Q: Our local school is awful. Some parents in our district saw a movie about using a "parent trigger" law to shut down a failing school. I'm not sure how much work that would entail and if it would make a difference. How common are these laws and have they been successful?

A: California passed the nation's first parent trigger law in January 2010. Since then, six other states -- Connecticut, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Ohio -- have passed some version of parent-trigger legislation. The National Council on State Legislatures reports that at least 25 states have considered it.

Parent-trigger laws allow parents to become deeply involved in the management and decision-making in their children's school. They spell out processes parents can use to organize and act to improve a school, such as removing the principal and faculty, converting it to a charter school or even closing the school altogether and reassigning students to better-performing schools.

The movie those parents saw was probably "Won't Back Down," a 2012 story of two moms (one a teacher) who use a state law to take over their kids' struggling school. It is loosely based on events in a California district.

While the laws (and the movie) have been successful in drawing national attention to parents' frustrations in challenging a school's history of underperformance, very few schools have been affected. California is the only state in which parents have successfully used the law to force changes at a failing school.

Changing a school from the outside requires robust leadership, organization and planning. The Los Angeles-based Parent Revolution (parentrevolution.org) trains parents in organizing, building knowledge of what works, and fostering relationships with teachers, administrators, school boards and other constituencies in the community to bring about change. It offers support to parents in any community working to improve schools, whether or not they are in "parent trigger" states.

Another group, Parents Across America (parentsacrossamerica.org), supports parental empowerment, but opposes parent-trigger processes because they are divisive and likely to cause more problems that they solve, says Rita Solnet, a founding member based in Florida. She has extensive experience in involving the entire community in improving schools.

"Parents, grandparents, retired educators and local citizens can partner with schools to improve the quality of public education," she says. "That creates goodwill among citizens versus the divisiveness, turmoil and uncertainty inherent in a parent takeover."

Last year, Los Angeles schools Superintendent Ramon Cortines affirmed the district's support for allowing parents to petition for sweeping changes in failing schools.

In an interview with The Los Angeles Times, "Cortines said he saw no reason not to allow parents the chance to change their schools under the trigger law if they so desire."

He explained that "it is a part of giving parents a choice. If they want to do something, I need to support it."

Still, while Cortines has given encouragement to concerned parents, he has urged patience in tackling school reform efforts.

(Do you have a question about your child's education? Email it to Leanna@aplusadvice.com. Leanna Landsmann is an education writer who began her career as a classroom teacher. She has served on education commissions, visited classrooms in 49 states to observe best practices, and founded Principal for a Day in New York City.)

Q: Our school is urging parents to give their kids more access to computers at home so that they can practice their keyboarding skills for tests given this spring. My middle-school-age son is an accomplished Minecrafter and gamer, but a really poor typist. Why does he need to know how to type to do well on a computer-based test?

A: If your son excels at Minecraft, he'll do fine on test items that require a student to "drag and drop" a correct answer, but he needs to polish his typing skills for the short answer and essay responses.

The old "fill in the bubble" multiple-choice tests are now as rare as carbon paper. Today's computer-based assessments make use of a range of digital capabilities to help kids "show what they know."

Created to align with Common Core State Standards (CCSS), the new tests are more nuanced and don't look for one right answer. They are packed with open response questions constructed to test whether students can think critically, analyze and solve problems, write a cogent essay and provide thoughtful, short responses to questions.

In other words, the tests give students opportunities to demonstrate their thinking -- something everyone agrees is hard with multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank items.

Most states assessing the CCSS use one of two test providers: Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC, parcconline.org/for-parents) and Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (smarterbalanced.org).

Each organization provides sample practice items for each tested grade on their websites. For example, a sample seventh-grade PARCC English test item asks students to read two passages about electricity, watch a short TED Talk video about building circuits with Play-Doh, and then write an essay, explaining their thinking with evidence from each source.

California educator Corinne Burton visits school districts around the country in her capacity as president of Teacher Created Materials, an education publisher. She says teachers are pushing to get students up to speed in keyboarding.

"We're seeing this all over," she says. "After years on the decline, keyboarding classes are coming back. Schools are setting instructional standards for keyboarding and beefing up their programs to get students ready for digital testing. Parents can help."

Burton has successfully used Typing.com and some online games with her own kids to prepare them.

She suggests that parents ask their kids' teachers which test provider their school is using.

"Go to the provider's website and try out with your kids the sample test questions at the appropriate grade level," says Burton. "You'll not only get a sense of how they'll fare at typing with time constraints, you'll see what skill and concept mastery the new standards expect of students."

In life, there are no multiple-choice answers, says Jeff Nellhaus, director of policy, research and design for PARCC. "You have to construct your own answers from your own knowledge and drawing on other sources to get information."

The new tests are designed to measure students' ability to do just that. It would be a shame if poor keyboarding skills prevented your son from demonstrating what he really knows.

(Do you have a question about your child's education? Email it to Leanna@aplusadvice.com. Leanna Landsmann is an education writer who began her career as a classroom teacher. She has served on education commissions, visited classrooms in 49 states to observe best practices, and founded Principal for a Day in New York City.)

Q: Our fifth-grade son loves reading and science and does well in them, but he has always had trouble in math. His teacher says he's "working below capacity." The trouble is, she really can't describe what "below capacity" means. Does that mean he's below grade level?

A: You say he's always had trouble with math, so it could mean that he's working below fifth-grade level and has been promoted from grade to grade without fully mastering math content each year. Or it could mean that he knows the material but doesn't love the subject and simply doesn't apply himself.

Whatever the reason, you're right to be concerned, says San Jose, California, fifth-grade teacher Bill Laraway.

"When students do well in most subjects but lag in one, parents and teachers sometimes assume that they'll just catch up," he says. "But math is one of those subjects requiring a strong early foundation. Students must master one set of skills before moving to another. Your son will need to up his math game to be successful in middle school math and science."

Schedule another conference with his teacher, suggests Laraway.

"Ask her to pinpoint areas where his skills and understanding are weak," he says. "Create a plan to help him quickly come up to speed. This could mean working with a resource teacher who suggests practice activities that you monitor. You could also consider a tutor. If he truly lacks skill mastery, you have to help him catch up."

If he knows the material and just doesn't apply himself, "show him that math can be useful in his day-to-day life, that he can have fun with it and it can be a lifelong tool to make life easier," says Laraway.

Find fun math-related games and puzzles to challenge him.

"Since he loves science," Laraway says, "show him how key math is in higher-level science. There are no successful scientists who fail at math."

Many parents want tangible ways to understand if their child is on track in school, says Bill Jackson, president and founder of GreatSchools.org, an organization that supports parental engagement in their children's education.

"Report cards don't tell the whole story," he says. "With the new state learning standards, parents are demanding easy ways to know if a child is working on grade level."

To demonstrate what skill proficiency looks like, GreatSchools created a series of short Milestone Videos to help parents assess their child's progress in reading, writing and math in grades kindergarten through five. Click on the fifth-grade math milestones, for example, and you'll see a teacher guiding a student through key skills such as adding and subtracting fractions with different denominators and estimating answers to word problems.

The videos in English and Spanish highlight three to five key elements of the standards in each subject. Before meeting with your son's teacher, go through the fifth-grade math videos to learn what "on grade level" means in math, says Jackson.

"Does the son appear to understand the concepts?" he asks. "If not, try the fourth-grade math videos, and so on. You'll get a sense of what he may still need to learn."

To access the Milestone Videos, go to greatschools.org/milestones or check out the YouTube channel: youtube.com/greatschools.

(Do you have a question about your child's education? Email it to Leanna@aplusadvice.com. Leanna Landsmann is an education writer who began her career as a classroom teacher. She has served on education commissions, visited classrooms in 49 states to observe best practices, and founded Principal for a Day in New York City.)