important difference between formats was that the online option would randomize the listing of the providers.
Over the years, vendors have strategically changed their names to start with the letters ABC or with numbers so to
be first on lists for parents which based on previous decision-making provided a market advantage.

151
services, depending on their hourly rates, which are relative to the per-pupil allocation
established by the district, which varies, based on Title I funding.
Families in the district get more than just information on SES from the district. The
Beyond the Bell Branch is also in charge of other out-of-school time programs including, After
School Educational Safety, before school breakfast and homework, Saturday enrichment
activities, California High School Exit Exam courses, and SES. Families within the district that
participate in any of this programing have to sift through various levels of information just to
make the appropriate choice for their children. This may be on top of participating in SES
32
. For
parents, the Beyond the Bell Branch serves as a conduit of information regarding all of the out-
of-school time programming offered by the district. Specific to SES, Beyond the Bell not only
offers information and oversight regarding the impact on student achievement, but it also plays
an important part in defining how parents participate.
Consumerism as a Principle of Design
SES was designed into NCLB to create a market of after-school programs that would
encourage third-party vendors to be innovative regarding instruction, which in turn would
provide parents with opportunities to remedy the structural inequities that exist in their children’s
public schools. Under market assumptions, parents are to select the appropriate services for their
child. As stated above, it is up to districts to provide families with complete and objective
information regarding the quality and nature of these services. SES legislation specifically
mandates the following:
Local educational agencies must provide, at a minimum, annual notice to parents (in
an understandable and uniform format and, to the extent practicable, in a language the
parents can understand) of—
(i) the availability of services under this subsection;

32
In 2012, LAUSD waned some of the options for families with the federal approval of the California Office to
Reform Education waiver in which the district decided to opt out of the SES mandate.

152
(ii) the identity of approved providers of those services that are within the local
educational agency or whose services are reasonably available in neighboring
local educational agencies; and
(iii) a brief description of the services, qualifications, and demonstrated
effectiveness of each such provider

The intended outcome of the law is to improve student achievement through the
supplemental instruction provided that parents acting as consumers select the most effective
SES providers. Parents, through their choices, will in turn allow market mechanisms of
supply and demand to weed out ineffective vendors. Part of this market assumption follows
that if parents are unsatisfied with their selection, they are expected to exit and select a more
suitable vendor. The market levers are embedded throughout the law, which can be
summarized by Table 5.2.
Based on design, SES intends for parents to participate as consumers to weed out
ineffective educational providers leaving only those that would offer the best services necessary
to increase individual student achievement. A closer examination of SES, however, also reveals
limitations parents have in their role as consumers. As a target population of SES, parents are
also socially constructed as a dependent group.
Parents as dependents. Dependent populations again are viewed as incapable of solving
their own problems mainly because they lack the capacity, skill, and discipline to do so and need
all the help they can get. As a provision of the ESEA, SES specifically places focus on parents’
socio-economic status as part of the framing dynamic used to justify the policy’s design. The U.S
Department of Education describes SES as the following:
Low-income families can enroll their child in supplemental educational services if
their child attends a Title I school that has been designated by the state to be in
need of improvement for more than one year. The term "supplemental educational
services" refers to free extra academic help, such as tutoring or remedial help, that
is provided to students in subjects such as reading, language arts, and math.
(USDE, 2009)

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Table 5.2
Elements of Design within SES
Policy Element Supplemental Education Services
General theory of action in the
implementation of policy towards school
improvement
Parent choice of after-school instruction as
a pivotal dimension in individual academic
growth

Setting

Los Angeles Unified School District

Eligibility Point

Title I Schools in second year of program
improvement

Targets

Low-income families defined by the
percentage of students receiving free and
reduced lunch

Type of parent choice

Annual choice of a provider/vendor of
after-school services from a state-approved
list

Logics of choice

Market principles:
Supply and demand, competitive edge
through innovation, limited government

Role of Government

Federal (NCLB): Limited to districts and
states with the responsibilities of creating
adequate conditions for parents to be
informed about choices

Intended Outcomes

Individual student growth and academic
achievement measured by improved test
scores

More specifically, SES legislation defines eligible child, which is a proxy to parents, as the
following:
The term eligible child' means a child from a low–income family, as determined
by the local educational agency for purposes of allocating funds to schools under
section 1113(c)(1) (USDE, 2009)

By policy design, low-income parents are seen as deserving of the assistance provided through
SES mainly in part because the underachievement of their children is not viewed as their fault

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but that of the schools. In addition, parents from low-income households are not expected to
change the conditions of their school to improve achievement or have the finances to hire a
private tutor to help their child. Parents then are dependent on the choices offered to them by
ESEA whether it is permits with transportation or “free” academic help in the form of tutoring
from SES. Parents, through their decision-making, do control the allocation of a small percent of
Title I funding in a voucher-like way, meaning that they have the power to allocate this funding
based on consumer principles. They are, however, limited in their consumer roles based on
market conditions created by districts and on the information provided to them by third party
vendors. As consumers, parents also have little control over the design, not just of SES, but of
the way districts set up markets and approve of third party vendors. Parents have to rely on the
administrative beneficence of districts and on the presumed quality control of SES vendors to
make their choice.
Looking Under the Hood of Policy: A Deeper Look at the Consumer Construction
So far, I have provided background context regarding the history of SES including the
elements of design. I began with describing the policy as part of a political compromise between
political parties in the reauthorization of ESEA, which also included the drive to increase
parental involvement. I then described the government’s responsibilities in establishing the
appropriate and adequate conditions necessary to establish an SES market. I then described
specifically an example of the SES market through the context of Los Angeles and the Beyond
the Bell Branch. I then described the market principles tacitly embedded within SES’s design to
argue that parents, as a target group, are socially constructed as consumers of education. In part
of the consumer construction, parents are also I also viewed as a dependent group. Based on the
design of the law, which prescribes specific actions for districts and educational vendors, parents

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are in turn dependent on the actions of more powerful actors. Different from PEA, parents hold
little power to address the design of SES or to influence the curriculum of educational vendors.
Parents are dependent on the districts in creating the adequate market conditions and the
dissemination of information necessary for them to make their choice.
From the outset, SES seems to provide parents from low-income backgrounds the
opportunity to select an after school program or tutoring options aimed at improving the
academic achievement of their children. The intent behind the design of SES was to create a
competitive market place of after-school programs for families. Part of the market principle of
competition also rests on the assumption that there be winners and losers. Third-party
organizations that pursuit and implement innovative instructional practices are expected to entice
parents, help student achievement, and come out as winners in the SES market. Organizations
that do not will in turn be waned out of the market place. Whether or not this is the case, a closer
look under the hood of the SES policy reveals that third-party organizations are more of a
beneficiary of the policy than parents. As stated earlier, SES allocates twenty percent of Title I
funding towards the implementation of these programs. The incentive for third party
organizations is also to reduce costs in order to make profits. In the backdrop of organizations
vying for this funding, districts create the systems in how vendors compete. All which trickle
down into how parents interpret their roles as consumers of the policy. In the following section, I
turn to parents’ lived experiences in the practice of SES.
Stories of Choice: The Implementation of SES in LAUSD
In this section, I will describe the implementation of SES through the individual
narratives of parents participating in the policy. I will rely on the narratives of two parents –
Doña Sara Gonzalez and Don Roberto Jimenez – as their stories serve as examples of what other

156
parents similarly experienced. Their narratives also serve as backdrops to differentiate their
participation through SES. Doña González has participated in SES for four years and through her
experience with the policy, represents the perspective of the seasoned consumer. Don Jimenez on
the other hand represents the new consumer and through his experience I will describe the
confusion other parents felt in their participation in SES. I will describe how parents attained the
information necessary to make a selection of SES vendor. I then describe what parents were
looking for with regards to tutoring services. I then describe their participation throughout the
implementation of SES services. In the end, I discuss how each parent reflected to their SES
decision and how reacted to LAUSD’s decision to stop offering SES as a choice for families.
The Seasoned Parent and the New Consumer
As stated by the vignette at the beginning of the chapter, Sara González and Roberto
Jimenez are both parents of children in LAUSD and have both participated in SES. Doña
González lives with her family – her husband and her two daughters – in a large two story, two-
bedroom apartment in an affordable housing complex in East Los Angeles. Her husband is a
janitor and she is a medical assistant. Doña González’s youngest daughter is in seventh grade and
has been participating in SES for the last four years. She is a fan of the program. The following
conversation I had with her speaks to her experience with SES:
P: A mi me gusta el programa. Cada año cuando me llega el folleto por correo, me encargo
de leerlo bien y marcar las opciones que le convienen a mi hija. (I like the program.
Every year that the information comes in the mail, I pay close attention to my choices and
mark the ones that will benefit my daughter)

R: Entonces usted siempre hace opciones diferentes o es que se quedo con el mismo
proveedor? (So you’ve always made different options or have you stayed with the same
provider)

P: Los primeros dos años elegí el mismo proveedor pero no estaba disponible durante el
tercer año. Elegí un programa el cual ella recibía instrucción por la computadora pero
nomas no le veía iniciativa o que le diera gusto a mi hija. No era para ella. El cuarto año

157
elegí una compañía que mandaba un tutor personal a mi casa. (The first two years I
selected the same provider but they were not available the third year. I selected a
program, which my daughter received instruction through a computer but I didn’t see her
motivated or that she even liked it. It just wasn’t for her. The fourth year I selected a
company that would send an individual tutor to my home.)

R: Si me fije. Como le a parecido el servicio este año? (I noticed. How were services for
you this year?)

P: Bueno primero me mandaron un tutor muy joven y no tenia tanta experiencia. Llame a la
compañía y me mandaron a esta nueva señora que le encanto a mi hija. Y mi también. No
nomas me encanto la tutora, pero también que el distrito ofrezca estos servicios a
domicilio donde pueda asegurar me que mi hija este recibiendo ayuda en sus
matemáticas en la comodidad de su hogar. (Well first they sent me a really Young tutor
with little experience. I called the company and they sent me the lady you saw and my
daughter loved her. I liked her too. I wasn’t just that I liked the tutor but that the district
can offer these services to my address where I can rest assured that my daughter is
receiving help in math at the comfort of her home.)

As reflected in quote, Doña González is a keen consumer and takes the time to screen the list of
providers to see which one of these will better serve her daughter. Even when she made her
choice of the one-to-one tutor at her home and was unsatisfied with the services, she actively
contacted the provider to address the problem. Even though she was unsatisfied with the digital
format of instruction for her daughter, she valued deeply that the last two years of SES, her
daughter was able to take these services at home. She valued the services as a whole and in the
end mentioned that she takes her time to look for after-school programs for her daughter and has
so far been happy with SES.
Don Jimenez lives with his family – his wife and two sons – in a small one-bedroom
apartment near MacArthur Park. Don Jimenez works in a restaurant while his wife is
unemployed but on occasions sells Guatemalan food in the streets
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. Don Jimenez’s eldest son is
in tenth grade and is receiving services for the first time via a digital instruction. Don Jimenez

33
During my visit, Doña Jimenez offered me a taste of freshly made Rellenitos, which are dumplings made out of
mashed plantains filled with black beans and pork.

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does not fully understand how SES works. We had the following conversation about his
experience with SES:
P: Unas personas con camisetas amarillas le dieron a mi esposa información sobre estos
servicios. Esto fue en la escuela de la vecina. Mi esposa fue a recoger a sus hijos. Le
dijeron que estos servicios eran gratis y al final del programa nos iban a dar una
computadora gratis. Nos intereso porque el mas chico esta batallando en la escuela y los
maestros nos sugirieron que entregáramos una aplicación para que el recibiera ayuda
adicional. Pero como tenemos dos, mi esposa decidió entregar dos aplicaciones aunque
el mas grande no necesite la ayuda. Terminando darle ayuda al que no la necesitaba y
tuvimos que buscar otra opción para el que si la necesitaba. (Some people wearing
yellow shirts gave my wife a flier about services. That was in the neighbor’s school. My
wife went to pick up her kids. They told her that these services were free and that at the
end of the program they would receive a free computer. We were interested in the
program for our youngest son because he is struggling in school and his teachers
suggested we submit an application to receive the additional help. Because we have the
two sons, my wife submitted two applications even though my oldest doesn’t need the
help. They ended up giving help to the one that did not need it and we ended up seeking
other options for the one that did.)

R: Entonces le dieron ayuda pero no para el mas joven el cual la necesitaba? (Let me get
this straight, you got help for your son, but not to the one that actually needed it?)

P: Exacto. Le dieron ayuda al grande en matemáticas pero el tiene buenas notas y se le
hace muy fácil. Al otro hijo no le dieron ayuda. Yo pensé que si le daban a uno le iban a
dar a los dos. Hable con los tutores y les pregunte que porque me le dieron ayuda al
equivocado y no me supieron contestar. Me dijeron que llamara a la compañía. Cuando
llame me dijeron que nomas hacían apoyo técnico y nada de matriculación. Ellos me
dijeron que hablara con alguien en el distrito pero con quien hablo? (Exactly. They gave
help to the older one in math, a subject he excels and is easy for him. I spoke to the tutors
and asked them why they gave help to the wrong son and they couldn’t answer me. They
told me to talk to an administrator from the company. When I called, they told me that
they only took care of technology support and didn’t know much about enrollment. They
then directed me to talk to someone at the district but who do I talk to?)

R: Entiendo su frustración. Y que con su hijo joven? Me dijo que le encontró otra opción
para su hijo? (I understand your frustration. And what of the youngest of your sons? You
mentioned that you found another option for him?)

P: Si lo terminados matriculando en un programa con LAPD. Pero no se mucho de eso
tampoco. No creo que le estén ayudando en la escuela. Es mas como para disciplina.
Usted no conoce programas que nos pueda recomendar? (Yes, we enrolled him in a
LAPD program. But I don’t know much about it. I don’t believe that they are helping him
with school. It’s more for discipline. Do you know of any programs that you could
recommend for us?)

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At the end of the services, Don Jimenez felt confused and had mixed feelings about SES. He was
unsure of why only one of his sons got service while the other want did not and never got
answers. At the end of the program, his oldest son who participated in the program got a free
laptop which Don Jimenez and his family appreciated. He is still concerned about his youngest
son who needs academic help and could not get it through SES. Don Jimenez wanted a little
more transparency when it came to which applications were accepted and which ones were not.
At the end, Don Jimenez was also unsure if SES helped his oldest son at all, since he felt that the
instruction was too easy for him. When asked if he would seek out services next year, he said he
would but only submit an application for his youngest son and select a different provider.
Doña Gonzalez and Don Jimenez each had different and juxtaposing experiences in the
participation with SES. Nonetheless, their experiences are representative of parent experiences
with SES encompassed by this study. Doña Gonzalez represents the narrative of seasoned
consumers. These parents relied on their own experiences with SES or other after-school
programing to make the best out the program for their children. In contrast, Don Jimenez
represents how parents as novice consumers struggled in making sense of SES for their children.
I begin with the seasoned parents.
Parents Relied on Own Experience to Make the Best out of SES
As a seasoned consumer of SES, Doña González relied on previous experience to select a
vendor that would benefit her daughter. She actively sought out these services for her daughter
and took the time to get informed about each vendor. She was not the only one either. I spoke to
parents that were informed about SES and specifically sought out one-to-one tutoring for their
children. Aria Gomez was one such parent who specifically sought out vendors that offered

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services for students with special needs. During our conversation, she mentioned the following
about the specific service provider regarding services for her daughter, who is in second grade:
I selected ETS because they offered one-to-one tutoring and they would come to my
house. The list provided by the district does single out which vendors are willing to work
with special needs students. I wanted to double check, so once the tutor came to my
home, I asked her what her instruction looked like. She showed me a list of activities that
she would work with my daughter but she also asked me if there was something specific
she wanted me to work with. I mentioned that she needed help reading based on one of
her IEP goals. Everyday after that she worked thirty minutes in helping her improve her
reading and I think it’s helping.

Because of her daughter’s needs, Doña Gomez had a different level of engagement regarding the
type of services. More so, she had access to the instruction, which took place in her own dinning
room and was satisfied with what she was seeing.
Through their participation, parents like Doña Gomez also ensured that their children
were ready to participate before and during SES instruction. For example, parents that opted for
the digital providers made sure that their children were in a quiet place conducive to learning
before instruction started. One father I observed turned his living room into a small office only
for his daughter’s SES session. He even made sure that everyone in the household was quiet
during the session. I saw similar actions in other households where families living in small one-
bedroom apartments would turn off television sets or any other distractions to allow their
children to focus on instruction. If ever there were any technical difficulties, these parents would
act immediately and contact vendors to ensure that the problem was addressed. On one occasion,
one of the parents was unable to reach the vendor’s technical support hotline, so he contacted
me. He informed me about the technical difficulties his son was experiencing and his inability to
get a hold of any one from the vendor. I gladly put him in direct contact with an administrator
and his son was able to resume instruction that day.

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A pattern also emerged among these parents where their initiative was grounded in more
than just academic enrichment, which stems beyond the objective of the law. With a large group
of the SES market controlled by digital providers, parents now had the option of selecting
services to be delivered in the comfort of their own home. Parents saw this as a tremendous
convenience for them and their children. For one, their children would complete the services at
home. Beyond academics then, parents here focused on a piece of mind regarding the
whereabouts and safety of their children. During one of the focus group interviews, parents
echoed their concern for safety in the following conversation:
P1: I was glad that she was in her bedroom working on the computer. Sometimes our
neighborhood is not that safe you know. I don’t have to worry about where she is or when
she’s going to get home.

P2: Me too. I think it’s better that they are at home doing their work. I can take my daughter
something to eat. I don’t know too much about the math that they teach her today, but I
can also try to help.

P1: You know it’s also convenient for me because I get out of work at two. I can just go
home and she’s there too. I don’t have to go and pick her up. Not that I mind. But with
gas prices today, it’s just more convenient that she’s home.

P3: Like I said, I had problems with the services. But I will say that I did like that my son
could do the work from home. Just like the gentleman said with work. Both my wife and
I work and it may be difficult to pick him up if the tutoring was after school. Sometimes
when we can’t pick him up, he walks with friends or the neighbor helps us. But him
being at home is one less worry for us.

P1: My daughter is also in middle school. So you know, I worry about middle school boys.
When she’s at home I don’t worry about the middle school boys.

The conversation here speaks to the other factors that help parents determine why they opted for
SES beyond academics, which included safety, convenience, and avoiding middle school boys.
One additional factor that parents also liked, specifically those that selected digital
vendors, was the promise of a free laptop or tablet after completion of tutoring services. Most of
the digital instruction took place in a small 11-inch laptop or chromebook. Vendors used the

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laptop as an incentive to enroll students to their services. And parents liked the incentive idea.
This was specifically so, for parents of high school students. Rocio Durcal is a mother of a tenth
grader and selected to participate in SES specifically for that reason.
Mi hijo es un buen muchacho. El trabaja duro y se esfuerza para sobresalir
académicamente. En la casa solo tenemos una computadora para la familia. La usan el y
su hermana. Pero cuando los dos tienen un proyecto que se vence a la misma ves, se
están peleando a ver quien la necesita mas. La compañía Avanza prometía una
computadora gratis así que la elegí para que mi hijo tuviera su propia computadora. Y
mas ayuda no creo que la alga daño. (My son is a good kid. He works hard and puts
forth effort to achieve academically. In our house we only have one computer for the
family. His sister and him are the ones that use it. Whenever they both have a project that
is due during the same time, they start to fight to argue who needs it most. The company
Avanza promised a free computer so I elected them so my son would have his own
computer. Need the extra academic help would hurt either.)

Not all parents shared Doña Durcal’s attention to the incentive but they did appreciate that
companies offered the option. Parents mentioned that it was a nice gift for students to receive
after services but it was not a major factor in their decision-making. The incentive, however, did
become a main point for them if parents did not receive the computer at the end of services or if
it took to long to get. Parents definitely voiced their complaints to the district and to the vendors
directly if they did not receive the promised computer. Fortunately for Doña Durcal, her son
received his free laptop short after he completed the services.
In the end, these parents were satisfied by the services provided to them and their
children. Parents mentioned that they noticed positive changes in their children including
achievement gains in their school day classes, improved behavior, and an overall increase in their
motivation regarding schooling. Parents attributed these positive changes to the SES instructor.
This was specifically so for parents that opted for the traditional in-person tutor versus the digital
instruction. Because parents could observe the tutoring taking place in their home they were also
able to build some rapport with the instructor. These parents solicited feedback from their

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children to ask about the tutor and whether or not they felt they had learned something or had
enjoyed instruction. For example Doña Gomez’s was in direct communication with her
daughter’s tutor and at the end of every session asked her questions about her daughter’s
progress. Doña Gonzalez was unhappy with her first tutor, but was extremely satisfied with the
replacement. Other parents that also opted for the traditional tutoring services, which included a
live instructor, shared similar sentiments. Parents, however, were new to the digital instruction
and were unsure what to think of it and how to connect with their children’s learning. I will
address this confusion in the following section.
Novice Consumers Struggle in Making Sense of SES
Parents like Don Jimenez who were new to the after-school consumer experience,
expressed their confusion and at times dissatisfaction with SES. For Don Jimenez, his confusion
stemmed from a lack of transparency regarding how students are selected to participate in SES.
Because the son that he wanted services for did not get them, he paid closer attention to the
instruction his older son was receiving and noticed that it was not aligned to his actual academic
needs. Don Jimenez was not the only one confused and at times angered by the SES instruction.
Carlos Valderrama has a son in third grade at the time of services. He and his wife had
been actively trying to enroll their son in SES for the last two years. They went to their local
school’s parent center to get information about SES or any kind of after-school program. Their
son is identified as an English learner and they specifically wanted to enroll him in programs
where he would practice and improve his English. But they have had little luck in doing so. It
was only by visiting a different school to pick up a nephew that a SES vendor approached Don
Valderrama to inform him about services. The staff member had a tablet on hand and helped Don
Valderrama complete an application online. A month later, his son was enrolled with one of the

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digital providers. Both Don and Doña Valderrama attended an information and training session
on how the instruction would work. They received a laptop and their son received the first two
hours of instruction on the spot. After that, all of the instruction took place at home through the
laptop, which is when Don Valderrama began to notice several areas of concern.
At first, even though the vendor provided a free Internet card for families that did not
have Internet access, his son had problems connecting to the web. Other parents and children that
attended the focus group interviews echoed this sentiment. Their main complaint was that the
Internet cards provided by vendors were not reliable. Parents mentioned that they did get
technology support and in Spanish, but there were times that they could not get through. Parents
also mentioned that it was almost pointless to call when technical difficulties occurred halfway
into instruction. If the Internet connection was re-established, students ended up losing valuable
instructional time. They still called to make sure their child received a make-up session for the
one lost due to connection problems. On one specific occasion, Don Valderrama noticed that the
computer had restarted in the middle of instruction. He was unaware that programs within the
computer, like Microsoft Windows, run system updates when connected to the computer. He
found out about these updates by contacting tech support. Nonetheless, Don Valderrama was still
concerned that his son was losing valuable instructional time all because he was unaware of
computer maintenance. Here is what he shared about that experience:
Cuando la computadora se apago, mijo que salió un mensaje pero que no se fijo muy
bien. Llame a la compañía y me dijeron que eso era normal. Que el programa necesita
de comenzar de nuevo para el mantenimiento de la computadora. Y lo que yo digo es que
porque debe de hacer eso mientras el niño esta en el medio de la clase? Ellos me dicen
que uno tiene la opción para controlar el mantenimiento de la computadora. Pero mijo
esta en el tercer grado y yo no se mucho de estas cosas. Para que sirve el instructor
entonces. (When the computer turned off, my son told me that a message popped up but
that he didn’t have time to notice what it said. I called the company and they told me that
it was normal. They informed me that computer programs need to restart for the
maintenance of the computer. What I am saying is that why does it need to do that in the

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middle of my son’s class. They then told me that one has the option of controlling the
maintenance of a computer. But my son is in third grade and I don’t know much about
these things. What’s the use of the instructor.
Several of the parents, including Don Valderrama and Don Jimenez, took the time to sit
with their children to help them on their homework. Don Valderrama sits everyday with his son
and helps him with his school homework. During the days of SES instruction, he would hover
behind his son, as he would complete the assigned tasks in the digital classroom. At first he was
enthralled at seeing his son receive instruction through a computer and talking to the tutor
through an earpiece. He started to pay closer attention to the instruction and compared it to his
son’s homework. He noticed that they were not aligned. He was not the only one. Don Jimenez
noticed that his son was just clicking and flying through the lesson. His son was a tenth grader
taking advanced geometry but the curriculum was aligned to the 8
th
grade math standards. Some
of the parents complained to the vendors that the computer screens where too small for students
to see. Vendors sent paper versions of the curriculum, which parents noticed was labeled two
grades lower than their child’s current grade level. The parents that noticed this called the
vendors to ask, in their own way, why the curriculum was not aligned to their current grade level
and were told that it was a district mandate. This left parents feeling more confused.
For some parents, the curricular misalignment in digital formats was a little more
obvious, mainly because their child was receiving a whole different subject than the one they had
selected. Providers offering digital formats offered an average of twenty hours of supplemental
instruction. In order to maximize the utility of services, parents were asked to select either math
or English language arts. Halfway through services, parents noticed that students were taking a
different subject than the one they needed help in. Parents acknowledged that for some of their
children, they needed help in both subjects, but they were still confused of why they were

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receiving instruction that was not part of their original choice. And it took parents time to notice
some of these inconsistencies mainly because they were unfamiliar with digital instruction.
Don Valderrama mentioned that he would sit and see what his son was doing during SES
instruction and for the most part he did not know what to make of it. During our interview, I
asked him why this format confused him and he said the following:
Bueno pues, no soy tan sabio con las computadoras así que es algo nuevo para mi.
Tenemos una computadora pero nomas la usamos para conectarnos en Face y hablar
con la familia en México. Pero lo que esta haciendo Carlitos es muy moderno. Quien
diría verdad? Pero aunque no le entiendo, hay unas cosas que nomas no se si son buenas
o malas. Esta bien que tenga esta ayuda en sus matemáticas. Pero el otro día yo vi que
ya no usaba el micrófono ese que se pone, y todo lo respondía por el teclado. Esta es la
primera vez que el usa una computadora así que se toma su buen tiempo oprimiendo
teclas. Una hora se la paso oprimiendo teclas. Usted cree que eso este bien? Esa es
buena instrucción? (Well, I am not too savvy with computers so this is new to me. We do
have a computer but we mainly use it to get on Facebook and chat with family in Mexico.
But what Carlitos is doing is very modern. Who would have thought? But even though I
don’t understand it, there are some things that I see are good and some that are bad. It’s
good that he is getting help in mathematics. But the other day I saw that he was not using
the microphone that he usually wears. He was responding using the keyboard. Now this is
the first time he used a computer so he is taking his time in pressing keys. One hour he
spent pressing keys. Do you think that is good? Do you think that is good instruction?

Here Don Valderrama is expressing his concern regarding what he saw and what he interpreted
from his own knowledge regarding instructional time. He could not understand why his son had
been responding to the instructor using the keyboard. He followed up by asking me if students in
the United States were expected to know how to type by the third grade. I told him I was unsure
and empathically shared his confusion about services.
He was not the only one that was unsure how to adequately help their children during
digital instruction. During the focus group interviews, all of the parents shared with me that they
would like the district to offer computer literacy courses for them because many did not
understand how to use a computer. One of the mothers comically interjected that sometimes she
comes into the room and sees her son immediately close or minimize all of these windows. She

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got a lot of nods from the parents in the room. One of the other mothers added that she catches
her husband doing the same thing which got a lot of laughs and made her husband blush an
incandescent red. All laughs aside, parents wanted to participate in their child’s schooling and
felt that they were limited in doing so with digital formats. Many tried following the instruction
but the microphone earpiece made it hard for them to engage. They just went along with trusting
that their child was receiving a good instruction and never actually thinking about exiting
services.
Both Don Jimenez and Don Valderrama completed services and their sons received a free
laptop. Because some of the parents I had interviewed before had been pleased with the free
laptop students had received for completing services, I decided to ask Don Valderrama about it
too. Here is what he said:
Me da gusto que Carlitos haiga recibido una computadora. Ojala le sirva para hacer la
tarea. Pero mi esposa y yo queríamos el programa para que su ingles mejorara. No creo
que el programa haiga hecho eso. No estoy siendo ingrato por la computadora. Me da
gusto que estos programas existan. Pero me siento que con todo y computadora es como
si nos hubieran dado atole con el dedo. Me entiende? (I am glad that Carlitos received a
computer. Maybe it will help him in his homework. But my wife and I were interested in
the program to improve on his English. I don’t believe the program did that. I am not
being ungrateful about the computer. I am glad that programs like this exist. But I feel
that with the whole program, including the computer is like as we got atole from a finger.
You understand?).

A major part of the confusion parents experienced with SES came from the selection of digital
instruction. Mainly because it was new and parents did not know what to make of digital formats
of instruction. In one case, one of the parents found it to be inappropriate for her child’s age.
From the group of parents observed and interviewed, this was the only one that willingly exited
the program and it was from a digital vendor. The parent decided to exit services because she felt
that her son was too young to engage in the digital online instruction. I asked her why she had
selected the services in the first place and she replied:

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Well, the companies make it sound good on paper. They mentioned that it would be
grade appropriate, but after three sessions with the computer instruction I noticed that it
was too much for him. There were too many things going on for him to pay attention to
the instruction. So I called to stop services. They sent someone to come pick up the
laptop.

Other than her, no other parent in the study willingly exited the SES. Nonetheless, parents tried
to follow along but were having a hard time understanding the instructional format, which in turn
limited their engagement.
One of the digital providers was aware of potential challenges with the use of technology
to deliver instruction. Avanza started services for families by providing a training session in both
English and Spanish to explain the logistics of instruction. During this workshop, parents were
instructed about the curriculum their children would learn, how instruction would work, and how
to use the computer. During the session, students received the first two hours of instruction with
a live tutor present to help them navigate the program’s portal. At the end of the session, parents
took home with them a laptop, they signed a schedule for the instruction, and if necessary, they
would take home a wireless internet card. Parents mentioned that these workshops were
extremely helpful in the logistics of delivering the program, but still lacked in helping them
understand the instructional format and how they could engage in helping their children learn.
There was also a group of parents from interviews and observations that mentioned that
they really did not follow along with the instruction. When it came to digital instruction, they
assumed that the students knew what they were doing with the computer. These parents
mentioned that they thought the online instruction was a neat idea. They saw their children do
things with the computer and that was it. It was only until they participated in the focus group
interviews and that they heard the narratives of parents like Don Jimenez and Don Valderrama
that they started to have some doubts and concerns about the instruction their children received.

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Regardless of their lack of participation, what these parents now shared in common was that in
one way or another they were more or less confused about their participation with SES
specifically when it came to digital instruction.
For the novice consumers, the option of getting a free computer and that their child would
be at home completing the program was good enough. But there were those parents too, that
really wanted to see academic gains. In the end though, parents noticed some areas of concern,
which they were unable to address because they had no rapport with the SES tutor, the
instructional provider, or district staff. Parents wanted to help their children and continue
participating beyond making a consumer decision. Parents, however, were confused about SES
program logistics and making sense of digital instruction.
Reflection of Choice: Cierran el Mercadito (Closing the Little Market)
Not long after interviewing parents about their experiences with SES, LAUSD as part of
the CORE waiver, decided to stop the program. This decision represented the closure of the SES
educational market. I reached out to the parents that participated in the study the previous year to
find out their reactions, if any, regarding the elimination of SES especially since the district did
not send any notifications to parents. Not surprisingly, Doña González was upset that these
programs would no longer be offered. I was actually the one that broke the news to her.
Me: …usted sabe que ya no va haber el programa de SES. El distrito lo paro. (…you are
aware that there will not be any SES programing this year. The district stopped it.)

DG: No, en serio? Que pena. A mi hija le encantaba ese programa y a mi también. Y se me
hacia raro que no mandaran correspondencia del programa. Y porque? (Serious?! What
a shame. My daughter and I really liked the program. I was wondering why they were
taking so long in sending out information about the program. Why did they end it?)

Me: Hay muchas razones pero es por recursos y dinero. El distrito quiere usar los fondos que
se usaban para el programa y usarlos de otro método. (There are a lot of reasons but
mainly resources and money. The district wants to use the money that funded the
program and put it to use in other means.)

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DG: Bueno, pos ni modo. Hay que buscar otro programa. (Well, too bad then. It’s time to
start looking of another one of these programs.)

And just like she stated here, Doña González went to her local school and sought out other out-
of-school time programs. I spoke to her again to find out if she had found a program and she did.
In the end, Doña González decided to switch her work schedule around and enrolled her
daughter in Ready-Set-Go!, which is a before-school, state funded program offered at her local
school which focuses on homework, reading, group activities, and nutrition. Doña González was
not the only one that sought out these programs.
Similar to Doña González, most of the parents were unaware that SES was not being
offered. One parent did, because her niece actually worked for one of the providers. Unlike Doña
González though, most parents were not too worked up about SES going away. Again, the
Beyond the Bell branch of LAUSD oversees all of the out-of-school time programs within the
district. Parents just looked for something else. They did mention the convenience of having their
children at home but in the end, they simply wanted a solid instructional experience for their
children.
Interestingly, Don Jimenez who had mixed feelings about SES, asked me for some
suggestions of programs for his older son to engage him in ways that the SES instruction had not.
I recommended that if he was savvy with computers, that he look into Cyber Patriot which is a
national youth cyber education program focused on teaching youth, security principles with the
goal of sparking an interest in the STEM fields. In the end both his sons enrolled in the program
and he thanked me for giving him the right information about a program his children could
enjoy.

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Doña González and Don Jimenez are, however, the minority of the group as most parents
simply did not enroll their children in any new program and did not pursue any form of program
either. Don Valderrama was one of these parents. He continued to work with his son in
completing his homework, but did not actively seek if there were any programs offered by his
son’s school. He was also indifferent about the district’s decision to end SES. He shared with
me, that if the programs do come back, that he hoped that they would be better and take students
a little more seriously. And in the end, he made some insightful comments about SES based on
his interactions with other parents in the study.
Si los programas regresan, ojala que sean mejores y tome a los niños mas en serio. Pero
después de que hablamos con usted y con las otras familias, me di cuenta de que estas
compañías solo querían dinero. Creo que el distrito vio eso y que no servían y les cerro
el mercadito. (If the programs come back, maybe they can be better and take children
more seriously. But after we talked with you and the other families, I came to understand
that the companies only wanted money. I think the district saw that they didn’t work and
closed down their little market.)

At the end of the day, parents, despite the absence of SES, continued to exercise choice in
one way or another within LAUSD. For some parents, SES was just another after-school option.
Other parents saw it as an opportunity to have their children receive any kind of academic help
within the comfort of their home. Regardless of the programming offered to them, the one choice
a large portion of the parents within this study made, was to continue participating in their
child’s schooling. Many of the parents that participated in SES were dedicated in their effort to
converting their home to a place conducive to learning. Even after instruction, the parents spent
additional time helping their children with homework. Some of these parents took two to three
buses to attend the focus group to voice their contentment or dissatisfaction with SES. Parents
then are not only making consumer choices with regards to the educational programming for
their children, but they are also actively engaging in those choices by participating in the

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instruction. In the following section, I discuss this point further and describe the lessons learned
from parents participating in SES.
Lessons from Parents Participating in SES
In this section, I will describe the three main findings regarding the implementation of
SES grounded in the experiences of parents. First, I will argue that intermediary organizations
including the district and third-party vendors play a key role in providing parents with
information about services. Second, I will argue that, in their decision-making, individual parent
histories are important regarding to how they make-sense of SES and how they decide to
participate in instruction. Finally, the setting for SES instruction is part of that individual history
in which parent engagement continues to play a critical component to the implementation of
instruction. I elaborate on each below.
Districts and Vendors are Influential in Parental Sense-making about Choice
Local educational agencies and third-party vendors played a critical role in how parents
received information and made sense of SES. Based on the design of the law, all of the
responsibility of establishing the SES market and disseminating information to parents is left to
local educational agencies and third-party vendors. For districts SES represents a sanction for
failing to meet annual achievement benchmarks causing them to set aside twenty percent of their
Title I funding for SES. Districts have little incentive to allocate the Title I dollars towards
funding private vendors, which are part of SES. Nonetheless, districts have great power in
establishing the necessary conditions of the SES market while disseminating information to
parents about their ability to participate.
Vendors in turn seize on the opportunity to provide families educational services while making a
profit. Once approved to operate within a given district, vendors begin to advertise in school

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campuses and around the neighborhood to secure participant families. In sum, districts are not
inclined to allot public Title I dollars towards the funding of private organizations
34
. Vendors
seek to provide educational programming in effort to make a profit based on the per pupil
allocation provided by the district. The incentives for both districts and vendors are not aligned
in a way that would benefit parents and families. The incentives driving both districts and
vendors in turn trickle down to the information families receive about SES.
As stated above, LAUSD has been participating in SES for over a decade and through the
Beyond the Bell branch, has been informing parents about their available choices using
brochures sent through mail. During the 2012-13 academic years, LAUSD administration rolled
out an online application to facilitate enrollment for families. One of the major components of
the online enrollment was the randomization of vendor names. During the last three years,
vendors changed their company names to start with numbers or symbols in order to be
alphabetically first in the list of providers. From previous market practices, companies like
Avanza and 123 Tutors with Laptops were receiving a larger number of applications, not because
they had better services, but because they were just first on a list. The district wanted to ensure
that parents paid close attention to the attributes of each vendor rather than just go down a list,
which is why they opted to randomize the order of the vendor list.
Although the district actions were meant to help parents, the decision to do so rests on a
deficit assumption that as consumers they are unable to appropriately make informed choices
about their children’s needs. Albeit, there were few parents I interviewed that echoed this
sentiment and mentioned that they new little about the vendor they selected. They mentioned that
they read the brochure and went down the line of vendors, but in the end, they just selected the

34
Districts like LAUSD would prefer to use the money elsewhere and they have. With the implementation of the
CORE waiver, the district opted to no longer fund and participate in SES.

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first one on the list. Doña Rocio Durcal, one of novice consumer parents stated the following
about her decision:
Leí el folleto pero todas las compañías me decían lo mismo en lo que ofrecían. Muchas
ofrecían computadoras gratis. Así que al final nomas elegí la que estaba primero en la
lista. (I read the brochure but all of the providers were pretty similar in what they offered.
A lot of them offered free computers. So I just went with the first vendor on the list.)

Doña Durcal did not see any difference between the three-dozen vendors, which is why
she selected as she did. It is unclear whether the randomization of vendor names will help her.
Her reasoning in assuming that all of the vendors seemed similar does speak to the quality of
information parents are receiving from the district. Mainly, parents get information in doses that
make it difficult to distinguish between vendors. District requirements for vendors to operate in
LAUSD may also lead to isomorphism
35
. Vendors begin to take the same characteristics and
look similar to parents. Doña Durcal may also be right in her decision to assume that all of the
providers resembled each other. Three of the vendors providing digital instruction were all part
of one larger parent organization
36
.
Despite randomization and the similarities of SES vendors, parents like Doña Gonzalez,
however, were thorough in their decision-making within SES. She relied on her previous
experience with choice and SES to select vendors that would specifically cater to their children’s
needs. Doña Gomez for example, scanned the brochure to find SES vendors that would work
with special needs students. Some of these parents actively went to other schools or community

35

Isomorphism is a similarity of the processes or structure of one organization to those of another, be it the result of
imitation or independent development under similar constraints.
36
1-on-1 Learning with Laptops, !123! Maestros Latinos Inc., and Academic Advantage Tutoring were all part of
the same organization but each participated as a different vendor.

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centers to get information about SES providers. In that process, many of the parents got
information from the SES vendors themselves.
Don Jimenez mentioned that he read the brochure but it was when his wife had contact
with a vendor marketing their program outside their school that their family opted for those
specific services. Don Valderrama also shared the same experience in his family’s selection of
vendor. During program recruitment, it is common for vendors to mobilize resources around
target schools to advertise their product. In addition to advertising, third party vendors also
provided parent workshops that further accentuated the consumer construction of parents.
Vendors like Avanza helped parents understand the scope and logistics of services. One parents
had opted in to their services, Avanza staff began with training that helped parents understand
how the digital format of instruction would operate for their children. Although, some of the
parents in the end found this format confusing and limiting with regards to their ability to
participate in their child’s instruction, they nonetheless appreciated the training. With parents as
consumers, vendors like Avanza try to provide a sense of customer service to further entice
parents or at least influence future SES decision-making. But since the district controls how
information is disseminated, there is little to no way for parents to share experiences and learn
from each other, in order to discern which providers are effective and which ones to avoid. They
also cannot share experiences which will in the end help them better understand digital formats
of instruction.
Parent participation as consumers of the policy is however, only part of the story with
SES. Even though parents are dependent on the information provided by districts and vendors,
parents do play a more crucial role in the implementation of SES than just passive consumers.

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Based on the narratives described above, parents’ individual histories are important in
determining the success of SES instruction.
Parent Histories are Critical to Individual Decision-making
Individual histories were important in determining how parents not only decided for a
vendor, but in how they participated in the instructional component of SES. Each parent relied
on their own educational expertise grounded by their history to participate in the SES option.
Although I separated parents into two groups earlier in the chapter, each parent exerted their
knowledge base in a way that influenced the implementation of SES within their family.
Doña Gonzalez for example, had four years of experience in participating with SES.
Before that, as a child in her native country of El Salvador, her family enrolled her in a private
parochial school. All of her family members had received private schooling in El Salvador. Her
experience in El Salvador was key in determining how to select an SES vendor and what to
expect in return. When she saw that her daughter was not benefiting from the instruction during
the first year, she made the adequate changes and opted for the one-to-one tutor. When she was
unsatisfied with the tutor, she called the provider to make the change. Her actions, in turn helped
her daughter benefit from the program. Even after the end of SES, Doña Gonzalez sought out
other programs to choose from for her daughter.
Doña Gomez’s daughter is a special needs student with mild to moderate learning
disabilities. In her decision-making, she specifically sought out vendors that provided one-to-one
tutoring. In addition, she made sure that the instructional staff had training and experience in
working with special needs populations.
Don Valderrama is from the southern Mexican state of Puebla, a predominantly agrarian
region and one of the nation’s poorest states. He decided to participate in SES because of the

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offer to receive a free laptop for his son. The Valderrama family had one laptop, which they use
to make conference calls to other family members in Mexico. A new computer could help his
son Carlos in his homework and serve as a great resource for the entire family. Even though the
offer of a free computer enticed him, he still sat an hour and a half through every instructional
session to see what his son was learning.
Parents not only relied on their experience and background to select their choice but as
exemplified by narratives of parents within this study, they also participated in SES. Novice
consumers did struggle to make sense of SES and as stated above, the root of that was trying to
comprehend what was taking place during digital instruction. Nonetheless, they still sat through
the instruction, or turned their living room into a study room. Eventually, parents like Doña
Gonzalez who was more experienced with SES, took greater command of her choice. She was
unhappy with the digital format so the following years, she selected differently to provide a
better experience for her daughter. Thorough experience with choice, more novice parents may
develop some of the same capacities other more seasoned parents had and like them make the
best of SES.
A distinguishing feature of the SES market in LAUSD is that most if not all instruction is
done remotely in the student home or in some cases the local library. This feature of SES in
LAUSD provide a similarity to the PEA case in that the setting where instruction takes place,
which is connected to the parents’ history, became a critical component of SES. I elaborate
further below.
Setting for SES Instruction is an Extension of Parent Engagement
Parent homes, where the majority of SES instruction took place, became a critical
component to the implementation of the law in two ways. First, the instruction at home allowed

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for the parents to become involved in their child’s learning. This is important to the current
dialogue schools and districts are having towards parent engagement. More so, the intent of SES
was to involve parents in their child’s educational process through market reform and socially
constructing their role to that of consumers. The remote implementation of SES provided the
opportunity to capture how parent engagement extends beyond the school setting. As described
above, parents went through great lengths to ensure that their students were receiving the best
instruction from SES. Experienced parents ensured that their child received the appropriate type
of instruction and had the opportunity to evaluate and participate in the instruction. More novice
parents sat with their children to investigate how and what they were learning. One of the parents
I observed turned the whole living room into a learning station so her daughter could quietly
engage in the SES instruction. When there were technical difficulties, parents immediately called
the tutoring provider to ensure the problems were fixed. When they could not reach the provider,
one of those parents reached out to me for help to ensure his son did not miss out on the services
promised. These examples show how parents rely on their own experience to create an
educational space for their children outside the traditional educational setting.
Second, parents as part of the setting were important as they also provided help for their
children however, there were some cases beyond their control that influenced the instructional
component. Mainly, the socioeconomic conditions of the families receiving SES at times proved
to be a barrier to instruction. Observations during home visits and conversations with parents,
served as a window to the struggle of families living through poverty in Los Angeles. Don
Valderrama for example lives with in a one-bedroom apartment, which they share with another
family. SES instruction for him took up the whole living space for his family. In another home
visit, the family had been struggling with the landlord to get the apartment fumigated. All of the

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four apartment units had a terrible roach infestation. During SES instruction, roaches would
climb the laptop. During that observation, the mother and I worked feverishly to swat away as
many of the critters as we could so they would not get in the way of her daughter’s instruction.
Similar to Don Valderrama, this student’s family shared the apartment with another. In contrast,
Doña Gonzalez lives in a two-story apartment with only her immediate family. She has the living
room set up in a way that her daughter and the tutor have a space conducive to engaging in
instruction. During the times I observed her, Doña Gonzalez’s daughter had a whole hour of
uninterrupted instruction. It is important to note that Doña Gonzalez has a stable job as a medical
assistant, which provides a level of economic stability for her family.
My intent here is not to state that parents living in poverty have homes that are unfit for
instruction. As I argued above, many parents took the time to participate in their child’s SES
instruction. In measuring the success of SES, districts and vendors place their attention on
achievement and funding. Parent experiences should also factor in to the evaluation of SES. As
exemplified by parents in this study, as a group, they care about their children’s instruction and
will take the necessary measures to ensure they succeed. Their decision to participate in SES is
an example of that. There are, however, some systemic conditions outside the control of families
that could prevent students from fully benefiting from remote instruction envisioned by SES
vendors; mainly regarding digital instruction. Parent perspectives are important because they not
only select the services but as I have argued so far, they also participate in SES. Learning from
parents can provide greater depth to evaluating this type of choice initiative specifically taking
into account some of the barriers to decision-making.

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Summary of Chapter
I started this chapter describing the experience of two parents getting ready to make their
SES selection. By the end this point, you may feel like you know Doña Gonzalez and Don
Jimenez well. I relied on their experiences to provide two ways in how SES was lived. Parents
like Doña Gonzalez rely on their experience to make the best out of SES and as I later found out,
out of other out-of-school time programing. Parents like Don Jimenez represent novice
consumers as their struggle to understand the implementation of the policy and the logistics of
instruction.
I also described the history of SES as part of NCLB’s quest to explicitly involve parents
in the educational process. In the discussion of design, by having parents select SES vendors, I
then argued that parents are socially constructed as consumers of education. Part of that
discussion, I also argued that because SES explicitly focuses on low-income families, SES then
also constructs parents as dependent populations. I then provided description of the case of
parents selecting and participating in SES through the narratives of two families. I then provided
the lessons learned from the case which are: 1) districts and vendors are key players in providing
information to parents regarding SES, which influence how they make sense of the policy. 2)
Individual parent histories are part of the sense-making regarding SES. 3) Finally, the setting of
instruction serves as an extension of parent engagement, but in some cases it can be a barrier to
instruction. Ultimately, provided families with an option to help their children improve in
academic achievement, yet through their participation, parents, especially novice consumers, felt
as they had been in some way or another short-changed. To put it in more cultural responsive
terms, as Don Valderrama suggested earlier, participating in SES felt like getting atole con el
dedo.

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Regardless of their different levels of participation, what these parents shared in common
was that in one way or another they were more or less confused about their participation with the
digital instruction provided through SES. Even those with more experience in decision-making
through SES like Doña Gonzalez, opted out the tutoring through a laptop. She preferred
something that she could visualize and seemed familiar to her. Many of the parents decided to
participate because of the offer of a free laptop at the conclusion of services. Although parents
received something for their participation, many of these parents were dissatisfied with the
services their child received. Socially constructed as consumers, parents felt like they got atole
con el dedo, because they believed that the quality of the product they opted for was inferior than
what was promised to them. Although the incentive of a free computer seemed great at first,
many parents in their participation were not fond of the instructional component.
As stated in chapter 1, no one likes to get atole con el dedo as its tokenizing. During
focus group interviews, parents assumed I was a representative of the district in charge of the
oversight of SES, even though I clearly mentioned I was a researcher for the University of
Southern California. Regardless, they took that time to voice their dissatisfaction with SES and
in the process shared their experience with other parents. During one of these interviews, the
atole con el dedo theme was asserted by parents loud and clear. Even for parents who were
limited in their participation.
Sylvia Pinal was one of the parents that were not actively engaged in her decision to
participate in SES. She selected one of the digital vendors for her forth grade son. The extent of
her participation was nonexistent specifically compared to what some of the other parents in this
study took the time to do. In all actuality, her actions during SES instruction were a distraction to
her own son. During the observation of SES instruction, her son tried so hard to complete the

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assigned tasks while in the background Doña Pinal watched America’s Funniest Home Videos.
Part of me understood that after work one needs to have space to unwind, but my temperance as
an educator was being put to a test. Lucky for me that her older daughter stepped in, lowered the
volume of the television, and sat with her brother to guide him during instruction. And as luck
would have it, I was also delighted that she attended one of the parent focus groups with her
Doña Pinal.
During our conversation, Doña Pinal mentioned that she had thoroughly enjoyed the
services and had no complaints about the programs. Now, Doña Pinal is a very jovial person, she
smiled every time she said something, and was in character during the early parts of the focus
group. This changed as Don Valderrama spoke about his discontent with the digital instruction.
Other parents started to chime in and reassert the points he was making including Doña Pinal’s
daughter. She mentioned that her brother had a hard time following with the digital instruction
mainly because of Internet connection problems. She also mentioned that her brother does not
know how to type and it was difficult to answer questions in a timely manner. For the rest of the
interview, Doña Pinal stayed silent and just listened to what other parents were saying regarding
including their confusion with digital providers, their experiences with one-to-one tutors, their
desire to want more information about services, and getting trained on using technology to better
help their children. When it was over, she stayed to talk to me about SES.
She acknowledged that she was not as active as she maybe could have been regarding her
son’s participation with SES. She was also unaware of the problems with digital format as
described by other parents because it was only now that her daughter told her about them. She
had enrolled her son mainly to get the free computer. I reassured her through the narratives of
other parents, each of us interprets these policies differently. By listening to the conversations

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with other parents, Doña Pinal learned that she could be more attentive in her decision-making
when it comes to her son’s needs.
In the aftermath of LAUSD’s decision not to continue with SES, Doña Pinal decided to
enroll her son in one of the After-School Educational Safety Programs. She mentioned that she
learned her lesson from other parents but more importantly she pays close attention to the
information provided by schools regarding these programs and has taken the time to meet with
the tutor to know what her son is learning. In addition, she takes the time to talk to other parents
to ask their input about the program. I asked her if her family ever uses the computer she
received from participating in SES to which she replied, “It’s turned off and stored in the closet.”
In this last narrative, Doña Pinal was able to learn from parents about their experience
with SES. Like Doña Pinal, I have learned about the challenges that parents face in both
collective decisions through PEA and individual choices through SES. From both cases, parents
echoed their sentiment of feeling tokenized or getting a product of inferior quality than what was
promised. In each case more than one parent echoed feeling like they got atole con el dedo. In
the following and final chapter, I discuss the similarities between parents in both cases and the
importance of harnessing parents’ own knowledge and wisdom in schooling matters.

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Chapter 6: Cross-case Summary, Discussion, & Implications
During the course of this study, more than one of the parents, across SES or PEA,
mentioned that their participation in either of the two choice initiatives felt like getting atole con
el dedo. It is a popular Mexican idiom, yet hearing it be used under the context of two different
choice policies caught my attention leading me to use it as the title of the study and convey an
unfiltered way in how parents made sense of choices afforded to them. Cultural idioms were not
the only similarity between the two cases. Although each policy was designed and implemented
differently, in the process of ‘looking under the hood’ within and across cases, I discovered three
major similarities that were critical to parents and the practice of choice.
In this chapter, I will provide a cross-case comparison of SES and PEA to summarize the
study’s major findings. I then address the policy implications of each finding to each case along
with area of parent involvement. I then provide emerging questions for future research. Lastly I
conclude with the importance of cultural sense-making towards efforts of capturing parent
voices.
Summary of Major Findings
This study explored the social construction process of families engaged in choice
initiatives. In the case of PEA, parents had the choice to opt-in, through collective decision-
making, to take control of their local school governance. In terms of policy design and
implementation, I argued that PEA socially constructed parents as a contender group. The policy
provided parents with the necessary amount of leverage for them to change their school, yet as a
group they are seen as undeserving or having too much power; decisions to reconstitute schools
should be left up to schooling experts. In the implementation of PEA within Jefferson
Elementary and Watts Elementary I discovered that Parent Revolution played a critical part in

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perpetuating the contender narrative while also influencing how parents made sense of the
policy. In addition, parents own neighborhoods and communities also played a critical part in
how they made sense of community organizing to reform their local school. A critical part in the
success of implementing PEA were parents with a specific set of developed civic capacities,
which are essential to collective decision-making.
In the other hand, SES provided families with mini-voucher options of after-school
programing aimed to improve their individual child’s academic achievement. Differently that
PEA, I argued that the design of SES explicitly constructed the roles of parents to that of
consumers. By design, local educational agencies are responsible for creating the adequate
market conditions for parents to select among approved vendors. The third-party vendors in turn
design curriculum that is intended to entice parents. In addition, vendors also advertise to
families to influence them in their decision-making including offering families incentives like
free tablets and laptops. Parents are dependent on the information provided to them by districts
and vendors to make a decision about the services for their child. Parents with seasoned market
sensibilities were able to rely on their experience to make appropriate selections for their
children through the participation in the instructional component of SES. Parents novice to the
notion of markets and SES, also participated in their child’s instruction but struggled to make
sense of the product they selected. Mainly, parents struggled to understand digital formats of
instruction. Nonetheless, remote formats of instruction provided a more nuanced perspective to
parent participation in SES and schooling matters. Mainly, through remote instruction, which
took place in the students’ individual homes, parents were able to engage in their child’s
education beyond traditional school settings.

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In addition to these key differences within each choice initiative, through a cross-case
analysis of PEA and SES, I was able to capture three broad themes regarding how parents
understood and participated in each policy. First, intermediary organizations play a critical role
in the design and implementation of policy in addition to providing information instrumental to
parents understanding of each law. Second, the setting plays an important role regarding the
interpretation and implementation of each choice initiative. Third, individual parents histories are
a critical component in understanding both individual and collective decision-making. I elaborate
on each in the section below. Table 6.1 summarizes these findings with specific examples of
each SES and PEA.
The Importance of Intermediary Organizations
Organizations add meaning to the way parents interpret and implement the law. In the
case of PEA, Parent Revolution was critical in providing families with information and resources
about going forward in implementing the law. Parents found out, specially at Jefferson, that
organizing is difficult. Parents from both Jefferson and Watts relied on the help of Parent
Revolution to help overhaul their local school. Parent Revolution helped inform parents about
engagement at their local school. They helped establish a leadership group, which was later
coined a ‘parent union’. Relying on said leadership, parents began mobilizing to capture the
necessary signatures to petition their local school. In the case of Jefferson, Parent Revolution
also helped parents weed through the proposals from various educational organizations seeking
to take over the new governance of the school. More so in the case of PEA than SES, the
involvement of Parent Revolution also added further meaning to the perceived intent of the law.

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Table 6.1
Summary of Cross Case findings of PEA and SES
Thematic Finding PEA SES

1. Intermediary
organizations play a critical
role in the design and
implementation of policy in
addition to being
instrumental in how parents
make-sense of the law
Organizations like Parent
Revolution provided critical
resources to help parents
organize, mobilize, and
collect signatures.
Participation of these
organizations also represent
the use of private funding
towards parent led
interventions of public
schools
Third party vendors played
a key role in providing
parents with information
about services and how to
participate throughout
instruction. Participation of
third party vendors
represent the use of public
funding to support private
enterprise

2. Setting plays an
important role in how
policy is interpreted and
implemented
Key physical and political
differences within the
surrounding school
community factor in to the
process of organizing
Parental engagement
expands beyond school and
into the home. Individual
parent homes are to be
considered as important
environments to the
learning experience
provided by SES

3. Individual histories of
parents matter in overall
decision-making afforded
by each policy
As parts of the community,
parents with certain civic
capacities and an
understanding of collective
action serve as assets that
facilitate the process of
organizing. It becomes
difficult to attain
community consensus of a
PEA petition without these
civically minded parents
Parents’ experiences with
choice policies and after-
school programs allow them
to interpret and engage the
services differently.

The participation of Parent Revolution, by proxy, also symbolized the presence of the
educational foundations funding the organization like the Walton Foundation. For various
educators and critics of PEA, the funders of Parent Revolution represent part of the charter
school movement. More so, the presence of foundations also represents how private funding can

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influence how public institutions (i.e. local educational agencies) govern schools. Through their
presence, the contender construction is exacerbated. Parents are aligned to groups that have
power to transform schools but are not necessarily seen as deserving. Although the role of Parent
Revolution is part of the dialogue regarding venture capitalism in education, in practice parents
possessed the wherewithal to filter information as depicted in the Watts case. Parents here also
organized against the presence of Parent Revolution and other parents seeking to remove the
principal. In the case of Jefferson, they used their knowledge regarding the friction between
charter and public schools to create a co-located partnership between the district and a charter
operator.
In the case of SES, districts and vendors played a key role in how families selected and
participated in SES. Districts are in charge of creating the conditions to implement SES. Districts
also disseminate information about the services offered which include the hours provided, the
type of curriculum, whether or not diverse learners are serviced, and the format of instruction.
Third-party vendors create the curriculum and advertise to families about SES. Most of the SES
instruction in LAUSD is done remotely, so once families have selected, they have the
opportunity of observing and as described in this study, participate in the program. Parents here,
have the opportunity to observe the product and evaluate it, thus continue to add meaning to SES
and to their roles as consumers of educational programing.
Setting is Important
Setting was a key factor to the implementation of each of these policies as there are
critical intersections between city, district, school, neighborhood, and community settings. These
involve sociocultural differences among parents and families including matters of race, ethnicity,
and class. For PEA, the setting was important in two distinct ways. First, LAUSD is a district of

189
choice and as an institution is more readily able to make sense of choice initiatives like PEA. In
organizing parents all across Southern California, organizers from Parent Revolution asserted
that the Public School Choice Initiative helped facilitate the Jefferson transformation. For
organizers, PSCI represented an existing framework to implement an intervention. Organizers
relied on parents to implement the intervention rather than school leaders. Other districts without
the portfolio of choices readily available to parents may not be ready or have the capacity to
accept or implement PEA petitions.
Secondly, the sociocultural characteristics of the neighborhood around the school, play
and important role in the Implementation of PEA. In Chapter 4, I described some of the key
differences between the Jefferson and Watts neighborhoods. While Jefferson had a beautiful and
convenient park close to the school, which helped them organize, they also felt relatively safe
walking around during after-school ours to collect signatures. Parents at Watts did not have parks
or convenient places to organize and some felt unsafe in collecting signatures around the
neighborhood. More so, the Watts Elementary community is experiencing demographic changes
that influence how families come together or highlight challenges in building consensus as
envisioned through PEA.
In SES, the setting was also important in two ways. First, with services taking place at
home, many parents had the opportunity to participate in their child’s learning. Remote
instruction, be it in a one-to-one tutoring format or through digital instruction, represented how
parents can be involved in educational processes outside of a school setting. In many case,
parents went out of their way to reconfigure their living space for it to be a place conducive to
learning where they and their children would engage in the instruction simultaneously.

190
Despite their struggle to ensure that students had the space to engage in SES instruction,
there were conditions outside of their control, as part of the setting, which could be potential
barriers to the implementation of the program. With the price of housing increasing in Los
Angeles, many families I observed, due to their socio-economic reality shared living spaces with
other families. Space for instruction in these homes was limited. In some households various
families shared the Internet, which slowed the bandwidth necessary to engage in digital
instruction. Parents, nonetheless, worked feverishly to secure a space in their home where a tutor
could visit or transform their living area for a limited time into a mini-classroom ready for SES
instruction.
Parent Individual Histories are Important
Individual parents own knowledge base was instrumental to the implementation of each
choice initiative. In the case of PEA, individual parents were a critical resource of each respected
community. PEA requires that a leadership committee or parents be established in order to
facilitate communication between districts and petitioning parents. Parent Revolution uses these
components of PEA’s design to implement parent union chapters within each school community.
In each community, there have been a key group of parents with certain civic capacities that have
helped unite other parents in implementing PEA. These parents have specific worldview or
knowledge base that facilitates their understanding of collective organizing. Not only that, but in
the case of Jefferson Elementary, these parents were already seen as community leaders by other
parents. At Jefferson, these leader parents had the trust of other parents, which is essential to
building consensus to implement PEA. Without these individual parents, it becomes more
difficult to build a collective base necessary to begin petitioning towards PEA.

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In the case of SES, as argued thoroughly in the previous chapter, parents with more
experience and a history of choice have greater capacity to select providers that adequately and
appropriately cater to their children’s needs. New consumers of choice, especially those that
selected digital services worked to make sense of the program they selected. These parents had
pre-conceived idea of what traditional instruction looked like. They were unsure what to make of
digital instruction. More so, because digital instruction is more personal in that the format creates
a relationship between remote instructor and the student holding the computer, it became
difficult for parents to engage.
Connecting Findings to Research
As argued in Chapter 1, this study investigated how choice policies constructed the roles
of parents and compared it to how families actually interpreted their own participation within
these policies. In Chapter 2, I then situated the work under three different areas of study: parent
engagement, parents participating in school choice initiatives, and parent efforts in community
organizing. In addition, I also relied on social constructions of target populations and sense-
making theory as frameworks to analyze the data collected. I elaborate how this study builds on
each of these areas of research.
Parent Involvement and Community Organizing
The majority of parent involvement literature is guided by Epstein’s (1995) typology of
participation. This framework describes six different ways by which parents could be involved in
schooling matters which include the areas of decision-making, learning at home, volunteering,
communicating with schools, individual parenting, and community collaboration. In both PEA
and SES cases there were examples of this type of involvement.

192
In learning from SES, parent actions were consistent with notions of involvement
depicted by Epstein’s model. Parents participated in individual decision-making to receive
tutoring services for their children. Their decision-making also extended to learning at home as
many parents participated in the SES instruction alongside their children. Implementation of SES
was also influenced by parents’ individual histories, which include cultural knowledge regarding
parenting skills. Based on the implementation of SES in LAUSD, remote formats of instruction
also represent how parent homes do become an extension of involvement outside school settings.
Digital formats of instruction, however, presented a limitation to involvement as many parents
were trying to make sense of it, including the academic benefits to their children.
In terms of PEA, however, the idea of parent involvement is not fully encompassing.
Parents were more than involved in the lives of their children pertaining to their schools. As I
argued, parents were active contenders in addressing school wide decisions. Parents can be more
than members of school site councils to enact change at their local schools. Based on the actions
of parents organizing to implement PEA, I argue for a distinction between parent involvement
and engagement. Parental involvement, the more traditional method reflected by the literature
and predominantly practiced in most school settings, avoids issues of power such as the
distribution of political and economic resources, further framing parents as passive in
maintaining school culture. Parental engagement defines parents as political agents more aware
of their roles as citizens thus acting as change agents who can transform public schools (Warren
& Mapp, 2011). Parents both Jefferson and Watts were engaged relying on their civic capacity to
organize, build consensus, and participate in adversarial forms of action against their school.
Parents at Jefferson tried to communicate and collaborate with the school, but based on their
accounts, they were prevented from doing so.

193
Parents and Choice
Consistent with the literature, parents under SES made decisions on both academic and
non-academic terms. Some parents like Don Jimenez wanted tutoring services for their students
to improve on their academic achievement. Other parents like Doña Gonzalez wanted her
daughter to participate in any for of extra-curricular activities. Most of the parents selected
remote services not only for the promise of academic enrichment, but because they were also
convenient. Finally, parents with more experience with SES and selection of programs were able
to select programs that catered to their individual student needs.
In addition, the parent narrative within this study, adds to the qualitative body of
scholarship engaged in SES. Qualitative research on SES has been descriptive, exploratory, and
focused on the challenges of implementation in a context of limited capacity and/or will on the
part of districts and providers in informing parents about their options and monitoring the quality
and quantity of services (Acosta et al., 2013; Burch, 2007, Burch, Steinberg, & Donovan, 2007;
Center of Educational Policy, 2007; Fusarelli, 2007; Gill et al., 2008; Potter et al., 2007;
Sunderman, 2006; Sunderman & Kim, 2004; Zimmer et al., 2007). Different from the broader
SES scholarship, which centers on the interaction of districts, vendors, and the quality of
information disseminated to families, this specific study centers directly on the experiences of
parents. Adding to the previous research, specifically the work of Heinrich & Burch (2011),
parents in Los Angeles are part of the relationship between students and SES instructors.
Although parents felt in some way intimidated by the online or digital component of SES, they
still nonetheless took the time to participate during instruction. As some of the parents in this
study displayed, there continue to be limits to the information they are receiving regarding their

194
option to participate and their choice of vendor. This last point is consistent to previous
scholarship on parents and SES (Acosta et al, 2013; Burch & Good, 2009; Burch et al., 2012).
Beyond SES, the findings of this study contribute to the scholarship of parent decision-
making around choice policies. In Steele et al. (2011), parents in a post-Katrina New Orleans
made choices between charter and traditional schools based on both academic and nonacademic
factors. Parents decided to participate in charter schools mainly because of the academic
curriculum, the record of student achievement, and attendance and discipline policies (Steele et
al., 2011). Parents also decided to stay at their local traditional school for nonacademic reasons,
which included availability of transportation and proximity to their home (Steele et al., 2011).
Similarly, parents in this study participated to improve the academic achievement of their
children, yet the option of having them participate in SES within the comfort of their home was
an extra adage to their choice. In many cases, parents opted the digital provider not because of
the incentive of a free laptop or tablet, but because they would feel comfortable knowing that
their child was at home engaged in SES instruction.
For the parents participating in this study, home instruction became an important part
critical to their decision-making. The practical consideration of students participating in the
instruction within their home enticed parents, specifically those with elementary aged school
children. This is consistent with scholarship, which has expanded a knowledge base of what
parents want from schools and school choice. Specifically, the work of Harris & Larsen (2015)
in the post-Katrina educational landscape in New Orleans where they found several
characteristics that influences parents to make specific choices around their children’s schools.
One of these characteristics is the distance of the school relative to a child’s home. Harris &
Larsen (2015) found that distance matters to parents specifically to those with elementary aged

195
students. Similarly, parents of this study preferred to select a vendor that would offer services at
their home. Parents not only mentioned that services at home were important for their own piece-
of-mind, but they also alleviated any logistical follow-up to their decision like picking up their
children at a later hour from the school. This last point was specifically crucial to the Los
Angeles landscape, which includes picking up their children at a later hour and driving through
traffic.
In broader terms of choice, collective decision-making as envisioned by PEA is rather
new. As most of the literature has centered on individual choice making, yet collective decision-
making provides a new avenue in analyzing how parents understand and rationalize choice. In
comparing SES and PEA, I provided a difference between opting-out as envisioned by most
choice initiatives, and the idea of opting-in to the local school as designed through PEA. To use
Hirschman’s idea of exit, voice, and loyalty, most of the choice initiatives and designs center on
the exit notion. Parents can opt-out of their local school if they are unhappy with the services
provided. Their decision-making will only impact families at an individual level. In the
implementation of PEA, parents are exercising their voice not only to display their discontent
with the school but to change it.
Currently, because PEA is relatively new to the choice landscape, there is little
scholarship on the law. The findings from the parents in this study, however, echo the work from
Lubienski et al. (2012) in that the wording of the law does not provide a framework or blue-print
to create authentic community involvement as envisioned by the spirit of the law. This portion of
engagement is left up to intermediary organizations like Parent Revolution. More so, Lubienski
et al. attribute the advancement of PEA to advocacy organizations and wealthy funders rather
than effective-school research. This specific study contributes to the role of advocacy or what I

196
call intermediary organizations to the world of educational governance in school reform. In the
case of Watts Elementary, consistent with Lubienski et al.’s assumptions, PEA provided power
to a very narrow majority of the community, which opted to remove the principal leading to the
teachers to transfer out. This last action bewildered parents and in terms of democratic action,
disenfranchised the broad Watts Elementary community. But the role of intermediary
organizations and venture capitalists seeking to provide a mechanism for parents to overhaul
schools is not the whole story.
PEA compared to SES provides a new narrative to choice. In a traditional Freidman
sense, choice models are socially constructed to frame parents as consumers that are to
participate in an educational market. If parents do not like the services that they are receiving,
they can opt-out and select another school. Districts like LAUSD and New Orleans have more
options for parents to choose from. PEA, however, provides a new way of thinking about choice.
As I have mentioned before, PEA provides the option for parents to opt-in to their local school.
Choice is not just about markets but now engages parents and families in a democratic process of
decision-making. My intent here was to capture parent narratives around choice and what I found
was that choice is a lot more nuanced and not just as part of the realm of market logic. With most
of the scholarship centered on the characteristics that parents pay attention to in order to make
informed decisions about selecting a school for their child, this specific study begins a
conversation about the characteristics that parents pay attention to invest time and effort to their
local school.
Finally, without Parent Revolution, parents may have not been able to implement PEA.
Intermediary organizations, like Parent Revolution, have become prominent participants in
educational policy design and implementation (Honig, 2004). In the context of California, there

197
have been no PEA cases without the assistance of Parent Revolution. Consistent with the
scholarship on intermediary organizations, in order for parents to implement PEA as evidenced
in the two cases of this study, they will need the support and resources of organizations like
Parent Revolution (Mitra, 2009). In addition, connected to the scope of work necessary to
support parents, the functions of Parent Revolution and the ability to perform these functions, is
context specific, contingent to the policy demands of the ecological landscape (Honig 2004). In
other words, the support provided by intermediary organizations like Parent Revolution or any
other organizations that seek to support parents in overhauling schools should look different
depending on school, neighborhood, and district.
Theoretical Implications: Towards a New Contender Construction of Parents
To analyze the data collected for this study, I relied on two theoretical frameworks: social
construction of target populations (Schneider & Ingram, 1997) and sense-making theory
(Spillane et al, 2011; Weick, 1995). Starting with the social construction of target populations, I
argued that under the context of PEA parents participated as contenders and under SES as
consumers. Returning back to the assumptions of the framework, parents as contenders have the
political power to overhaul their local schools, yet they are not seen as deserving of doing so.
This definition of parents as contenders as defined by Schneider and Ingram’s framework is
rather limiting. I redefined contender to be more active and participatory; closer to Dewey’s
ideas regarding the relationship between experts and lay citizens. As contenders, parents have the
same political power to that of school leaders and reformers. Schneider & Ingram’s framework
does provide the substantive language to begin formulating a working definition of parents as
contenders under the context of school reform and more specifically school choice. With PEA

198
providing parents an opting-in choice, the contender construction further provides a helpful
distinction to the traditional assumptions of choice: that of the consumer.
Schneider and Ingram’s framework was helpful in analyzing the role of parents as
consumers to that of a dependent target population. In analyzing the role of parents compared to
districts and third-party vendors, as a group, they are dependent on the actions of more powerful
stakeholders. Parents are seen as deserving of the SES instruction, yet they have little power to
address the conditions of the market. By design, the district and the third-party vendors take care
of creating the conditions in which parents are to participate. They are not only dependent on the
policy-making rectitude of the district, they are by design also dependent on the invisible hand of
the market which is to weed out ineffective vendors.
In addition to an analysis of social constructions, Schneider and Ingram’s model helped
to situate the level of power parents have in relationship to other invested stakeholders. The
analysis of power is crucial to PEA as the intent of the law is to provide parents with a
mechanism similar to that of school and reform experts to restructure local underachieving
schools. The amount of political power will, however, differ from community to community and
from school to school. In other words, not all parents are ready to contend in a manner necessary
to implement PEA. As I argued throughout Chapter 4, the parents at Jefferson Elementary were
engaged at their school more so than the parents at Watts in relation to the contender
construction. Using the theoretical framework to compare and contrast both Jefferson and Watts,
I was able to distinguish that the parents at Jefferson were more ready to understand the levels of
political power afforded to them by organizing and eventually implementing the law. More so,
because parents at Jefferson had organized before and lost, yet they continued to fight to improve
their school, based on a power analysis, it can be argued that through resistance, these parents

199
had a deeper understanding of their actions in implementing PEA. Regardless of their resistance
and willingness to improve their school and despite the differences of political power between
Jefferson and Watts, without the assistance and resources of the intermediary organization Parent
Revolution, parents have limited power even under the levers bestowed to them by PEA.
In addition to the social construction of target populations, this study also expanded the
use of sense-making theory to community contexts. Traditionally, sense-making theory in
education is used to analyze school leaders, teachers, and other educational experts in mostly
school settings (Coburn, 2005; Spillane et al, 2001). In the findings of PEA, however,
community setting played a critical role in how parents interpreted and understood the law. This
is consistent with Whiteman and Cooper’s (2011) assertion in that, “landscape can impose
material constraints on human action.”(p.889). Based on the PEA case, in the differences
between Jefferson and Watts, there was evidence that parental actions were ecologically
embedded to their respective neighborhood. Parents within each community responded to cues
within PEA differently and at different times. The interpretation of these cues was critical in how
the implementation of policy played out at Jefferson differently than at Watts.
In terms of assimilation and accommodation of the information regarding the
implementation of PEA, parents relied on their knowledge about engagement to understand their
role in organizing and petitioning the school. In the case of Jefferson, parents began
accommodating information after the petitioning process when it came time to select a provider
to service the new school. Parents had to learn what a Request For Proposal looked like and the
importance of their participation in the process. For many this was new information, which they
accommodated to their working worldview. At Watts, parents assimilated their actions in the
petition process. Parents protested the school and each other in the process. The outcome of the

200
petition, led to previous feelings of tokenization or bewilderment as many had a hard time
accommodating the political action of teachers to their worldview schema.
In the context of sense-making theory, Jefferson and Watts represent how urban spaces
are different and how they can change drastically from one street to the next, in a matter of
minutes. In an organizational sense, community settings are critical to sense-making. In terms of
scholarship, extending sense-making to encompass community contexts can provide greater
depth to how parents are socially constructing their own roles as they participate in schooling
matters. It may also provide greater substance to ethical dilemmas between educational experts
who are expected to implement policy and the families or lay citizens that live it.
Policy Implications
In addition to contributions, the actions of parents under both cases can provide with
valuable lessons towards the betterment of policy design and in turn implementation. The
following recommendations are grounded to the experiences of parents in both cases.
PEA
Intermediary organizations are important in the implementation of the law, yet their
participation also represents a barrier for parents due to the nature of the funding sources of these
organizations. The organizations have nonetheless provided vital resources for parents to
organize and collect the necessary signatures to overhaul their school. Parent Revolution has also
participated in every PEA petition to date including the two in LAUSD. After the Watts
Elementary petition, LAUSD and the Parents Community Services Branch (PCSB) sent out their
own organizers to learn from parent experiences to investigate the outcome of events.
Subsequently, PCSB began creating workshops to inform parents about their rights to participate
in PEA petitions and their rights not to sign a petition they may know little about. Their goal was

201
to build trust between community and district. District actions as such help (re)build
relationships between community and district. In addition, after the Jefferson petition, the district
worked symbiotically with parents. Superintendent John Deasy mentioned that through the
underachievement at Jefferson, they had lost the trust of families. The district collaborated with
parent leaders and Parent Revolution in the intervention of Jefferson Elementary along with
rebuilding relationships with the community.
Organizing as a choice mechanism is more difficult to do than individual decision-
making as envision through more traditional choice options. Parents need the help of community
organizations along with relying on their own set of community leaders to begin the
implementation of PEA. To many of the parents the type of engagement necessary to mobilize,
collect signatures, and build consensus is new. In the process, parents learn and develop their
own civic capacities to begin participating in schooling matters. It makes little sense for parents
to organize and mobilize in efforts to select the closing option within the law. This is part of the
design to entice RTTT money yet is not aligned to the actual needs of the community. Schools
are extensions of the community and parents do not want to shut them down. In addition to that,
parents at Jefferson displayed a deep understanding to the complexity of school reform and made
a decision outside the parameters of the law. Lawmakers and other parents can learn from the
families at Jefferson that opted for a charter/public partnership school.
SES
Although SES is no longer an option in LAUSD and in a majority of other school
districts, there are other forms of out-of-school time programs that families participate in.
Because the district is in charge of designing the conditions by which parents participate, the
information disseminated about programing needs to be in a way readily accessible to parents.

202
This has been argued before and it is part of NCLB’s drive to involve parents in schooling
matters. In part of that information and with increases of technology as a tool towards improving
instruction, districts should invest in programs that focus on digital literacy for parents. Parents
voiced that they wanted to participate in their child’s SES instruction, but they just didn’t know
how to help them. If not directly, the district can offer family resources that lead them to other
organizations that train parents to navigate technology in a way that helps them support their
children.
Emerging Questions
In the analysis, write up of the data, and follow up conversations, the study led to future
questions regarding parent participations. First, PEA requires that parents collectively engage to
overhaul their local school. This requires specific civic capacities in order to understand their
actions, the consequences of those actions, and any response to unintended consequences as a
result of their actions. Many parents within the study did not have the same levels of civic
engagement similar to Doña Vargas, the leader at Jefferson. In addition, the writing within PEA
is ambiguous regarding how parents are to actually organize and mobilize. How then can metrics
of civic engagement be built into design and implementation with regards to urban school
reform?
SES and PEA are also part of a second-generation of choice policies that came after
NCLB. These policies offer families an opportunity to engage in schooling matters through
either individual or collective decision-making. Both of these policies also represent in one way
or another a sanction for local educational agencies. In SES, districts are penalized by losing at
least twenty percent of their Title I funding. In PEA, districts can lose a whole school to a charter
organization or may have the task of hiring new principals and staff. What then are the incentives

203
for districts regarding the implementation of these policies? Does a contradiction in design affect
the quality of information families receive? And in evaluating choice policies for low-income
families, what does the quality of information look like in these second-generation choice
reforms?
Finally, I relied on sense-making theory to flesh out how families interpreted their role in
both choice policies. As I argued above, sense-making in education can benefit by extending the
analysis beyond traditional educational institutions. How can sense-making theory expand from
an instrument used to analyze policy implementation within institutions and organizations to a
window of understanding how communities and neighborhoods practice policy?
Closing Remarks
I conducted this study to learn from families living in Los Angeles about their
experiences with two different choice policies. During my years as a teacher, I constantly heard
the narrative that parents don’t care and that they are not invested. On the contrary, parents
within this study cared deeply about their children and invested time and space to ensure that
their children were successful in their educational experience. In explaining their narrative, I
relied on the atole con el dedo idiom as a device to explain how some of them felt after
participating in both choice initiatives. Parents at Watts got an option that they did not select and
felt tokenized for their actions. Parents at Jefferson organized prior to PEA and got nothing. With
the help of Parent Revolution they got a new outlook to their local school. To implement the law
however, parents need quite a bit of help and without it the law becomes symbolic also giving
parents a little bit of nothing. For SES, parents selected providers that offered a specific quality
of service. In their participation, many felt that the services were not of the quality that was
promised to them. They felt that they got atole con el dedo. A more essential part of the atole

204
con el dedo idiom, is that it allowed me to present a narrative in a language that was familiar to
parents yet can give depth to the way policy is implemented and lived. I relied on my own
cultural experience, which included the history of my own family to broker a narrative about the
educational options offered to families and how these options genuinely impact their lives.

205
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Appendix A
Parent Empowerment Act- Parent Protocol
Thanks very much for coming here today (introductions).

Explanation of the study
-I am studying how parents optimize options for their children’s schooling through the
Parent Empowerment law
- I will be talking with parents from Jefferson and Watts Elementary to compare and
contrast how the law played out in these two communities

Consent forms
-Explanation of focus group (Spanish)
-Explanation of giving consent (Spanish)
-Contact information, my email and phone

I’ve asked you to come here today because you have successfully filed for a trigger petition and I
am interested in knowing about your experiences. We believe that the information you share
with me tonight will help to better understand how the Parent Empowerment law functions as a
choice for parents. Are there any questions at this time?

1. Participating in the “engagement”

1.1 Tell me a little about your school before the petition

• Tell me about some of the characteristics you liked about your child’s school?
• What are some of the drawbacks/ areas of improvement?

1.2 Did you participate in any other type of engagement with regards to your school before
you decided to unionize through the Parent Trigger Law?

1.3 Why did you decide to start organizing?

2. Influence and Information

2.1 How did you decide to start organizing in order to file a Parent Trigger Petition?
• What information did you get or receive to help you in your agenda setting
process? How did you get it?
• Ideally, what kind or different information do you want? Through what channels?
(district, school, Parent Revolution, state, other)

2.2 What was the role of Parent Revolution during the organizing process?
• Are community organizers still working with the community to ensure that the
new school is doing well?

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2.3 Why did you choose to vote for the Trigger overhaul?

2.4 How did you select your final option (charter/transformation/turn-around)?

3. Experiences in the “trigger” process

3.1 What is your understanding of the Parent Empowerment Law or Trigger law?

3.2 What are some of the perceived benefits? Drawbacks from the law in your point of view
as a parent?

• Could you see the law implemented in other communities? What may be some
roadblocks? Barriers? Benefits?
• How did other school personnel react to you organizing for change?
• What where some of the challenges you faced form: school, community, media?

3.2 Please describe your child’s experience as you choose to reform the school. How has
your child experienced the change taking place at your school? Has the change affected
the current learning experience in your community?

4. Conclusion

4.1 What are some of the improvements (if any) you all have noticed since your option to
overhaul the school through the Parent Empowerment Law?
• What are some of the areas where the new school needs to still improve?

4.2 What can be improved regarding the engagement of parents, school officials, and other
invested community members to create an environment more conducive to respect,
dialogue, and reform?

4.3 Would you file for a petition process again if the opportunity arises?

4.4 What would you like to share with other parents that are thinking about organizing to
redesign/overhaul their school through the Parent Engagement Law?

4.4 Are there any other questions or comments that anyone would like to ask or make?

Thank you again for your participation; I greatly appreciate your coming here today to share
your opinions with me.

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Appendix B
Parent Empowerment Act: Parent Revolution Group

~Introduction and Description of study
~Confidentiality of individuals
~Looking to understand Parent Empowerment Law from various perspectives
~All aspects are voluntary on your part and I am always available

Date _________ Name _____________________________ Interviewer initials ______

Questions

1. Admin or Educational background

Probes:
Education experience
Advocacy experience
Community organizing experience
Other related experience
What role do you play in the organization?
* Describe a typical work day or week for you.

2. General background on Parent Empowerment law

Probes:
Perceived purpose of the Parent Empowerment law
How is it different from other choice initiatives provided to parents in educational policy?

3. Communication

Probes:
Describe the kinds of interactions over the past year with (student participants and their families,
district staff, school staff, and media,)
Challenges in communication with these groups
Organizing model for recruiting parents

4. Applying the law at current project

Probes:
Describe how you helped parents “trigger: the law at [specific community]
a. Is there an organizational rubric? What were your first steps?
b. How did parents respond? (what parents responded)
c. What were some challenges in the process?
Describe some of the organizational/activists/community approaches when speaking with parents

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a. * Rationale for approach
b. Is this a method that you plan to use in the future? What were some things that
worked with this approach? What did not?

5. Perceived challenges to implementing Parent “Triggers” in Los Angeles

Probes:
The implementation process
State policy-will the law stay? Other states?
Target populations (Low income, minority)
Financial considerations
School-level issues/implementation
Organizational process
Other issues

6. What do you see/envision is the role of parents in current educational reform efforts?

7. Any additional questions or suggestions

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Appendix C
Observation Instrument
Observation Protocol
Name of Observer Date Time

Location Study

Brief Summary of Observation

Physical Space
Define the physical
space.
• Geographical
• Temporal
• Physical
• Political

Utility: What is the
purpose of
event/setting?

Participant reactions to
physical setting

Other

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People/Participants
Who are the
participants taking
place in
observation/event?
How many
participated?

Demographical
information:
• Racial
• Ethnic
• Gender
• Class

What are the roles of
those being observed?
How do you know?

What was each of the
specific participants
doing?
• Group interaction
• Individual actions
• Passive
participants
• Active participants

Purpose of Events/Observation
Why is the event
taking place? Are there
any political contexts
to be discussed?

Who was invited to
event? Who was not?

Was there any
discussion of
educational policy?
Why? How so?

227
What are the positions
of the various
participants involved?
• Power dynamics
• Roles

What is being
discussed?

Sequence of Events
Beginning
Middle
End

Observer Role
What am I doing?
What is my role
throughout the
observation?

Describe some of my
interactions with other
participants
throughout the
observation.

228
How did my
interaction/presence
affect the observation
participants?

Other

Pictures

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Appendix D
Supplementary Education Services Focus Group Interview
Thanks very much for coming here tonight (introductions).

Explanation of the study
-What is SES/T4U/RAMMP
-We are studying how it is working in five school districts across the country
-Talking with parents, district and state staff, owners of tutoring companies, tutors
-Observing selected tutoring sessions over the course of the year
-Looking at effects tutoring might have on student academic data (test scores, attendance,
GPA, etc)

Participant role
-You’ve been invited because your child was eligible
-We are interested in your experiences to understand and improve tutoring

Consent forms
-Explanation of focus group
-Explanation of responses as anonymous
-Explanation of giving consent
-Contact information, website

-Hand out packet (consent forms, contact info, brief questionnaire)

Are there any questions at this time?

1. Opportunity to participate in tutoring

1.1 How did you first know your student was eligible for free tutoring?
1.2 What made you decide to have your child participate or not participate?
How was this decision made?

2. Choice of tutoring provider (if applicable)

2.1 What information did you get or receive to help you choose a tutoring provider?
How did you get it?
2.2 Ideally, what more or different information would you have wanted? Through what
channels? (district, school, providers, state, other)
2.3 Why did you choose the tutoring provider your student is with?
Did you have a choice?

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3. Experiences with tutoring

3.1 Please tell me about your experiences with the services your child received. What were
the benefits? What was the downside or cost?
3.2 How much of your time did tutoring take (travel, paperwork, helping child)
3.3 What would you change about the tutoring services your child received, if anything?
(registration process, content of tutoring, communication, etc.)
3.4 Did your child use a computer, tablet (iPad), handheld (iPod) as part of tutoring? How
often? Were there technical problems? What is your feeling about the quality of tutoring?
3.5 Please tell me about your families’ experiences with tutoring, if English is not your
child’s primary language (like, didn’t like, services were missing?) Given these
experiences, what changes if any would you suggest?
3.6 Please tell me about your families’ experiences with tutoring if your child has special
needs (like, didn’t like, services were missing?) Given these experiences, what changes
would you suggest?
3.7 Were there any challenges faced in having your child participate regularly?

4. Conclusion

4.1 (If time) If given the opportunity, would you enroll your child in this tutoring program
again? Why or why not?
4.2 Are there any other questions or comments that anyone would like to ask or make?

Thank you again for your participation; we greatly appreciate your coming here today to share
your opinions with us.

231
Appendix E
Supplemental Education Service – Parent Follow-Up
Thanks very much for taking your time to talk to me (introductions).

Explanation of the study
-I am here to follow up from our last conversation in your participation with SES tutoring
programs. I am here to learn about your experiences a year after your participation and if
you have sought these programs out

Participant role
-I am interested in your experiences with tutoring and whether your child participates in
other programs

Consent forms
-Explanation of interview
-Explanation of responses as anonymous
-Explanation of giving consent
-Contact information

-Hand out packet (consent forms & contact info)

Are there any questions at this time?

1. Familiarity with SES
a. What do you remember about your child’s participation with the tutoring program
SES?
b. Did you try and look for services this incoming year?
c. Did your son/daughter ask to participate in this programs this year?
d. Did you receive any type of incentive for your participation? If yes, how does
your child use the incentive if applicable?

2. Reaction to LAUSD & Closure of SES
a. Did anyone from the school, a vendor, or the district reach out to you about SES
this year?
b. Were you made aware that SES is no longer being offered by LAUSD?
c. What do you think about SES no longer being offered by LAUSD?

3. Other Programing
a. Did you look for other programs for your child once you found about SES?
b. Why do you think the district decided to end the program?

232
c. What is your overall opinion regarding these programs?
d. If LAUSD brought these programs back, what changes would you like to add?

4. Other Questions

Thank you again for your participation; we greatly appreciate your coming here today to share
your opinions with us.

233
Appendix F
List of Codes
First Cycle Codes
PEA SES
Macro-Codes
• Achievement
• School intervention
• Policy
• Parent participation
• Poverty
• Civic engagement
• Democratic action
• Choice
• Social constructions

Decision-making
• Collective based on parents
• Collective based on Parent Revolution
• Individual non academic
• Individual on academic needs
• Other

Civic Aptitude
• Established
• Emerging
• Absent
• Trained

Sense-making
• Individual level
• Collective level
• Historical
• Cultural
• Rational
• Institutional
• Language
• Neighborhood

Community-based organizations
• Role
• Help
• Resources
Macro-Codes
• Achievement
• Tutoring
• Markets
• Choice
• Parent participation
• Consumerism
• Individual
• Neoliberalism
• Social constructions

Decision-making
• Academic gains
• District /school help
• Vendor informed
• Previous experience

Market Aptitude
• Established
• Emerging
• Absent
• Trained

Sense-making
• Individual
• Shared with other parents
• Historical
• Cultural
• Rational
• Institutional
• Market-pitch
• Language

Third party vendors
• Role
• Help
• Resources
• Influence

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• Influence

Setting
• Physical characteristic
• Political characteristic
• Sense-making/ecological

Government
• Adversary
• Partner
• Relationship

Social construction
• Participant
• Citizen
• Dependent
• Advantaged
• Deviant
• Contender

Leadership
• Collective
• Individual
• School
• CBO/Parent Revolution

Benefits
• Child/individual
• Collective/school
• Community
• Outcomes

Challenges
• Child/individual
• Collective/school
• Community
• CBO
• Outcomes

Contenders
• Decision-making
• Navigation
• Leadership
• Design
• Deserving/undeserving

Setting
• Physical characteristic
• Political characteristic
• Sense-making

Government
• Relationship
• Information
• Role
• Action

Social construction
• Participant
• Consumer
• Advantaged
• Deviant
• Contender
• Dependent

Benefits
• Academic
• Non-academic

Challenges
• Information
• Decision-making
• Academic
• Services
• Tutors/vendors
• Outcomes

Consumer
• Information
• Selection
• Cost-benefit
• Exit
• Voice
• Loyalty

Dependents
• Help
• Poverty
• Redistributive
• Limited capacity

235
• Power
• Experts
• Burden
• Benefits
• Other

Design
• Civic principles
• Government role
• Target
• Intended outcomes
• Unintended outcomes
• Options
• Contradictions
• Stakeholders

Implementation
• Parent actions
• Gov’t actions
• Parent Revolution actions
• Mediating factors
• Challenges

Reflection
• Perceptions of success
• Limits to success
• Other avenues

• Limited participation
• Deserving
• Power

Design
• Market principles
• Government
• Targets
• Intended outcomes
• Unintended outcomes
• Options
• Contradictions
• Stakeholders

Implementation
• Parent actions
• Gov’t actions
• Vendor actions
• Mediating factors
• Challenges

Reflection
• Perception of success
• Limits to success
• Other acenues

Second Cycle Coding
PEA SES
Role of organizations
• Mediating information for parents
• Mediating action for parents
• Mediating implementation for parents
• Hindering action for parents
• Symbiotic relationship for parents

Community Setting
• Mediating factor in sense-making
• Mediating factor in implementation
• Hindering factor to implementation
Role of Organizations
• Mediating information for parents
• Mediating action for parents
• Influential to the implementation
• Hindering parent decision-making
• Service relationship with
parent/consumers

Home Setting
• Mediating factor to sense-making
• Mediating factor to implementation

236
Contender Role
• Decision-maker
• Expert
• Leadership

Parent Leadership
• Developed civic capacity
• Developing civic capacity
• Hindering factor to implementation

Consumer Role
• Decision-maker
• Seasoned consumer
• Novice consumer
• Dependency

Abstract (if available)

Abstract Parent participation in schooling matters has become a topic of interest as part of educational reform for the last three decades. Although scholarship has documented parent participation and its benefits to students before that, it was mainly focused as practice at a local level. Policy initiatives, like No Child Left Behind (NCLB), took the extra step to expand the dialogue at the federal level by defining parent involvement and establishing guidelines for educational agencies to begin building two-way relationships with families. The authorization of NCLB also heralded the introduction of second-generation choice policies, which provided families with different types of choice policies as an incentive to participation and an effort to improve academic gains. Part of the emphasis on offering educational choices for families is also a result of neoliberalist ideology that espouses the several market principles one being individual self-interest. In result, parents have become the central targets of policy in efforts towards educational reform. In the process of designing these specific choice initiatives, parents have historically and problematically been socially constructed as a deficit-based group that lacks the appropriate or adequate knowledge to make informed decisions. In addition, choice policies seldom have the reflective space to adhere to parents’ needs and voices, which in turn can offer insight to how policy is lived and practiced. ❧ The following study takes an in-depth look at how two specific choice initiatives are understood and practiced by parents. As part of the federal initiative to engage parents, I will study and analyze Supplemental Education Services (SES), which is a mini-voucher program for after-school programs. As part of second-generation choice policies, SES offers families the individual option to select programs that will help improve on academic achievement. The second is the state initiative in California called the Parent Empowerment Act (PEA), better known as the Parent Trigger. As second-generation choice initiative, PEA offers families the option to collectively petition their local school to implement a school-wide intervention

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

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Asset Metadata

Creator Acosta, Rodolfo (author)

Core Title Atole con el dedo: learning from low-income parents' lived experiences with educational choice policies

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Urban Education Policy

Publication Date 07/24/2015

Defense Date 06/09/2015

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag choice,education policy,OAI-PMH Harvest,parent involvement,parent triggers,social constructivism

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Burch, Patricia E. (committee chair), Cooper, Terry L. (committee member), Kezar, Adrianna J. (committee member), Marsh, Julie A. (committee member)

Creator Email acostar@usc.edu,rudy.acosta@live.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-607700

Unique identifier UC11299795

Identifier etd-AcostaRodo-3705.pdf (filename),usctheses-c3-607700 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-AcostaRodo-3705.pdf

Dmrecord 607700

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Acosta, Rodolfo

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA