Happy Father's Day
To all the dads out there, happy Father's Day.
Enjoy your time with your family and relish the role of father.
Enjoy your time with your family and relish the role of father.
Tuesday Open Thread
The speaker list is up for the Board meeting tomorrow; not as packed as I thought with just four people on the waitlist. The majority of the speakers are speaking on high school boundaries (with several wanting to talk about Ballard High). There are only three of us speaking about the Green Dot resolution asking the City to not grant the zoning departures that Green Dot has requested. It's me, long-time watchdog, Chris Jackins, and the head of the Washington State Charter Schools Association, Patrick D'Amelio. (I knew Mr. D'Amelio when he headed the Alliance for Education and Big Brothers and Big Sisters; he's a stand-up guy.)
Comments
Enjoy the day and get far away ( even if not literally), from SPS.
http://thebubble.msn.com/#/video/?id=000651c7-2768-4df8-a2fd-3f8500e3c0d3
Meanwhile, I wondered whether everyone is receiving this survey via email from SPS.
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This is a web survey for parents and guardians of elementary students in Kindergarten thru 5th grade.
Your responses are very important to us, and all feedback you provide will be safeguarded to protect your privacy.
Important: Please answer all questions with only one child and one school in mind.
Please follow the link at the end of this email to participate in this survey. This link will only be active for seven (7) days.
Thank you,
Seattle Public Schools
I got that e-mail too, Shannon, but I haven't taken the survey yet.
First, each question had only 4 answer options, if I remember correctly, so there was no "mid-point" between "Agree" and "Disagree." Some researchers believe that 5-point scales are more accurate than this type of 4-point scale for survey questions. If you don't give a mid-point option where someone who is truly ambivalent can register their opinion, you tend to get skewed results because people are forced to choose between a totally positive or totally negative answer when neither applies. In many cases, people tend to skew positive because they think that's what the interviewer wants to hear or in a case like this, your email address may be tied to your answer, so you don't want to upset anyone at your local school who might be privy to what you said.
I would have liked for things to be less black and white. I think one question asked if teachers at your school are concerned about your child's academic progress or success. Well, how do you answer if most of them seem to be, but maybe one or two truly don't seem concerned for whatever reason? Do you "Agree" to recognize the majority or do you "Disagree" so that the powers that be are alerted to some potential problems? How about two questions: "Most of the teachers seem concerned" and "Some teachers do not seem concerned". That pair of questions would be a lot more useful, or at least one would think so.
What did others think about the survey? Has this been done in the past? If so, what happens with the results? Are they shared with the community? Are the data analyzed by school or cluster or just at the district level?
I'd hate to think that there's some designed reason that some parents are left out of the survey.