Central Administration Spending Highlighted on KUOW
Analysis whiz, Meg Diaz, discussed her findings on central administration spending on today's Conversation on KUOW. It is the first 5 minutes of the show. Meg was really on-point in her answers and KUOW has put a link to her report on its website. It's good to know it will be more widely known about than just here.
Comments
I'm a fan.
The P-I used to be very good, too. The Times seems to allow their editorial bias constrain their reporting.
Speaking of non-traditional watchdogs on Cliff Mass' blog he is saying that the hold over Bergesons' OSPI staff are watering down the math evaluations to test Discovery math students higher.
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/
I wasn't able to follow his examples linked to the OSPI site for some reason but maybe some of you can.
-- After shuttering schools for the last few years, why is the Seattle School District suddenly moving to reopen them? by Nina Shapiro
The Seattle Weekly has an article out today about the insanity of closing and reopening schools in quick succession.
Okay, insanity is my word, not Shapiro's, but here's the link: http://www.seattleweekly.com/2009-10-21/news/seattle-schools-closing-one-day-opening-another/
Meg Diaz and Melissa W. are among the quoted.
I came away from this article with a number of questions:
Is it true that the city has no demographic info to share with the school district?
Did the school district truly ask for the info?
Doesn't the school district have its own demographer? Why didn't they use her/him to help them predict capacity needs?
Why didn't Shapiro talk more about the levy and how it's going to be a hard sell in a recession when voters hear the district's demand to to reopen 5 schools for $48 million after just closing 5 schools to "save" $3 million.
And then there's Meg Diaz's damning report on SPS central office waste and bloatedness:
“Central Administration Efficiency in Seattle Public Schools” http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=0AVRHgOkrxGL8ZGhta2I4cXJfMGZqbjZqampz&hl=en).
This report clearly reveals a school district administration that does not know how to manage funds and resources responsibly. Why should voters throw more money at it?
Another troubling fact that emerges from this story: DeBell confirms that Old Hay was shuttered just to move out SBOC to repurpose the building for QA/Mag K-5 capacity demands.
In other words, the District did NOT close Old Hay to save money, as they said. That was a fib, to put it nicely.
Once again, those who questioned the wisdom, motives and alleged "cost savings" of the closures, were right
1) the city had not had a demographer for some time and recently (within the last 2 years) reopened the position. I don't know what demographic data the City has or doesn't have. But they certainly know about building permits, light rail lines,etc. that would influence demographics.
2) the district does have a demographer (Rachel Cassidy). I think Rachel is a nice person who is good at laying out data to the Board but I do not think she is good at forecasting at all.
3) I did talk to Nina about the levy but I got the impression it wasn't part of the story she wanted to tell right now.
King 5 and MSNBC have picked up the story too.