What would it take for you to choose the neighborhood school?
From the Candidate Scorecard thread, this discussion started:
On 9/8/09 at 1:11 PM, tg wrote...
At 3:04 PM, Charlie Mas asked...
At 7:20 PM tg replied...
That sparked discussion. At 8:08 PM seattle citizen wrote...
And at 9:14 PM SolvayGirl1972 added...
To which seattle citizen responded...
So where do we go from here?
How can this District - or any District - successfully turn around the public's perception of a school? Is it a chicken-and-egg problem?
It seems to me that most schools - particularly high schools - become high performing by recruiting high performing students, and not by turning students into high performers. If a significant number of the students arrive at the high school working two or more grade levels below Standard, is there any way that the high school can show strong test scores? On the other hand, if a significant number of the students arrive at the high school working beyond Standards, is there any way that the high school can fail to high test scores? For high schools at least, academic reputation seems to be built on recruiting more than teaching. High performing students will not enroll at a low performing school because they don't believe that they will be well-served there.
It seems to me that the first change that has to take place is that the schools need to recognize that they rely more on recruiting high performing students than on creating them. I have yet to see much public acknowledgement of this fact.
Then the school could turn a negative into a positive by working to recruit those students by pointing out the small class sizes in their most academically challenging classes. Do you want to be in an AP Calculus class of 30 at School G or in an AP Calculus class of 10 at School C? The curriculum and the material will be the same, the teachers are equally qualified, but you'll get more individual attention and support at School C. Then there is the Washington State scholarship for students who finish in the top 10% of their class. Would you have a better chance of being in the top 10% and winning that scholarship at School G with 177 valedictorians with 4.0 GPAs or at School C?
The problem with this solution is that the schools do not want to be seen to be recruiting these students or be catering to these students. They don't want to be seen as celebrating academic excellence. That is exactly the wrong attitude. Funny, they don't mind making themselves attractive to student-athletes. When these schools start celebrating their academic stars the way they celebrate their sports stars, when they change the culture of their school so that it is proud of academic achievement, that will be the first step towards improving the academic readiness of their incoming freshman classes.
In elementary and middle schools it is more a case of creating high performing students than it is a case of recruiting them.
On 9/8/09 at 1:11 PM, tg wrote...
As a new parent in the south end, I'm curious how the board will make an effort to keep families like mine in the public system if the assignment plan seems to be moving more towards keeping kids going to the schools located closest to their home. If my choices come down to sending the kid to a school with less programs and support, moving, or finding a way to pay for private school, I'll probably pick one of the latter two choices if Seattle's south end schools continue to lag behind the north. I never thought I'd send my kid to private school, but the more I read this blog and other things on Seattle's schools, the less inclined I am to stay in them, at least down here in south Seattle.
At 3:04 PM, Charlie Mas asked...
tg, I hope you're still around and can answer an open-ended question.
What would it take for you to choose your neighborhood school? What would the school have to offer that it doesn't now?
At 7:20 PM tg replied...
Honestly, I'm still pretty new to navigating the Seattle school system, but many of my old college friends are products of it (back when there was busing), so they went to all different schools and inevitably there was a fair bit of diversity at most of them (or at least that's the impression I have). I had thought when we moved to South Seattle that if we ever had kids they'd go to school around here or if that school seemed like a bad choice we'd be able to opt into a different school - I naively thought some how you just got to choose and that most of the schools were still pretty diverse with kids from across the city - doesn't sound like it really works that way anymore. I look at the high school nearest me (Cleavland) and the kids I see coming and going don't seem to reflect the diversity of the people in our neighborhood and I've started to feel like everyone that can, gets out, either by getting into a school in another neighborhood or opting for private. (the police responses and crime near the school are another issue but I'll try to stay focused here) Ideally I'd love for my child to attend a public school in the city that is diverse (racially and socioeconomically), but also has offerings in variety of a subjects (i.e. if the kid is great at languages there's more than 2 to pick from, if they're good at math, they can get through some college level math before graduating, etc.). Maybe I'm dreaming, but I would just really like school to be an experience where you learn about people with different backgrounds while at the same time you get an academic education (I tend to think private school would be alot more homogeneous in multiple ways). I get the impression that many people are pretty happy with the elementary schools (and I notice they seem much more diverse than the HS- at least visually - when I walk by them), so maybe I just need to give the system time and more families like me that want it to work, to start moving into the system.
That sparked discussion. At 8:08 PM seattle citizen wrote...
tg,
Your vision, of a diverse (demographically and academically) school is wonderful. Particularly if it could in one's neighborhood, no matter what part of town.
I think this vision is attainable.
Two caveats: Some parts of the city (not many) are not all that diverse, socio-economically, racially or culturally. Every part of town has pockets of this and that, but for the most part there is still little variance in some areas. Until the wealthy are more evenly mixed with the middle class and the poor; until there is greater cultural, racial and ethic mixing, we will still end up with some schools that are relatively homogenous.
Regarding academics, it strikes me as a chicken and egg quandry: Which came first, funding for a variety of teachers and classes or the student-driven dollars to support them? Take a school like Rainier Beach: very small student numbers, so they get little money, so they offer fewer classes, so they have less to offer, so they get fewer students...Or take Ballard: fills up every year, so there is a steady stream of dollars to fund lots of teachers, allowing some to teach non-core classes, some to teach music, etc.
Of course, the band-aide money (Title One, South-East Initiative) is SUPPOSED to alleviate some of this funding disparity, and each building also gets a base funding (or they used to...do they still?) but either the money is directed at remedial classes, because using merely a WASL lens the entire population of some schools is seen as "failing" and thus in need of WASL prep; or the money is spent on other peripherals...or merely mis-spent.
So how do we build a "big" school, fully staffed, if only 1/3 teh capacity of students come the first year? It seems impossible, given funding constraints, to fully staff a building, with a variety of at-level, below AND above offerings, with electives, with music etc, without a guaranteed student body to justify the wages of its staff.
So: the district redesigns the assignment plan, hoping to keep students more evenly distributed around the district, perhaps ensuring that a school like Beach, or Cleveland, has enough students to justify offering more (and more diverse) classes. I think that's the plan, and in a way it might be the ONLY way to do this. Otherwise, people just choose the schools that they think are "better" (and they might well be, because more students typically choose those schools, so they can offer more classes, so more people choose those schools...)
I'm all for small schools: There is a lot you can do with a little. But when schools are small because no one wants to go there, that's a problem.
Perhaps the new assignment plan will work...IF each school offers a range of quality classes, and if the community buys into the idea that this change could be good. We aren't in the sixties anymore: People DO value diversity. But they also want quality. The district will have to provide it, and people might have to wait a year or two for the change to become mature.
And at 9:14 PM SolvayGirl1972 added...
Seattle Citizen...your last line defined the entire problem. Few parents are willing to risk their child's high school education to a year or two wait "for the change to become mature."
Two years is half a high school tenure. If the quality and spectrum of course offerings aren't there, or if the teachers haven't figured out how to bring rigor to those who need it while still assisting those who might be struggling, those "guinea pig" kids could end up with a less than stellar education.
It takes small class sizes and exceptional teachers to reach a broad spectrum of students—a luxury we can barely afford at this point in time.
Personally, I'm not willing to sacrifice two years of my child's high school education to see if an experiment posed by THIS DIstrict and THIS Administration will work.
To which seattle citizen responded...
I hear ya, SolvayGirl...when I posited that requisite, of parents trusting that the "new, richly varied curriculum with highly effective teachers" school would in fact work, I sort of knew that the answer would be, "they wouldn't." This is the problem.
Even if there was no "wait for maturity," I have my suspicions that many parents wouldn't trust that the bright new school would work. I don't blame them, but then we're stuck with the problem, how do we improve a school to attract more students? How do reinvigor a neighborhood school and convince people to buy in?
I'm stumped.
So where do we go from here?
How can this District - or any District - successfully turn around the public's perception of a school? Is it a chicken-and-egg problem?
It seems to me that most schools - particularly high schools - become high performing by recruiting high performing students, and not by turning students into high performers. If a significant number of the students arrive at the high school working two or more grade levels below Standard, is there any way that the high school can show strong test scores? On the other hand, if a significant number of the students arrive at the high school working beyond Standards, is there any way that the high school can fail to high test scores? For high schools at least, academic reputation seems to be built on recruiting more than teaching. High performing students will not enroll at a low performing school because they don't believe that they will be well-served there.
It seems to me that the first change that has to take place is that the schools need to recognize that they rely more on recruiting high performing students than on creating them. I have yet to see much public acknowledgement of this fact.
Then the school could turn a negative into a positive by working to recruit those students by pointing out the small class sizes in their most academically challenging classes. Do you want to be in an AP Calculus class of 30 at School G or in an AP Calculus class of 10 at School C? The curriculum and the material will be the same, the teachers are equally qualified, but you'll get more individual attention and support at School C. Then there is the Washington State scholarship for students who finish in the top 10% of their class. Would you have a better chance of being in the top 10% and winning that scholarship at School G with 177 valedictorians with 4.0 GPAs or at School C?
The problem with this solution is that the schools do not want to be seen to be recruiting these students or be catering to these students. They don't want to be seen as celebrating academic excellence. That is exactly the wrong attitude. Funny, they don't mind making themselves attractive to student-athletes. When these schools start celebrating their academic stars the way they celebrate their sports stars, when they change the culture of their school so that it is proud of academic achievement, that will be the first step towards improving the academic readiness of their incoming freshman classes.
In elementary and middle schools it is more a case of creating high performing students than it is a case of recruiting them.
Comments
each child has an individual education plan and the system delivers knowledge in a vertical curriculum model, so that each child works at his/her own pace/level/depth... have personalised, internal testing if you must, to monitor individual progress, move up only when the child is ready, have end-of-school-experience testing to qualify for graduation if you must have some sort of measure for determining a school's 'success'....
My take is that Charlie is right on the point about attracting high performing students. No matter their socio-economic status, if you get a group of students who want to achieve, it really sets the tone for a school. If you have a critical mass for one class, you'll have a class with fewer disruptions and more focus. Multiply that with more classes and you'll have more of that. Have that as an expectation (and I mean among the students, not just the staff) and you'll have a high performing school with fewer behavior problems and more rigorous classes. (I was surprised that my son's class ranking wasn't higher at Roosevelt and I expressed this to him and he just gave me that teenager look and said, "Mom, there are a LOT of smart kids there.")
Again, for the parents of those students, no matter their socio-economic status, they will be a group that will push for more rigor and would be willing to raise money/volunteer and support side programs that matter like arts and athletics that can be crucial to students already at the school and as a carrot to get other kids into the school.
In short, you need parents. How hard is that for the district to figure out and yet they seem to think of us last. Charlie has said for years that the district needs to ask parents what they want and what will bring them to the table (or school). Never happens.
My experience, though, is that you get some pushback from a number of teachers (and other parents) over high-performing students particularly in elementary school. The teachers will tell you they don't want their high-performing students grouped out a la Spectrum because they say it does (or they perceive it does) weaken the overall class. Given that the grouping is strictly voluntary (and therefore not all high-performers leave a class), I have to wonder. And there are parents who dislike this kind of grouping as well. Between the teachers, the parents and some principals, this is why we have our variations on Spectrum instead of having one model. It might also explain the lack of rigor at some schools if it is perceived as elitist to look for high-performers.
There is also this perception that by providing any kind of class for high-performing students, again particularly in elementary school but somewhat in middle school, that you are giving them something more than other students get. Nonsense but it's there.
Somehow, though, it seems to lessen in high school as parents and teachers are aware that rigor matters to get into college so therefore AP and Honors and IB aren't so offending. And yet, we still have some schools that deliberately curtail AP offerings saying you can do extra work and take the AP test without an AP class. (You can but far fewer students will attempt it.) I'd even be happy if every high school had one AP English, one AP History, one AP science and one AP math and yet we can't even get that.
TG and Solvay Girl, please don't give up. We need you to find that critical mass. Find other like-minded parents and request a meeting with the principal at a school you are considering and even as that the Education Director associated with it be there as well. Heck, invite the CAO. Tell them your concerns and ask them how they are addressing them. You might be pleasantly surprised at the answers. If you hear a lot of blah, blah with no specifics, then you have your answer. But if you can get a group of parents, something like 10-12, you may be the start of something big for your school.
Wishful thinking I am afraid.
Our issue is access. To get us to send our kid to our neighborhood school we need access to it.
We live in Meadowbrook, and are a mile and a half away from Eckstein, our "neighborhood" middle school - but my son didn't get in. Hamilton is our other choice, and though Hamilton is only 5 miles from our home, it seems like a world away. Few kids from our neighborhood go there. It is on the west side of I-5, in the north cluster (west Wallingford). I would have to trade my son walking/biking/boarding to Eckstein with a group of friends for a two hour a day yellow bus commute to Hamilton - a school in someone elses neighborhood.
So we opted for a Shoreline middle school instead. It's just a mile and a half from our home (as close to us as Eckstein is) and my son skateboards or bikes the Burke Gilman to school almost every day. Hmmm, a 15 minute each way skateboard ride (great exercize) VS sitting on a yellow bus for two hours a day with a bunch of rowdy teens?? Which one would you choose?
So for my family, it would take access to my neighborhood school, to get me to send my kid to my neighborhood school.
In Sahila's model, all students have special needs - or at least personal ones - so the question is still valid.
Mel is right that you will either get a straight answer or a lot of blah, blah, blah.
If you get the blah, blah, blah, then I propose that you tell the principal what you think - in concrete terms - the school should provide and you ask if you can expect it from that school.
Let's remember that with the MAP testing, the teachers will have much better information about their students' academic readiness. They will be challenged to use that information. If the MAP shows that the student is reading two grade levels above, what will be the response? If the MAP shows that the student is reading two grade levels below, what will be the response?
Those are legitimate questions.
TG seemed to just be looking for a diverse community. There wasn't much mention of academics other than world languages, which most elementary schools don't do during the school day. I believe that the elementary schools on Beacon Hill are some of the most diverse in the District.
Number one would be meet the bare minimum-not be failing with respect to NCLB.
For this upcoming school year Montlake picked up 17 first graders from Madrona via NCLB.
That seems crazy to me.
For the oldest it was a very dark building, with PCBs coming out of the light fixtures and volunteers who " helped" kindergarteners to make their work hall worthy.
( not to mention the teacher advised me on other choices)
For the younger it was now a new building, but since she needed to have resource room, I was uncomfortable with the teacher who used shaming & ridicule to get cooperation from students.
I have teachers who value differences in children and a supportive atmosphere much more than being three minutes away
We fled our neighborhood school, and my son went to Beacon Hill and then Lowell. Now our second child is relegated to the neighborhood school closest to our home (out of cluster ironically), and he has not been happy there.
What it would take to make him happy is probably not going to happen, no matter how much I try to make it work for him/ how much of a pain in the ass I try to be. I am at the breaking point. I am taking year to year.
I do want it to be better. How do I make my son's experience better? We volunteer. That is not enough. What are some other ideas? Concretely I would like to see smaller class size, more art, more music, more hands-on science, math that is fun and rigorous (I know it can be done. I have seen it.) Our PTA makes about 30,000 per year. That is not going to cover it.
1) under the new SAP, you might get a different assignment. Decide if it is worth it and then take it.
2) I'm thinking your child is in elementary like 1st or 2nd grade. Is the school truly lifeless or just lacking? Lifeless, I'd try to get my child out. Lacking, I'd try to organize something.
Here's what we did at Whittier to try to buff things up:
-Family Math Night - we did it once a year but you could do it once a month. There are a lot of fun activities for the whole family and it allows kids to think of math as fun (even if class isn't). It doesn't take a lot ($$) to organize and there are lots of on-line ideas.
-ditto Family Science Night. This would take more organizing but again, it could be done. Heck, I wanted some more science so I wrote a short play (about Archimedes) and helped some kids put it on. It was fun and the kids loved it. You don't need full out productions for kids to have fun.
- more art. Whittier's 2nd grade teachers had somehow decided they would integrate art into 2nd grade. They had all sorts of lessons on Picasso, Monet, Georgia O'Keefe. (I'll never forget my son coming home and talking about Picasso's blue period.) It might seem overwhelming for teachers to figure this out on their own but they could contact the teachers at Whittier. None of this has to be a new invention and maybe there is a way to put more art into the day.
I hear the despair in your words. You really do only get one chance with a child. But keep in mind we all had a bad teacher or two and we survived.
I was just talking last week with Melissa Hines who works in the Mayor's office for Cultural Affairs. They are really working with the district to create some new programs. I hope that's coming for all schools.
http://mapgap.net/map.html
My ongoing frustration is that the district, as well as many school administrators and teachers, believes that if THEY build it, WE will come, instead of recognizing the assets that exist in neighborhood communities. So we have situations where "strong educational leaders" alienate families in service of certain limited goals or "status quo" leaders put off communities with resistance to change.
That said, there are some genuinely vibrant schools at all educational levels in Seattle, and they don't necessarily require programs like Spectrum or an alternative designation or a magnet whizbang feature (like language immersion, cool as that is). A common denominator is parent/community involvement -- the educators and the community working together as a team -- and the belief that all kids deserve, even need, what Cooper called "an enriched setting" WE build it with THEM.
I get frustrated at our years of reliance on special programs to provide high standards and enrichment. It totally supports the mentality of shipping kids out of their neighborhoods, instead of widely building excellence. But IMHO, excellence, widely distributed, requires the assets of the community as well as those of the district, and until district and community leaders get that, we will stay stuck.
I think that the district needs to develop educational leaders/administrators who can reach out to their communities and build programs with the neighborhood families they want to have in their school -- pretty much every neighborhood in Seattle has a share of educated, interested families. It's just, as Syd noted, in some areas, not enough are locally engaged and invested. And I think that community parents need to engage "up" instead of piling time, $$, energy into their elementaries (or preschools), then complaining that there's nothing for them in middle and high school. And yeah, that requires organization and hand-holding, and all that, but I don't want THEM to do it on my behalf only to find out, again and again, that they've not quite gotten it right (and by the way, I am an educator, so I don't mean to exaggerate US v. THEM thinking, except to make the point -- we really need to work together, not oppositionally)
Stephanie (using Carson's Google Account -- oops)
I've noticed the same phenomenon, with a further tweak in my analysis: once a school reaches a tipping point of free lunch (which is highly correlated with race in Seattle), it tips out the non-poor (and often white) students in its neighborhood. One can do this analysis with SPS data, because it's possible to look at the racial makeup/free lunch status of students who are within the SPS system in a cluster/neighborhood, v the distribution in the school. (This analysis doesn't include the non-poor students who leave the SPS system). The effect is even strong enough that heavily white schools end up whiter than their neighborhoods (though this effect is minor) and heavily black schools become much blacker than their neighborhoods.
What is that tipping point? It looks, from analysis, to be about 40%. If a school contains more than 40% free-lunch the school becomes undesirable, and the students Charlie says you need to attract in order to make a school good won't go there.
So, what do I believe? I believe that people will come to those poorly performing schools if the school can engineer a population that's less than 40% poor. I suggest district gerymandering + placing popular programs (language immersion, etc.) in them.
If "failing" under NCLB (in one of the five steps) is a consideration, you might look just at who the school is failing: "Failing" under NCLB could mean merely one group of many, many (I believe it's any group that has ten or more students in it.)
So a school could be doing fine (or "fine" I should say) with 18 of 21 groups yet still be "failing."
In other words, if you MUST use NCLB as a tier one arbiter (sigh..) then consider the finer gradations: a) you might be okay with your kid's demographic succeeding (perhaps "wildly," in NCLB jargon) and a couple of other demographics "failing," or you might decide that if a school isn't taking care of everyone it's not a good school, but there's a difference. A moral ambiguity, to be sure, and one fraught with real trouble, and also with appearances..."So you're okay with the school if YOUR kid's doing okay...what about MINE," we might hear...But that's the trouble with individuality, it sometimes negates or ignores the masses.
"the first change that has to take place is that the schools need to recognize that they rely more on recruiting high performing students than on creating them. I have yet to see much public acknowledgement of this fact.
Then the school could turn a negative into a positive by working to recruit those students"
But, umm, aren't we going to neighborhood clusters? Doesn't this eliminate (somewhat) the whole idea of recruitment, at least at MS and HS? I thought the plan was to bring us back to a "you go to the school in your neighborhood" model, rather than the choice (somewhat) system that allowed students to go pretty much anywhere...
Speaking of recruiting, you indicate that schools might do well to recruit students at level or above ("high performing") while implying that school's NOT recruit students one or two levels below, who might bring the thing down...Can't we celebrate excellence by recognizing that some students are further "behind," yet are supported and moving forward? Your enthusiasm for excellence might best be expanded to include ALL levels: a school or system that was excellent at meeting the needs of ANY student, no matter the level.
I would like to encourage high expectations for all (didn't Maple try this and get good results?) with support for those who need it.
I think ZB is right about gerrymandering and I think that may be what we see (I hope) with the new SAP; fewer schools that have more than 40%+ free and reduced lunch students. I don't mean this to imply these students "bring" the school down but rather that they bring more challenges.
But if the only high school students are "supposed" to go to is in their "neighborhood" (cluster?), then recruiting would be a moot point, as all students, high and low alike, would expect to go to that school.
I hate to break it to you, the SPS average FRL is 41.3%. So, the supposed tipping point is less than the average number in the district. Basically you're saying that people will flee if confronted with even fewer than even the average number of poor kids... If that is true, then there basically isn't a solution to making the schools more appealing. Only neighborhoods and schools with fewer than average FRL will be acceptable... which is pretty much the current state as is.
While it is true that the district's average FRE concentration is 41%, there isn't a normal distribution of concentration of poverty in our neighborhood schools. A normal distribution looks like a bell curve, with most of the schools being clustered near the average and only a few schools with either a lot or a little.
The distribution of the concentration of poverty in Seattle's neighborhood elementary schools is bi-modal. The graph looks more like the Golden Gate Bridge, with a lot of schools clustered around almost no FRE students and a lot of schools clustered around almost all FRE students, and not many schools near the average.
zb's analysis also holds up because an analysis of first choice for assignment correlates most highly with the FRE concentration at the school. It is a better correlation than with race or test scores or any other statistic I could find. The trend is clear and strong: the higher the concentration of poverty, the fewer times the school is named as the first choice for assignment. The lower the concentration of poverty, the more the school is named as first choice for assignment.
I have done this analysis a number of times with year after year of data and it continues to be true.
However, we're just barely in the Madrona walk area, so there's a good chance it would be our attendance elementay. We wouldn't srnd our daughter to Madrona in its current state. What would have to happen at Madrona? It would need to become a lot more like The other local schools: McGilvra, Stevens, and Lowell. It would need to have recess, art, languages (after school will do), music, and drama. I'd prefer if it had lots of field trips. It would need a strong PTA and a principal that supports it. It would need to be more diverse, both racially and economically. It would need to have a start time after 9 am. It would need to get rid of the uniforms. I'd really prefer yellow bus service as walking .9 miles uphill with a 5 year old takes a very long time and crossing MLK is not something I'm going to let my daughter do alone any time soon. That's a pretty long list.
I should also add that I would have sent my child to the Mintessori at MLK if that school was still open, and maybe even the general ed program that had improved so my h in the 4 years under it's new principal before it was closed. My initial snarky though to this question was "reopen it?". There isn't a school in my neighborhood, and Broadway, Madrona, and Madison Park are all about the same to me, nice places nearby but not my neighborhood.
I do think the district has taken positive steps at Leschi, and that there's a pretty good chance it will be a good school in a few years. I, and many of my neighbors might take a chance on Madrona if it had a new principal. A special draw program like Leschi's Montessori would help. Language immersion is a proven draw (there's a French preschool a few blocks away), but STEM might work too as it seems to working for Seattle Girls' School.
I don't think it will. The District is committed to maintaining a percentage of the seats at every high school for students from outside the attendance area. That means about 150 seats will be held for choice at Ballard, Roosevelt and Garfield. That's 450 students from outside those attendance areas who will get into these schools.
The elimination of the distance tie-breaker means that every student in the district, regardless of where they live, has an equal chance at one of these seats. So, for the first time in years and years, students who live in Southeast Seattle will suddenly have the opportunity to enroll at these schools. You better believe that they are going to take that opportunity.
There will be over 2,000 SPS high school students who will live in the Rainier Beach High School attendance area. Of those, about 300 will be enrolled at a Service school. Historically, no more than 50 chose one of the Option schools (Center School, NOVA, or, in prior years, Summit). Only about 1,000 can fit into Rainier Beach, so that means that about 650 will have to find seats at another attendance area high school. And that's if Rainier Beach is fully enrolled. Again, during the past several years, it has been more like 1,200 at other attendance area high schools.
Not only will this migration continue, but given the opportunity to gain access to Ballard, Roosevelt and Garfield, it will expand. A family that would not send a child on a daily commute from Rainier Beach to Lake City, might put that child on a bus to the C.D., Roosevelt, or Ballard. Especially if the student can ride the light rail as far as downtown for part of the trip.
We have heard, for years, about the brain drain from the Southeast. It's going to get worse, not better. If the schools in the Southeast want to stop it, they are going to have to give these students some reason to stay.
That might have been some of the thinking in the conversion of Cleveland into a STEM school, but there's a lot of healthy skepticism around that scheme, and I don't see the District doing anything to dissolve it.
The thing is, this kind of distribution is self-sustaining and stable -- without concerted effort to turn it around, SPS will always have two groups of schools, and choosy parents will move heaven and earth to get their kids in the "right" group.
In other cities, they use a "magnet school" concept to lure highly motivated kids and affluent families into challenged schools -- I don't know why they don't consider that here. A designated math/science school, for example, would attract a lot of the choosier parents, and would provide APP with some competition without creating a whole new program.
Average is not a tipping point... it's really just plain old flight from poverty, or "white flight", the commonly used term, since race and economics are also strongly linked. The only "analysis" here is that people don't want to go to school with poor kids. Didn't we already know that? Looking at a graph would only show us that well known fact: people have already tried to escaped the average amount of poverty, and have already created enclaves (yes, we know that)... AND, that situation has already driven first choices selection (also already known).
If it is indeed true that nobody wants to go to a school with the average amount of poverty, AND that the average is the "tipping point", then the idea of "making the school desirable" will not be attainable, by definition. The system, as a whole, is already past the tipping point. The solution to that problem would be to ship the poor kids (mostly black) off to a few schools far from everybody else. Then, the rest of flight ready parents would gladly choose their neighborhood school... because the problem will be gone. Tipping point fixed for the remaining 60! Voilla! But that isn't reasonable or desirable, and it isn't going to happen. If we want neighborhood schools to be desirable, we have to find a way to make going to school with poor people palatable... to those who find it unpalatable... or we have to punt on that problem and let the wealthy and able-bodied find private options.
In that case, you might consider giving extra choice to poor students to leave a school with 70% or more FRL as a reasonable way to make schools more desirable. But proposals like that were boo'ed out of town... and are off the table last I heard.
We've talked about a lot of ways to attract those families -- more of the kinds of programs that tend to have long waiting lists, for example.
FRE: Free or Reduced price lunch Eligible
FRL: Free or Reduced price Lunch eligible
I don't see data that supports a tipping point. The data I found showed a strong steady inverse correlation between poverty and first choice all along the spectrum. It's not like the data takes a hard turn at some point.
That said, each of us may have a personal tipping point at which we decide that the neighborhood school is not a good match for our children.
Here's what I have long said: the primary determinant of my child's academic achievement is my involvement in their education. That's a constant regardless of the school choice. Second is the involvement of the parent of the kid sitting next to mine. So when I shop for schools, I'm shopping for an involved parent corps. With that, I get the peer group that will support my child.
I'm not looking for anyone to motivate my children; I'm just trying to keep them away from people who will de-motivate them. After bad teachers - which I cannot control - comes the potential for peer pressure to underachieve. I want to avoid that above all else. For me, the worst thing I could find in a school is contempt for academic achievement. It doesn't even have to be contempt, the absence of pride is bad enough. Think of all the schools that fail to show any pride in academics. Think of all of the schools - and school officials - that sneer at Advanced Learning programs.
Given the reported discrepency between census data and District demographics, there could be a number of possible causes. Among them
1) The fact that only a portion of the families in the census data have school age children.
2) The possibility that people from low-income households may have more children than people from high income households.
3) The high frequency with which families of at least middle-class affluence but living in predominantly low-income neighborhoods choose private schools.
a) the parents genuinely want,
b) the schools can credibly deliver?
I think it's a very difficult question.
You can't really say that Leschi is a success yet. This is the first year of the new arrangement.
And as to Charlie's comments. Are there really schools out there that take no pride in academics? I haven't seen that. And as to "sneering at advanced learning", I haven't seen that either. There are different ways to skin a cat... and lots an lots of people reject an exclusive model, like spectrum for kids barely "ahead". Many people believe programs like that limit advanced learning to the few.. in favor of giving it all and only to a few kids, mostly simply wealthy kids. Just because people believe in alternate ways of advancing kids.... doesn't mean they're "sneering at advanced learning." It means they don't agree with your delivery model ideas.
And sometimes the spotlight is more on dealing with mundane issues, such as how to fill the belly of a child, gifted or otherwise, and meet their intellectual needs at the same time... sadly, many (poor) schools dont have the resources to do both and so they focus on the most pressing need...
This is not a problem that can be solved by schools - its a societal issue and if you are pointing the finger at (some, poor) schools, then you're missing the bigger picture...
My younger son went to Bryant elementary. Though they have many Spectrum qualified students at Bryant they didn't offer any Spectrum or ALO programs. All classes were inclusive of all students.I have to say that I really liked the inclusive model too. Having the academically advanced students in a regular class allowed the class to move along at a very quick pace. It was rigorous and my son was very challenged and had to work hard to keep up (which he liked). He was not Spectrum qualified. I have to wonder if all of the Spectrum students were pulled out of his classes, and only the non spectrum students remained what the class would have looked like? Would it have been as challenging? Would it have been able to move at the same pace? I'm not sure because my kids have never been at a school that offered Spectrum. I spoke with a couple of the parents at Bryant who had Spectrum qualified kids and they said their kids were also very challenged, so I don't think the inclusion was detrimental to them in any way.
I guess I'm happy that we can choose between these several models and pick what works best for our children. I hope that parents will still have this type of choice with the new SAP.
In elementary and middle schools it is more a case of creating high performing students than it is a case of recruiting them.
Is no one else horrified by this thinking - these are living, breathing human beings who are each unique, perfect individuals already... we need to CREATE HIGH PERFORMING students??? We're not producing cars - soup the engine here to improve performance there... and all for the ROI, credit and use of the community/investors/owners?
Dont we need to nurture, nourish, support, grow, encourage, tend, feed, water, LOVE each child to grow into his/her fullest potential, whether that be academic, artistic, musical, mechanical, eclectic Jack/Jill of all trades/master of none, specialist, generalist, dramatic, scientific, linguistic etc, etc...
What is it that we can talk about children in the abstract, without thinking what that really means down at the root of it all, what it means to a body, mind, heart and soul?
Dont you want more for you kids than you had given to you? Think down below the numbing, down to where you still feel the pain, sadness, disappointment, futility that you were cut off in parts of your growing, that if only you had the opportunity, other parts of you would get to express yourself, get to contribute to the greater good...
Leschi is early, but Beacon Hill and JSIS are successful, and Garfield has been for a long time. I think this model works. It works to get parents excited about something, and willing to try a school they might have thought of as 'bad' in the past. I don't think the "make everything good, but we won't define good" model works at all. It might be more ideologically pure, but it doesn't work in practice. Magnets do.
A few wealthy kids get advanced learning? I've had kids in advanced learning for years and only met one person who was genuinely wealthy. Everyone else was middle-class or what you could call lower middle class. And "barely ahead"? There is a testing standard and it wouldn't be called anywhere near "barely ahead". And, anyone can take the test, for free, and be in the program. That makes it not exclusive but open to everyone. Will everyone qualify? Nope but they are also supposed to get advanced learning options in every classroom.
It's okay to say you don't like separated classrooms; it's not okay to made big huge statements that are not true (unless, again, you can show the data). I had a talk today with Susan Enfield, our CAO, on this subject and I'll write a thread on what she had to say.
And Sahila, c'mon, that's a little overreaction to Charlie's comments. Of course, we value every child for their gifts and every child does have something to learn from and give to a class. But we need to give kids opportunities and push and rigor. All kids because I do hope our schools are trying to help students to achieve to the highest level they can.
And yes, I would like my kids to have better schools than I had. I didn't have the worst but I certainly would have liked better both in nurturing AND learning.
There are schools and staff within SPS that sneer at advanced learning. You are fortunate that it hasn’t been your experience.
At our neighborhood elementary school, little was done to notify parents of advanced learning testing besides the required posting in the newsletter. Some parents and staff openly disparaged those that chose Spectrum and APP for their children (it meant leaving the school). One teacher discouraged a parent from having their child tested. The principal told another parent that Lowell kids “aren’t normal” and would rather sit on the playground and read books than run around and play; the parents just “push and push their kids,”…it goes on and on and the stereotypes just continue.
If your child is not happy or thriving at school, it is in the student’s best interest to take advantage of the programs offered by SPS. It’s that simple. I think all parents would agree that what they want is a school that can provide an appropriate education for their child, whatever their needs.
Umm there are plenty of private k-8 Montessori schools (check out Pacific Crest and Northwest Montessori to name a couple) in addition to tons of private Montessori pre-schools.
Let students assigned to historically lower-ranked (in choice-- see the FRL discussion and the original comment about choosing south end schools that prompted this discussion string) schools for assignment area schools (I'll call them "tipping point" schools) have the ability to leave the tipping point schools while also seeding these schools with desirable programs to turn around the exodus:
Do this by temporarily adding priority in the SAP above the lottery for children in the assignment area for tipping point schools to go to non-assignment schools while also creating attractive programs in the tipping point schools. When the tipping point schools can attract students instead of repelling them, drop the FRL priority for students assigned to the schools. I'm sure any math grad student could create a way to track this. This would give everyone the motivation to improve tipping point schools-- people assigned to them as well as other people who want to remove the FRL priority and it would make sure the disliked FRL SAP option is not permanent.
"If your choices are "school where kids are marched silently down the hallway in uniform to receive a WASL-focused education" or "Montessori school," that's a decision that doesn't end up having a thing to do with FRE enrollment."
I respectfully disagree, and the basis for my disagreement is a sensitive subject, so I'll do my best without offending anyone....I hope.
It's my opinion that many poorer parent/guardians are open to the idea of WASL because a) it gives them a number, a way fopr their kid to be judged and maybe be "equal to or better than" other kids that the child has not been able to compete with before, or be fairly compared to, because of race, class or other factors. To some parents of poverty, the WASL score is agreat equalizer.
B) because(and I say this very repectfully without any attempt at "holier than thou") there is a correlation between poverty and level of understanding of different modes of education. To put it bluntly, again without disrespect, the wealthier one is (or the more part of the "system" one is) the more one knows about options and their quality. Conversely, it easier to convince someone who might not know different that the WASL is somehow THE be-all and end-all of education (after all, our state and federal governments, and hence the district, put an AWFUL lot of stock in it, while also using some scary disaggregation to make some very broad assumptions and narrow a child down 'til she or he is merely one or two "categories." If the State and District can put so much weight on it, might someone who doesn't know enough about education, or hasn't experienced it to all its glory, or lacks the resources to enact desired outcomes, be assured that WASL marching is the Way?
Somne parents think WASL is good. Some parents think marching in place or whatver is good. Some like uniforms. Some like direct instruction. I think they're misinformed or misdirected, but to assume that everybody likes Montessori is not accurate and leads to inaccurate planning and expectations.
Yes, some parents want Montessori. But some other
I guess I would say that the percentage ahead for spectrum is meager indeed. Top 15%. At my particular school teachers tell me 30% or more qualify for the so-called advanced-learning spectrum, (oh yeah, all white) though ALO is offered for them. It does effectively half class-size when they're pulled out. Those kids aren't so special that they can't be served in a regular classroom... as many note, Bryant, TC, and many other very good schools do this. We would never dream of providing self-contained special education for the bottom 15% of our performers. Nobody likes to be defined by their limitations and denied possiblity. Furthermore, with spiraling curriculum, the whole notion of "a year ahead" is pretty meaningless, as is any entitlement for it. I mean, when they're 25 years old but working at the level of a 26 year old is that going to mean anything? And the whole "anybody can take the test" is pretty specious too. We have a whole industry of private psychologists privately testing kids into these exclusive programs, public and private. Do you think they would stay in business if they didn't identify people as "gifted" for the purposes of exclusive school placement? Those who wanted to be gifted and paid for being gifted? (yes, it's a business)
All students need acceleration at times, and assistance at times, but by segregating out big chunks of people labeled "accelerated", we deny opportunity to the rest. We deny a credible cohort to students who need acceleration at various times. And furthermore, schools don't really feel the need to provide advanced learning to everyone... except to for those who qualify for some program. The reality is, they should provide it... as it's needed to as many as possible, whenever possible.
While its perfectly fine for you to point out that you disagree with my viewpoint, and to state why: "Sahila, your opinion/reasoning is flawed/sucks because A, B, C" etc, I would be grateful if you dont tell me that my response is an over-reaction to Charlie's writing.
My response is mine - it is what it is... some people might respond less emphatically, some might resonate with the level of response I have put forward, some might respond even more passionately...
Where does it say that you are the arbiter of what is and is not appropriate in degree of response?
I repeat - I find Charlie's writing about "creating high performing" kids absolutely repugnant...
Words are all we have to convey meaning, and words are full of context, nuance, tone, much of which we lose in writing/on the web...
Charlie may not have meant his words to convey the idea of the mechanistic/production/manufacturing of children, but his choice of words left his writing open to that interpretation.
I am pretty sure Charlie does not ever think of applying mechanistic production models of education to his own children, but in my (OVER-REACTING)opinion, his writings often give the impression that he doesnt apply the same criteria for educating his children to all the other children in SPS... in my opinion, there is a disconnect happening in Charlie's writing whereby the personal is not transferred to the collective and that I think is sad and the major flaw in many of his arguments.
I understand the difficulty in coming up with solutions to problems when we go from the specific to the general, from the individual to the thousands...
However - that's where Charlie and I differ in approach. He states he is a pragmatist, where the solution is the need of the many over the need of the few...
I come from the other end of that spectrum... for me, the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many...
And I say this because in an organic (or even a mechanistic) model, if one small part/component of the entire system malfunctions or is not functioning at optimal level, then the entire body/mechanism fails to function at its fullest potential/peak performance.
And ignoring one or more small failures eventually leads to the collapse of the whole system...
Its more holistic, sensible, less expensive to give each small/individual part the attention it needs than to repair the damage of whole-systems failure...
Perform for their parents?
Perform for their schools by turning in high test scores?
Or should they 'perform' by budding and flowering into the integral and authentic expression of their complete, whole selves?
I dont want my child moulded/created into some 'high performing' test taker.... our success in doing that (which will please the 'investors' in education) may well mean our continued failure to evolve as a species...
That is a very tired old canard, and I'm sick of having to post about it. The psychologists damned well do sometimes get test results lower than those needed for Spectrum or APP. You don't hear about it because no one wants to say their kid didn't test gifted. There are a *lot* of well-off families who've ended up sending their kids to private schools precisely because their kids didn't test in to Spectrum or APP. There are also a lot of families who have privately-tested kids in different programs.
Most private schools in Seattle don't use IQ testing, by the way -- if there's an entrance exam it's likely to be the ISEE (Independent School Entrance Exam), which is a paper-and-pencil achievement test.
If you have any evidence that a psychologist is taking bribes, report them to their professional organization. It's a clear violation of their professional guidelines: they should lose their licenses over it.
Helen Schinske
Well, yes, in my opinion we do want to create high performing students in elementary school. What would be the alternative? To strive for low performing or mediocre students? Like it or not the main goal of school is to teach academics. Everything else, no matter how valuable and lovely is secondary. A "good" school will produce motivated, high achieving students.
When your student graduates and goes out on a job interview who do you think the employer will hire? The high achiever or the low achiever? The motivated applicant, or the applicant that lacks initiative?
A schools primary responsibility is to educate our children, and I would like them to focus on that task. I will "nurture, nourish, support, grow, encourage, tend, feed, water and LOVE" my children at home - that is my job.
I think that the local dance theater would select the well rounded candidate that was motivated in addition to being a stellar dancer? Not the mediocre dancer, who lacked initiative?
No matter your employer there are common traits that are valued, including high achievers, the willingness to learn, motivation, a good attitude, etc. It is our schools job to provide a rigorous, challenging, academic environment where children can achieve to their highest potential.
"When your student graduates and goes out on a job interview who do you think the employer will hire? ...A schools primary responsibility is to educate our children"
Is not a school's repsonsibility to also educate about life skills, civics, et all? You DO say, "primary," indicating that there are other purposes, but by leaping right to the job interview and not meniotning at all some of the other post-graduation expectations (voting, for instance) it seems that career goals are all there are.
But you know me: just gotta keep throwing out the idea that school is not just about jobs.
Adhoc, there arent enough 'meaningful' jobs such as the ones you describe out there for all of those 'high performing students we have created'...
Education was not and still is not about academics.... mass/public education was invented to move people off the land (farms) into the cities to work in the factories that were spawned by the industrial revolution; schooling wasnt invented and paid for by factory owners because they were philanthropic at heart - they did it because they needed a cheap labour force who could read and write enough to operate machines and who had been inculcated to work a mechanistic schedule different from the rhythm of the land. Nothing has changed (summer break is a hangover from that time, when kids had to go back to the farm to help with the harvest), except that now we have another 7 MIllION unemployed people (just in the past year) joining the ranks of those already replaced/dumped by outsourcing (the local labour market became too expensive) and technology.
Our schools still are about churning out cogs in the machine, and they/society sucks us into that model by promising us a chance to win the "Race for the Top"... work hard, study hard and you too can join the ranks of the successful, the powerful, the rich...
that might be the case for a small proportion of our students, but its not, and never will be, for the majority...
So why are we playing this game at all? Why dont we give our kids the chance to grow into all they can be instead of maintaining this myopic focus on academics as the be all and end all, and let them build a different world for themselves, one in which they are not classed a failure if they arent a doctor, lawyer, accountant, IT geek?
And of course I hope that my kids will not only be competitive in the job market but they will be well rounded AND be good citizens, vote, etc. However in the harsh real world you can survive without voting, you can not survive without a job.
And, by the way when I say our schools should produce high achievers I mean that they should produce students that are performing at their own personal highest - and though that will look different for each child it should be our goal, no?
Hmmm...strange, then, that SS is not a WASL requirement, wot?
Guess to WASL, NCLB etc et al it just doesn't matter.
Yet all the world is convinced that WASL scores indicate a school's "success," or lack thereof. So a school COULD be teaching children how to be citizens and no one would notice.
Many of those on the lower end require nothing but what Sahila mentions: an ability on the part of the worker to get there, learn which buttons to push and when (or which row to hoe).
If the "business" of education is partly to prepare students for the workpalce, wouldn't we a) be teaching so that students are prepared when they might, due to competition, be left pushing a broom? and b) teaching (propably in SS, that non-wasl subject) about economy, economic systems etc so students know they will be entering a capitalistic society where their job may be eliminated on a moment's notice, it mighit be outsourced, there are "younger and fresher" workers coming up beneath them...In other words, if we are preparing them for the real world," oughtn't we prepare them to change it to something more equitable and less capricious?
7,000,000 unemployed seems just about right in a capital economy, particularly one where jobs are best sent oversees where the wages are lower. Capitalism NEEDS unemployed, just as it needs the manufacture of endless widgets and geegaws. Did you read the article in last week's NY Sunday Magazine about the booming economy in storage lockers? We buy about twice as much crap as we did ten years ago, heck, some storage facilities are actually built of the containers the crap came here in in the first place!
This is what we should be tweaching children, in adition to skills they need to live. They need to know the system that will be their taskmaster in twelve short years.
The cynic in me says that while some, blessed with connected and/or savvy parents, will "succeed," many more will not, due to a lack of understanding, due to classism, due to racism, due to a system that still runs, partly, on "who you know."
We have not travelled at all in the last 200 years. It seems that we have because the numbers are so much larger, and there is more glitz and dazzle and spin and distraction hiding/camoflaging the truth... but...
There is no way all of the children coming through this system can win the prize of a great job, great money, great level of consumerism, great partner, great home, great kids, great life...
The system is not built to allow that... and our schools are built by and for the system, not for our kids...
If you think that there will ever be full employment then you are dreaming... there will never be full employment in this country, nor in the rest of the world... education and employment are not the answer to our problems, economic or social... this system is broken beyond repair - we need a new paradigm... my age group (50+) might not have to make this happen, but my son (6) and my grandchildren will ...
Anyway, staying with the paradigm we have, we force feed our kids 'academics' (actually more and more only reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic), like we do geese, for pate de fois gras - to feed the market and to make them more attractive/competitive in the market, in an effort to ensure they dont spend their lives in the gutter, or the reject pile...
the irony of course, for those who dont end up in the gutter/reject pile, is that they are just as trapped as those who didnt make the cut.... except they are trapped by mortgages, education loans, health care insurance, credit card debt, stuff the world tells them they just have to have to convince themselves and others just how successful/powerful they really are... "look at me, I've made it!", and once they have made it, they have to keep on running, like the mouse on the wheel, to keep it... one little slip, accident, unlucky event and its all gone...
there's even a board game about this - snakes and ladders - think you call it chutes and ladders...
Except for the people at the very top of the pyramid, its a crapshoot for our kids. The ones who are already relatively well resourced have a slight advantage over the others, but even they are not immune - even with the best test results from the best educational institutions - to the whims of the market because they are slaves to the system... another case of the tail wagging the dog...
dont you find it abhorrent that we live like this? I do... and I dont accept that its education's job to programme our kids for more of the same...
adhoc - if you want another take on what this world is really all about, I'd respectfully suggest you look at the irony/satire in films such as the Matrix, and Wall-E...
Poor argument SC. You know that WA state values a SS curriculum even though it is not tested on the WASL. The mere fact that SS classes are REQUIRED to be taught in both middle and high schools, even though they are not tested on the WASL, is proof of that.
In fact I don't think there is any state or district that has decided not to teach social studies because it is not on the WASL. That would tell me that as a country we really do value SS.
What is the alternative? What specifically would your ideal world look like? What would your sons future look like post education? How would he survive? Eat? Find shelter?
Have you read Buckminster Fuller? In one of his books, he writes that this world now has the technology, capacity and resources to feed, clothe, house, educate, provide health care to every single human being on this planet. Its not a question of not having enough - its a question of control, ownership, distribution and profit-taking... now is the time of collaboration, not competition...
Did you know that the US this year refused to support a UN resolution that stated that access to clean water is a basic human right?
http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000102
And the world produces enough food to feed twice its human population, yet one billion people still lack access to adequate food, according to reports at this link:
http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/08/07/members-of-human-rights-expert-committee-at-un-question-patents-food/
By a vote of 180 in favour to 1 against (United States) and no abstentions, the Committee also approved a resolution on the right to food, by which the Assembly would “consider it intolerable” that more than 6 million children still died every year from hunger-related illness before their fifth birthday, and that the number of undernourished people had grown to about 923 million worldwide, at the same time that the planet could produce enough food to feed 12 billion people, or twice the world’s present population. (See Annex III.)
By the terms of the text, the Assembly would express concern that, in many countries, girls were twice as likely as boys to die from malnutrition and childhood diseases and that twice as many women as men were estimated to suffer from malnutrition. Accordingly, it would have the Assembly encourage all States to take action to address gender inequality and discrimination against women, including through measures to ensure that women had equal access to resources, including income, land and water, so as to enable them to feed themselves and their families. By further terms of the draft, the Assembly would urge Member States to promote and protect the rights of indigenous people, who have expressed in different forums their deep concerns over the obstacles and challenges faced in the full enjoyment of the right to food.
After the vote, the representative of the United States said he was unable to support the text because he believed the attainment of the right to adequate food was a goal that should be realized progressively. In his view, the draft contained inaccurate textual descriptions of underlying rights.
The Committee also approved a draft resolution on the rights of the child by a vote of 180 in favour to one against ( United States), with no abstentions. Among other things, that omnibus text would call upon States to create an environment conducive to the well-being of all children, including by strengthening international cooperation in regard to the eradication of poverty, the right to education, the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health, and the right to food.
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2008/gashc3941.doc.htm
How much time do you and your partner spend working to earn enough money for the roof over your head, clothes on your backs, food on your table, healthcare, education? Most families, combined because one income is not sufficient any longer - maybe 90-100 hours per week? And where is the time to raise your kids, to be in your community, to express other parts of yourself, to help your neighbour, to feed your relationship?
I dont think you should have to "earn your keep" these days... I think you ought to be able to offer the unique gifts, talents, skills and passion you have to the community, and in return the community gives all its members the resources they need to live comfortably...
And I think our education model, because its a tool of and serves the capitalist system, doesnt value and nurture our children into developing passions, skills, gifts and talents for them to express in the community... it only focuses on skills and attributes it needs and values to keep the system going....
There's lots of information available about other systems of community, economic transactions and governance...
Look at the work of Robert Theobald, Margaret Wheatley, Alvin Tofler, Marilyn Waring and others....
http://www.margaretwheatley.com/articles/Sun.Sept08.Boyce.pdf
In other words, whole buildings, whole systems are deemed "failures" no matter what they do regarding social studies.
I DO care about this, because this has enormous ramifications for students everywhere: the feds (and their dollars...our dollars) are now geared towards schools that are "innovative" ("charter") based on only teh categories they have given this weight to.
"teaching to the test" is already happening, of course, and will, if this continues get worse. Your child's seat in SS has less meaning, and might be merely folded into some trifling offshoot of RWM.
dont laugh or pooh-poo the idea... just as alternative schools often are the prototype for educational innovation, so science fiction can be the prototype for societal innovation...
anyway... people on a past earth were interacting with people from the future...
a woman asked how come they werent all working for their living?
the future earth person said that in his society, each human being was given all the tools and resources they needed to grow into their fullest potential and they gave back to the society by using all their skills and talents and attributes and passion...
Because there was no longer any need to divert energy and attention to basic survival issues, they were free to be as focused and creative in their field as possible, whatever that field was... and all of it benefited the community/society at large, with the spin off that they were seen and valued for who they were, for their uniqueness...
I want my kids to live in a world like that; what sucks is that it is totally possible now, but only if the controlling interests in this world give up that control - and I cant see that happening any day soon...
As a south end parent, I'd like other constructive suggestions and plans. I presented one and have yet to hear others...
Got sidetracked there on social studies and all that...But it's so dang interesting!
Anyhoo, my experience with many in the south end leads me to suggest, humbly,
that a school that WAS alternative would be helpful - there are none down there, hardly...Orca...and..and..
Alts DO reach a variety of students.
Combined with that, or even merely combined with a trad school, I'd like to see a public community school or two, meaning schools that are networked into a variety of social services, have adult ed at night, drama at night, other community functions... a sort of commons arranged around the school building, with lots of outreach and parent/guardian/community support.
Sort of like AAA did, but they didn't have full buy-in fromthe larger community from the get-go...
What is SouthShore? It was listed in the Enrollment Guide along with the reference area schools in the Southeast Cluster, but it isn't a reference area school. It will be an Option school in the new student assignment plan, but it denies being an alternative school. Cleveland High School won't have an attendance area and will be an Option school under the new student assignment plan. South Lake High School doesn't have an attendance area but I believe students can choose it if they want to.
Then there is the language immersion program at Beacon Hill, the Montessori program at Graham Hill, and, coming soon, a language immersion program at Mercer for the students rising from the program at Beacon Hill.
We have been told, however, that not all Option Schools are Alternative Schools. The only schools that will be covered by the alternative school audit are:
TOPS K-8
Salmon Bay
Thornton Creek
NOVA
Pathfinder
ORCA
AS#1
If you take this as the total list of alternative schools, then they are pretty evenly (and sparsely) distributed around the District. There is one K-8 in each of the Northwest, the North, the Northeast, the Central Area, the Southeast, and West Seattle.
Cleveland is not on the list, but neither is The Center School or SouthShore.
I was hoping that the alternative school audit would help us define what is an alternative school, but it apparently has a different purpose.
The official charge of the committee, among other things, included developing an operational definition of alternative
education in the Seattle School District. It also included making policy recommendations about
alternative education to the Seattle School Board.
The committee worked hard, fulfilled their charge, and presented their findings to Raj Manhaus and the school board. The District has this information and could utilize it if they wanted to.
Here is the link to the full Alternative schools Committee report
http://www.seattleschools.org/area/board/altedfinalreport.pdf
Included in the report:
Alt schools as Charter Schools
Curriculum: Alternative schools may determine their own curriculum provided that it meets the State EALRs and the accepted best practices/standards in each curriculum area
Flex scheduling: alt schools flexible scheduling and attendance policies
And it ends with this statement:
"The District has a proliferation of “non-traditional” schools whose combined enrollment represents 13.8% of the District’s October 1, 2004, enrollment. The public is poorly informed by the different labels without description used to
designate these schools. Hopefully, the Operational Definition for alternative
education in this report can be used as a model for creating a taxonomy of schools."
Yes, alts are very much like SOME charters in that they tailor their curriculum and other things to meet the goals and needs of their specific community.
But they are NOT like charter schools in that they also have to adhere to general policies. General policies USED to allow felxibility in curriculum and scheduling - alts met the curricular mandate (as per previous thread about curriculum - see Charlie's definition: the knowledge and skills needed (i.e. EALRs) but NOT the pedagogy.
That's the crazy thing: Seattle developed some very interesting programs over the years, each having its own unique "flavor", much like some of the charters now touted (but not like the charters that seem to be addressed only at low-ses, or other "categories" considered "low performinhg": Those seem to be as far from alternative as one can get (no democratic decision making, a very targeted student population, uniforms, structure...)
We have/had a variety of schools that serve as models of diverse ways to reach similar goals, but those opporunities are receding from our grasp. "Common" (in more ways than one) curriculum, common assessments, common start times, common materials...
oh vey