Curious: Newest Times' Editorial
"The Seattle School Board needs to be reminded of its responsibility to perform due diligence on every policy initiative requiring its approval.
This was not done when the board acquiesced to Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson's request to spend $756,000 on a consultant to help revamp high school curricula."
But how do you really feel?
"The board's 4-3 vote for the contract came at its June 16 meeting. Every board member had a question about the contract. Some had several. Answers were wrapped in educational jargon so thick it may have been tempting to approve the contract simply to halt district staffers from offering more pedagogical statements.
Board member Steve Sundquist acknowledges he and his colleagues were not up to speed on the contract. Yet, he voted for it. Compelling his vote was a sense of trust that the superintendent's vision on this — while murky to him and his colleagues — was worth following. Board member Harium Martin-Morris had a different take; without clear and convincing evidence the contract was necessary, he voted no.
Absent clear understanding across the board, the vote should have been postponed."
Good to hear that educational jargon is getting on other people's nerves; from the Times' lips to Goodloe-Johnson's ears.
This section is key:
"Board member Steve Sundquist acknowledges he and his colleagues were not up to speed on the contract. Yet, he voted for it. Compelling his vote was a sense of trust that the superintendent's vision on this — while murky to him and his colleagues — was worth following. Board member Harium Martin-Morris had a different take; without clear and convincing evidence the contract was necessary, he voted no."
Why is it key? Because these two Directors represent the different sides of what the public - and Board members - believe the job of School Board Director is. Either you make sure a process was followed, ask questions and thus satisfied, figure the person you are paying big bucks to knows what she is doing. Or, on the other hand, there is a Director who pays attention to the process, asks questions and when he or she isn't satisfied with the answers, votes no.
I do not fault Director Sundquist; I think he ran on this proposition and won. Harium ran as someone who would be an overseer and not a rubberstamp. We can all have our opinions on which we would vote for but I think it gets to the heart of the matter of "What is the role of the Board". And to those who ranted against "activist" Board members, well, you can have an equally divided Board with those who are more hands off and those who are more hands on. This coming election will probably sharpen that choice and I hope every pays attention to forums and interviews. E-mail candidates yourself with that question.
And lastly:
"Voting blind may work this time. The superintendent appears to know what she is doing. But the board cannot relax its vigilance. Its credibility and public trust are at stake."
Voting blind? That's it in a nutshell. We cannot have the Board not doing their jobs. Their job in not to know everything but to ask the right questions and if they don't get clear and understandable answers - just say no. We know what happened the last time we had a superintendent who appeared to know what he was doing.
Bravo to the Times.
Comments
http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:Fw50HI1zfgYJ:www.seattleschools.org/area/board/08-09agendas/061709agenda/collegereadinessreport.pdf+%22consultant%22+and+%22June+17%22&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
And here's the list of all the curriculum "alignment" the Superintendent has planned for our kids' schools -- heads up: after math and LA, science, social studies and world languages are next:
"TIMELINE FOR IMPLEMENTATION/EVALUATION
The following are key deliverables for this project:
o
Report proposing revisions of high school course offerings: Fall 2009
o
Curriculum alignment for mathematics: Completed
o
Professional development for mathematics: Most training complete by June 2011
o
Curriculum alignment for language arts: Complete by December 2009
o
Professional development for language arts: Most training complete by June 2011
o
Curriculum alignment for science: Complete by December 2009
o
Professional development for science: Most training complete by June 2011
o
Curriculum alignment for social studies: Complete by June 2010
o
Professional development for social studies: Most training complete by 2011
o
Curriculum alignment for world languages: Complete by December 2009"
Also, here's an earlier discussion on this blog about education alignment and Education First's ties to Broad, Kipp, Gates, etc.
http://saveseattleschools.blogspot.com/2009/06/curriculum-alignment.html
Yep, the Usual Suspects.
And yes, once again the School Board demonstrates a pathetic lack of leadership or inquiry. For all their talk about 'budget crisis' in SPS this year, this Superintendent and Board sure are willing to toss large amounts money to questionable places.
And the evidence for that is where? To the contrary, it seems to me that on Goodloe-Johnson's watch, SPS has experienced an unprecedented amount of chaos. Not to mention back-peddling, as well as a fair amount of forging ahead over cliffs (for example, selecting a flawed and rejected math curriculum over the protests of parents and math teachers, or forcing through a series of school closures, mergers and splits without any regard for demographics and now facing the prospect of having to consider REOPENING schools only 5 months after voting to close schools).
By contract, in Tacoma, the School Superintendent appears to be doing a more laudable job. True, it's only his first year, but he managed to navigate through difficult financial times without laying off any teachers. He deserves high praise for that alone, in my book.
http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/story/789684.html
Tacoma, WA - Thursday, June 25, 2009
High marks for Tacoma schools chief
MELISSA SANTOS; The News Tribune
(...)
"In written forms, School Board members said Jarvis took thoughtful cost-saving measures that prevented teacher layoffs in the district of 29,000 students."
(Supt. Jarvis also turned down a raise: http://blogs.thenewstribune.com/politics/2009/06/25/tacoma_schools_chief_turns_down)_raise
Dr G-J was given a 2.0 for instruction and curriculum, then handed nearly one million dollars for curriculum and instruction. THE VERY SAME NIGHT!
That vote should have been 6-0 against.
Chow of course once again missed the boat by saying that the same thing should be taught in each classroom at each grade. Yes, maybe for 3rd grade that is true, but by highschool students need classes that will help build their transcripts that will help them gain access into their college of choice.
College-ready: What does that mean? We have seen on the Math home page that it seems to be "good study habits." But what is SPS really saying is college-ready? Ready for the UW, community college, ivy league? Each one of those colleges require very different "college-readiness" and every student needs the ability to prepare their transcript accordingly.
Stripping programs in the name of alignment, forcing all students to take AP classes will handicap our students when competing for seats at the college level.
The only way the SAP will work is if every school is EXACTLY the same. So programs like LA Options at RHS will dissappear and the LA classes will look exactly like those offered at RBHS, Ballard, Franklin....
When they get to science, the Bio-Tech program will most likely also dissappear in place of a 4-year science track that is the same at all schools.
(I suspect you will see a surge in IB enrollment as this happens.)
Earned-Automony: The super refused to define this on KUOW this week, but did manage to come up with one example of how this "may" work. The example she gave was a school with low reading scores, may get a reading specialist. Struggling schools will "earn" support services. Huh?Shouldn't that just be a given? The white elephant, of course, was the LA Options program. That should have been her example, but it wasn't!
I am very sad about the direction of my children's education in SPS.
I am also greatly disappointed in the boards repeated division when comes to these momumental votes that will impact students for years after Dr. G-J has taken her show on the road, with the help of the Broad Academy.
4-3, 4-3....4-3
Social studies alignment by Dec 2010?
Is this enough time to properly analyze and create a meaningful curriculum alignment? We're talking 5 months.....
I think the board should put a halt on any more standardization, or any more major changes in the district until the dust settles from the chaos and confusion of this year. Families, and staff, need time to catch their breath.
There we have lots of people telling youngsters that they should just say 'no' to choices that are (potentially) unhealthy and complicate their lives, like alcohol and smoking and sexual relations and getting in with the wrong crowd... and we encourage them to develop critical thinking skills so that they can make sound decisions for themselves and can stand out and away from the pack...
And what do we have the Board do? With the exception of Harium and Mary (and comments have been made about her effectiveness), they rubber stamp, even when they admit they dont have the information to back their decisions...
You have it in black and white as a quote from Steve Sundquist... he's admitted he's not doing his job - he didnt have enough information to make a quality decision, so he abdicated his responsibility and handed over control to the Superintendent... I would expect a 17-year old to take this path of least resistance - its not appropriate for an elected official who is charged with ensuring the educational wellbeing of more than 45,000 students.
Is this enough for a recall?
Has anyone thought about whether the superintendent's curriculum alignment in Charleston worked?
I invite you to examine the South Carolina Department of Education report card for Charleston County under the leadership of Dr. Goodloe-Johnson. Here is a link to the 2007 report card, which was released after she left Charleston but covers the time when she was still superintendent.
I leave it to you: do you find these data impressive? If the school board knew about these data, why did they hire her?
Does this board ever do any research before it makes a decision?
$750,000 is a lot of money. Families need to be sure kids can graduate from SPS ready for calculus at the UW (so they can prepare for engineering, science and medical majors without a year of remediation). Can we ask Education First to make sure our kids have a solid path to get there? Will the work of Education First be open to the public?
To diverge only a little, again at this meeting at AS#1 on Friday, our new principal stated that the District is providing staff with math and literacy coaches... for which I am grateful, of course...
But I asked what about remedial work with struggling children, one-on-one, which is how children best improve their skills... what strategies were in place and who was going to do that?... no answer...
I commented that I wished the District give us money and resources to work with the children direct, rather than using a conduit approach to transfer knowledge amongst adults and there still is no increased contact time with children who need it...
I think this situation runs along the same lines... why pay $750K to an outside consultant (who probably has connections with companies that have a vested interest in the process and outcome moving in a particular direction), when we already have enough 'experts' within SPS itself ie the teachers who have to do the work and supposedly have been trained to understand curriculum development and delivery, and you could spend that money in the classrooms directly - positively impacting children directly...
The only reason I could see for bringing in an outside consultant is if you already have an idea about where you want to go and you want to sidestep local involvement and protest...
So, this $750K for an external consultant, plus the $100K+ for the Broad person to work with the Superintendent...
$850K approx this year (and possibly longer) for jargon, edu-speak and nonsense, moving in a direction many parents dont want for this education system...
$850K a year - wonder what we could do for our kids with that?
Yes, 750k is a lot of money.
Check out the Education First Consulting response to the RFP here.
Note that the personnel costs are $112.50/hour (content experts) to $200/hour (Jennifer Vnanek).
And the LA teachers who are serving on the LA adoption committees--they're getting how much? Keep in mind that LA department heads have been working on curriculum alignment and a separate group of LA teachers have been working on the core texts.
In the meantime, the LA departments of Center School, Roosevelt and Franklin have resisted the core text adoption process. To what extent does the Board understand this resistance and the reasons behind it?
Has the Board considered that SPS's core text adoption might be at odds with the position of The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) as stated here?
Wow, $200 per hour for Jennifer Vraneck. I am stunned.
Sahila -- Laurelhurst elementary has great one-to-one math and reading tutors assigned to struggling students. About six of them in the school. Paid for by the Laurelhurst PTA.
Those math coaches provided to you by the district are probably paid for by the "Microsoft Math Partnership". We have one at Hamilton who is trying to eliminate honors math. How is that an improvement?
I invite you to examine the South Carolina Department of Education report card for Charleston County under the leadership of Dr. Goodloe-Johnson. Here is a link [http://ed.sc.gov/topics/researchandstats/schoolreportcard/2007/district/D1001999.pdf] to the 2007 report card, which was released after she left Charleston but covers the time when she was still superintendent.
I leave it to you: do you find these data impressive? If the school board knew about these data, why did they hire her?"
In addition, here is the Charleston Superintendent's report for 2006, which was definitely on Goodloe-Johnson's watch:
http://ed.sc.gov/topics/researchandstats/schoolreportcard/2006/district/D1001999.pdf
Among other things, note that Charleston had NO alternative schools, so maybe Goodloe-Johnson has no experience with the alternative model and doesn't understand these schools and their value, which is why she was so willing to close (Summit), threaten (AS#1 & Center School) and merge (Nova & arguably Lowell & Washington APP) so many of Seattle's alternative and nontraditional schools in her "Capacity Management Plan."
(The other possibility, as stated elsewhere in this blog, is that Goodloe-Johnson's goal is to standardize everything in the District to the level of blandness and mediocrity in the name of "alignment" -- or to do away with all the schools and programs that compete with private schools, and foment such dissatisfaction among SPS parents with local public schools that they might welcome charters as a "solution" out of desperation. Greasing the skids, if you will, for privatized charters.....)
Speaking of which, this report also shows that Charleston had/has 5 charter schools in its District. Note their performance: not impressive.
(Apologies for the typo in my earlier post regarding Tacoma's School Superintendent who prevented any teacher layoffs. I meant to write "In contrast...")
http://www.eccalandspublicinvolvement.ca/
I've been whinging for a long time now about the lack of community engagement in the District and also at AS#1...
I've been looking at how other communities and organisations do it, and I thought the above link might be something useful to post...
A consultancy called Bang The Table
http://www.bangthetable.com
cites many, many more examples of small, medium and large public entities using the web for engagement.... why cant we do that here?
"I think instituting the Charleston Plan for Excellence, the standardized curriculum, the standardized benchmark assessment system, teacher coaches in classrooms, revamping special education ..."
They asked me why I was running, and I said to do the work that wasn't getting done. What work? they asked. I gave a long list which included reviewing the superintendent's recommendations prior to approving them. Like what? they asked, and I told them the story of this vote. I guess they couldn't believe that the Board would agree to an $800,000 contract without knowing what was in it. They must have found the story so incredible that they reviewed the tape of the meeting. Sure enough, they saw what I saw.
I guess this means that the Seattle Times Editorial Board shares my concerns and wants someone like me on the Board.
and obviously believes in the 'one size fits all' approach... standardisation, standardisation, standardisation...Broad, Broad, Broad...
and what was it she said on KUOW last week - she wasnt STANDARDISING, she was ALIGNING... yeah right!
Was there no information about her approach and her track record in Charleston on which to draw?
If there was, and the Board was fully informed, doesnt that mean that the majority of the Board actually supports the direction we are going in?
This is all before my time, so I am wondering if the various Baord members ran on platforms of standardisation, supersizing and removal of choice in the District?
What does this mean for the future? More of the same until some unspoken agenda (Broad-driven and Board-sanctioned?)is completed?
Broad Foundation pulled their support from a CA district last week, a month after their Academy trained Super left her job. Note the frustration of teachers and administrators in working with such top-down leadership.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/education/ci_12681159
As an aside, the ACLU will be "monitoring" the district for the next 5 years- following findings of "extreme disparities" between the suspension and expulsion rates for African-American and Latino students and their white peers."
Very interesting article. The comment from one high school teacher that the Antioch School District, under the leadership of the Broad-trained Superintendent, was initiating a "tear down" of the local public schools when all they needed was a "remodel," sounds eerily similar to the strangely destructive ‘reforms’ Goodloe-Johnson is trying to implement here in Seattle.
Sounds like Antioch said 'good riddance!'
The Seattle School Board has said it hired Goodloe-Johnson because they wanted an "educator" at the helm. Yet, it's looking more and more like they hired a Terminator.
In what way has Goodloe-Johnson acted like an educator?
What’s more, the Broad Academy trains Superintendents to act like CEOs. I think that’s what we are seeing play out here in Seattle. Her treatment of teachers alone – beginning with her thoughtless timing of the RIF (layoff) letters on Teacher Appreciation Week (!!), and including her willingness to lay-off teachers at all, when the Superintendent in Tacoma found a way to avoid teacher layoffs – indicates someone who does not have a fundamental understanding of the needs of students and the value of teachers.
Here's the whole article:
Foundation cuts ties with Antioch schools
By Hilary Costa
East County Times
Posted: 06/24/2009 02:42:28 PM PDT
Updated: 06/25/2009 06:01:50 AM PDT
Related Links
* Document: Letter to Antioch school district from CRSS
The Antioch school district's three-year affiliation with an education reform foundation aimed at improving schools through better governance has been severed.
In a letter dated June 1, the Center for Reform of School Systems, which is supported financially by the philanthropic Broad Foundation, announced that it was ending the Antioch school district's participation in its Reform Governance in Action program.
The reason given: The May resignation of Superintendent Deborah Sims, an alumnus of a Broad training program.
In the sharply worded letter that praised Sims' leadership and criticized the school board, CRSS founder Donald McAdams said the foundation was not interested in continuing the relationship
in the wake of the superintendent's departure.
"Your governance team has changed — Dr. Sims is no longer your superintendent — and the board in recent months has not had a sharp focus on student achievement," he wrote.
McAdams did not return a call for comment, and school officials rebutted that charge.
Antioch school board members, who along with a handful of district officials had attended three retreat-style CRSS training sessions, said they would have fulfilled their commitment to complete the training. But President Walter Ruehlig called the decision "a blessing in disguise."
“In a way, this was probably a welcome gesture because it's good to have a fresh start," he said.,
(continued on next post)
After Sims' resignation, the school board appointed Donald Gill, director of curriculum and instruction, as acting superintendent while it conducts a search for a permanent leader.
In its three years undergoing CRSS training, the school district spent $30,000 toward instruction, materials, training retreats and visits to other school districts. Ruehlig said the Broad Foundation underwrote "far more" than that figure.
The end of the district's reform training comes at the midpoint of what is modeled as a five- to seven-year process.
The primary goal of the Reform Governance in Action program is to help elected school officials, staff and teachers reach consensus on the district's goals and methods.
That's a message school board Vice President Claire Smith said she got loud and clear in the first training session — and heard repeated throughout the three years of training.
"I'm not sure there was much more they could offer me," Smith said.
That same message, and the methods used to implement it, alienated many teachers who thought personnel at the school-site level were forced to cede their professional judgment in favor of Broad-backed philosophies.
While acknowledging that there is room for improvement in the district, Deer Valley High School teacher J Myers said he thought the reform training's top-down approach of trying to fit every district and every school into one model for achievement actually hurt some Antioch schools where unique programs were getting results.
"We were doing a tear-down when we needed a remodel, which I think is what got people upset," Myers said.
Moving forward, board members said they plan to take some of the reform concepts they learned and blend them with leadership ideas from within the district.
"It was an interesting experience," Ruehlig said. "I think we're all the stronger for it. But we're done. We're definitely done."
Reach Hilary Costa at 925-779-7166 or hcosta@bayareanewsgroup.com.
Aligned to what???
Who is kidding who here?
The alignment was to be to the state Math standards.... THIS HAS NOT HAPPENED
The only alignment that can be found is alignment with a failed ideology.
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Does the Board actually believe any of this???
Donations needed for Math Lawsuit:
http://mathunderground.blogspot.com/2009/06/fund-raising-at-1000-more-needed.html
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Improving k-8 math requires attention to the State Math Standards and NMAP recommendations. A great deal more emphasis must be placed on teaching each standard algorithm. The district’s current emphasis on Everyday Math’s focus algorithms is counterproductive and an enormous waste of instructional time.
The "Focus Algorithms" have nothing to do with the State Math Standards ... once again the preference is to follow the Everyday Math pacing plan.
Aligned??? Aligned???
Aligned with what? duh!!!
Sorry MG-J we are just not that stupid.
It is now completely apparent why her contract was not going to be renewed in Charleston.
The big question is what is Eli Broad planning on doing next with what should be Seattle's schools but clearly are NOT?
http://www.educationfirstconsulting.com/
A founding partner of Education First Jennifer Vranek is on the Board of the new school.
It appears from the website that Education First is all about school reform. What a deal $756,000 to have someone lead the multi-million dollar district in the direction of Education First choosing.
Try this piece on a huge Philadelphia flop ...Gates planned ... with $63 million of public money blown. No it is not small schools that is a different Gates disaster.
http://kitchentablemath.blogspot.com/2009/06/next-time-try-core-knowledge.html
That's the difference between me and Bill Gates.
When I have a naive idea, the city of Philadelphia doesn't give me $63 million dollars to inflict it on other people's children.
Microsoft's expertise was based on what the company calls the 6 "I"s: introspection, investigation, inclusion, innovation, implementation, and--again--introspection. It was up to the Curriculum Planning Committee to design the underlying principles and goals for the school, based on this framework.
However, these principles too often seemed unclear.
You think?
Although the technology itself was not supposed to trump basic classroom practices, Microsoft and the school's planners had decided not to allow the use of textbooks or printed materials; instead, all resources were located online through a portal designed by Microsoft.
-----------------------------
Can we just tell Education First to take the money and leave us alone?
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I am still trying to figure out how Peter Maier received $167,000 in campaign donations? I had no idea rubber stamps were that expensive.
Who was looking for what with those donations?
"It was an interesting experience," Ruehlig said. "I think we're all the stronger for it. But we're done. We're definitely done."
So when does Seattle get to be definitely done?
Vote Charlie Mas for School Director.
Anyway, it's a version of the same problem in the Antioch district, and here with the SE initiative or with the academies at Cleveland. Great ideas for improving schools are not hard to come by. Implementation- funding, support, reevaluation, community engagement, teacher training, broad assessment, student and family buy-in/ownership... These are the much harder pieces. While we may not do them well in the public system- a business model dependent on near immediate, measurable results is worse. Pulling funding and declaring failure leaves districts, schools, students, the entire community responsible for picking up the pieces when foundations opt to take their ball and go home.
"- Please do not approve the proposed BTA II contract for Meany construction design without major modification of its scope and timeline.
- The delivery model for educating secondary English Language Learners must be determined before funds that are designated for the World School/SBOC facility get spent on building design or construction.
- To date, the Bilingual Outreach Task Force has not had time to determine the SBOC delivery model before the building design activities that are scheduled for July. Furthermore, the Task Force does not include representatives of the academic community who are knowledgeable about research on bilingual education delivery models and their outcomes, nor classroom teachers who have “here and now” experience with this constantly evolving student population.
- SBOC’s construction funds should be used for the purpose approved by BEX II Levy voters, not to take care of seismic and other essential safety upgrades that are the District’s immediate responsibility."
SBOC's concerns are well reasoned and familiar. There is a rush to design and construction- while instruction and delivery models have yet to be determined. Additionally, they are seeking community engagement, noting that the "design team" process did not address curriculum and delivery. Response from the board and district has thus far been dismissive and noncommittal.
http://www.seattleschools.org/area/acastan/navsubs.nav?index=3
"Why isn't the curriculum already aligned?"
Given the ready availability of the State Standards and Grade Level Expectations (GLEs), and given that these - and nothing else - should be the basis for the curriculum in all core classes, why aren't all of our teachers basing their curricula on these State Standards and GLEs and, therefore, why aren't all of our classes already aligned?
The answer is simple - failure to supervise.
So, to correct this problem, why isn't our effort going primarily into improved supervision? I don't see any effort to improve supervision, do you? Without improved supervision, isn't this effort - despite the outrageous expense - doomed to fail?
So, what exactly can you do as a Board Member to try to change things? And how can parents and concerned citizens affect real change? And where do we start?
From where I'm standing, I don't see any easy fixes on the horizon. I read these blog entries and I see SO MANY things that have been mishandled at best and down-right screwed up. They cover every aspect of the District from Property Management and Maintenance to Education Practices.
Yes, INDIVIDUAL schools have some amazing things going on—great teachers, award-winning programs, outstanding students, etc. But as a whole the District is in very sorry shape—I honestly can't see anything they are doing right on a District-wide level. Schools are achieving what they are in spite of the District.
Sahila keeps calling for us to rise up and fight back. In spirit I agree with her, but realistically, would that really affect change? Look at how long the discrimination case took, and what did we really gain from it? Would it take dozens of law suits? Tons of disruptions with boycotts and other forms of civil disobedience? Would it be worth spending the District's (and ultimately,as taxpayers, our) money that way?
So, back to you on the board—how will you try and make a real difference and not just be one more dissenting voice that is still in the minority? I'm not trying to goad you—I have a lot of faith in your intelligence and your heart in all of this, so I believe that you must have some plan to be more than just one more minority vote. And what can WE do to help you? We are truly at a point where something must be done.
Wake up and smell the coffee folks! With Broad, Gates, etc., all pushing for technology in every classroom, computerized tests, data, cameras in the classroom (Bill Gates), etc., it's all about turning teachers into technicians and students into automatons to be cranked out of public schools like EPA estimated high-mileage cars! This kid can regurgitate X, Y and Z, which he was drilled on all summer long with a class paid for by Gates! Whoopee!
Go to any tech company website right now, and you'll see them all pushing like cattle down the chute to break open the education frontier like Sooners in Oklahoma! It's a 21st Century gold rush in Seattle!
Why is Intel advertising on EdWeek's website? Click on the link and see all their classes and programs to be pushed and sold to every classroom and student in your neighborhood. Data, data and more DATA! Screw career teachers; your kid can learn from a computer!
Of course it's about standardization! If the markets are not first standardized, how can Arne Duncan/Broad/Gates, et al. take all their high tech programs "to scale(?)" as they all like to say in Eduspeak? What do all the internet oligarchs and communication companies haggle over constantly? Standards!
Teaching to tests, while narrowing the curriculum and "educating" less, but "schooling" more, will result in higher test scores: The BE ALL AND END ALL OF PUBLIC EDUCATION AS WE KNOW IT TODAY!! Then we can claim we've closed the achievement gap, eliminated racism, homelessness, poverty, infant mortality, and on and on.
It's a sham propagated by the supposed "best and brightest" of the Education Reform Movement of today. Anyone familiar with the prior incarnation of the B and B should be shaking in their boots. Here we go again.
Garfield's cost overruns alone have fleeced the Seattle levy payers enough that many in power should hang for it. But they won't, and the band will probably just play on and on...
But it's all about the "students."
Yeah, right.
I think Charlie, and like-minded Board members, could provide the needed publicity to change the course of the SPS ship. Right now, there's no consequence for dumb, silly, or just plain wrong decisions, because nothing adverse happens to the decision makers. And unless you're one of the, what, several dozen dedicated readers of this blog, you won't know, because it's not reported in the paper, on the radio, or on television.
A Board which is maybe not adversarial, but which is certainly involved, could shine light on the bone-headedness so often exhibited by SPS management. I don't know if that's enough of a consequence to effect change (embarrassment), but it's got to be better than what we have now, which is effectively no Board at all.
I believe we need to seriously question the mission and purpose of the District central office, particularly the Learning and Teaching division. Of course the Central office needs to be home to the HR functions and enrollment and a legal team. I question how much Transportation and Facilities staff we need in-house, but I really want to question the number and mission of the central staff in Learning and Teaching.
How much do we really need? What work should they really be doing?
It appears to me that we have some textbook cases of Parkinson's Law here - a bureaucracy which has seen growth independent of the work they need to administer. With that growth has come the sort of mission creep you would expect from expanding bureaucratic fiefdoms.
Learning and Teaching should have the CAO, the Education Directors that supervise the principals, the program managers for Special Ed, Bilingual, and Advanced Learning, a few curriculum experts doing some high level work, and two types of coaches. There should be coaches who always out visiting schools on a sort of circuit, observing, reminding teachers of the lessons they learned in their continuing education classes, keeping that fresh and at the front of their minds, sharing best practices, reinforcing horizontal and vertical alignment, etc. There should also be coaches who can be dispatched to struggling schools. They would be temporarily based at that school and assist the principal in turnaround efforts.
I would seriously question whether any more central staff is needed in Learning and Teaching, wanting to keep that division's mission narrow and their structure lean and flat.
We do not need central office staff extending their authority to standardizing texts, not in math classes and certainly not in high school language arts classes. What is the value of standardized texts? Just so the central office staff can simplify their professional development? Why is the teachers' continuing education material specific? We sure as hell do not want the central staff scripting lessons, but that's what they say they are doing. They say that they are doing it to facilitate differentiated instruction, but that's not really going to help.
You know what they say, give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, but teach a man to fish...
Our teachers are professionals who should be respected as professionals. That means both giving them the freedom to develop their own lessons and holding them accountable for developing good ones that cover the curriculum. We will be able to hire and retain the best teachers when we make Seattle Public Schools the place where the best teachers are allowed to do their best work.
They are not working on an assembly line. Teaching is a creative and collaborative effort. It needs to be responsive to the individual peculiarities of every class and student. We absolutely must have an aligned curriculum. Every student must learn - at a minimum - the core set of knowledge and skills that we expect at each grade level. But that does NOT require standardized texts or lessons. It does require supervision of teachers by their principals. Which is wonderful. Let's get the principals back to the job of being the instructional leaders in their schools - a role that has either been abdicated or been usurped by coaches. If we need to delegate some of the principals' business duties to a business officer then let's do that. But let's not have this needless, standardized, ineffective, and demoralizing central control of what should be a creative and responsive task.
Dr. Maria L. Goodloe-Johnson, The Post and Courier
Re: Direct action... my posting of the Air New Zealand body-painting ad - honesty and transparency - brought forth a suggestion from Christ Stewart on the Alt Schools Coalition group that we turn up at Board meetings with scripted lessons painted on our bodies...
My response below:
"Three cool ideas.... body-painted protests at board meeting(s) - really like that, Chris - maybe you should post this idea to all the other networks and to the Blogs - mass complaint campaign, rolling school boycotts... there's enough in that to get some media coverage... what other really creative, funny, quirky ideas can we come up with?
Thinking about planning and implementation of some or all of the above...
I'm willing to have a meeting at my house (in Greenwood) to get started on this during the weekend 18/19 July... my preference would be on the Sunday afternoon 19th, from noon - 2.30pm, leaving enough time for family fun later.
Happy to have kids come - they can play, watch movies etc.
We could start the complaint campaign at that meeting - would just need to print/photocopy large quantities of complaint forms, I can provide envelopes and some stamps...
Let me know if anyone is interested and we'll take it from there..."
Namaste
Sahila
email: metamind_universal@yahoo.com , telephone: 206 297 7511
I also think the time is ripe to focus on the Broad Foundation influence operating in the District.... this connection, which is becoming firmly entrenched and widespread (see comments on lates New CAO thread) seems to be at the root of much of this undesirable path we're on... expose and maybe work to remove that influence and we might have a chance to change track....
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From: Chris Stewart
Subject: [ASC] Re: A New Take on Transparency and Honesty - Kiwi-style!!!
OK, let's show up at the board meeting in body paint! Maybe with
scripted lessons painted all over...