Open Thread Friday
To note: if you are writing the Board about the NSAP and the transition plan, do try to use this address:
schoolboard@seattleschools.org
Apparently, those e-mails with the message line "NSAP" get more easily forwarded to Tracy Libros who is trying to get as wide a range of comments as possible. This doesn't mean that any comment you sent to an individual Board member won't get to her (the Board is trying to make sure she sees what they see) but the best way is to use the address above.
This Saturday sees 3 community meetings:
Carr - 8:30-10 am
DeBell - 9-11:30 am
Patu - 10 am -noon
schoolboard@seattleschools.org
Apparently, those e-mails with the message line "NSAP" get more easily forwarded to Tracy Libros who is trying to get as wide a range of comments as possible. This doesn't mean that any comment you sent to an individual Board member won't get to her (the Board is trying to make sure she sees what they see) but the best way is to use the address above.
This Saturday sees 3 community meetings:
Carr - 8:30-10 am
DeBell - 9-11:30 am
Patu - 10 am -noon
Comments
One poster commented, “What I have heard through the years is that Garfield's course selection is available ONLY because they have the numbers (# of students signing up for AP classes) to justify all of the sections/choices.” I have heard this, too, but, in looking at the current course offerings, this argument doesn’t really make sense for the majority of schools.
Ballard, Garfield, Ingraham, Sealth, and West Seattle have all or most of the classes in place already (see previous post), and most of these schools have master class schedules online which indicate that they are actually offering all or almost all of these classes.
From what I understand (someone correct me if I’m wrong), Hale and Roosevelt are not offering classes in certain subjects because administrators and/or teachers are philosophically opposed to stand-alone honors and AP courses. This has no place in the NSAP.
I could be wrong, but the numbers are in favor of Franklin having enough demand for honors and AP courses if they are offered. Franklin has a 9th grade class of 432 and, with a 4-year graduation rate last year of 78%, we can grossly estimate that 337 will graduate. With an estimated 48% of the graduates leaving ready for 4-year colleges (this is higher than Ballard's ready-for-college rate) and 53% taking at least one AP class, it seems reasonable that honors and AP classes would fill. Does anyone have any insight into why Franklin offers so few honors/AP courses? Are administrators or teachers opposed to them?
Given its low enrollment (110 freshmen this year) and low graduation rate (58% 4-year rate), it’s not surprising that Rainier Beach seems to be the only school that would have problems filling the standard set of honors and AP courses. I’m not sure what the answer is, but I think the families from that community need to be consulted. Perhaps there would be guaranteed access to Cleveland (with Cleveland being required to offer the full honors/AP curriculum); perhaps the kids should have preferential access to open choice seats at Franklin and Sealth. It is simply unacceptable that kids don’t have access to advanced coursework because of where they live.
Yup, you have got that correct. And yes, your conclusion I also support. This has no place in the NSAP.
What happens to thwart the attempts by the district to insist on AP courses is that they simply require everyone to take the AP course. Pretty much defeats the purpose of self selected rigor, depth and accelerated pace that one would hope to get from an honors or AP course, but there you go.
This also means the school scorecard figures on percent of kids who take AP courses is misleading, to put it mildly.
Past performance is a poor indicator for future performance of test scores. Are we surprised? I suspect Maier was a little, because he actually asked how this would relate to the CBA. So why are we spending millions to use this exact data to suss out the wonderful from the crappy teachers?
Sure, the district could push buildings to offer a bunch of AP classes, but how many kids need to enroll in order to make it happen? 25? 15? 10? At some point it becomes too expensive to pay the 1/6 FTE. It's exactly the problem the 8th graders face at Hamilton with Alg2 (although there's no excuse for blocking the 6th/7th graders from advancement).
I do believe there's a lot of room for improvement, and more AP/IB classes should be offered around the city. I just don't believe that a full range of AP/IB classes is practical in all buildings.
That said, what Hale and Roosevelt are doing is appalling. And I totally agree that it should not be allowed, especially with the NSAP.
Ironically, many of us are complaining about district mandates overriding decisions that we want the buildings to make. But here is a situation where the reverse is true. Scary, huh?
That is, would you expect that schools with low proficiency rates would make higher gains because there is more room for growth (hence, a best-fit line would run from upper left to lower right)? Or would you expect low growth because of low proficiency (thus a best-fit line running from lower left to upper right)?
But regardless of that, what I don't see in these scatter plots is either a correlation coefficient or a regression analysis, which is how you determine whether there is a relationship between two continuous variables and what the best-fit line is, respectively.
This is not my area of expertise by any means, but I find it odd that they draw conclusions based on the scatter plots alone. But I also don't understand the qualitative aspect either - why/how would proficiency level of a school predict future percent gains and what would you do with that information if the two were correlated? Maybe I'm missing something obvious that someone else can explain.
As for RBHS, I think if they cannot offer ALL the classes, they should figure out which kids want the classes, and shuttle them up to Franklin. They could do half the day (3 classes) and take kids back to RB for the balance. It just is not that hard to get kids up and down Rainier Ave. S. Hopefully, eventually, the school will grow to attract its own large student base, but in the meantime -- it would make it possible for RB kids to take accelerated classes with enough other kids in them to provide the critical mass needed for discussion, class projects, etc.
Do we know if this is money that really reaches the classrooms in the form of more teachers, more instructional materials, counsellors, etc? Or are they including, for those schools, the costs of the "coaches" who coach the teachers -- but never have contact with a student?
Jane
It's $207/month across district. We got a letter in late september with the amount and address to send payment to, but that has been the last we've heard from the district until there was a short note in the JA newsletter from the principal, encouraging parents to pay and again giving the address. In our note it indicated that the district WOULD be sending out first quarter invoices along with what sounded like a form for us to be able to set up automatic payments.
To answer the other question about how is the money going to the schools? Coaches vs direct support? Well, I can make an educated guess, but as I haven't seen any clear documents that explain how the performance management money is being used, I really cannot say for sure.
I did just read in the 2010-11 budget, the executive summary at the beginning says they are going to ask the board to approve the supplemental levy going to voters so that it could help "address the students' highest priority needs." So clearly, MGJ sees teacher raises, MAP expansion and evaluating teachers on junk science as the highest priority needs for kids.
Carr, DeBell and Maier are the finance committee. I hope you will let them know. This was an offhand item in a busy meeting, it was not talked about besides the fact that it exists. I don't even remember the context, it might have been related to audit and the need to improve financial controls and the need to improve internal training and the potential for future audit findings. The three committee members might recall the context.
The district needs to be all over RBHS, but all they do is throw useless bones like the SE Initiative down Rainier Ave, hoping the folks in the SE will chase 'em. Well, SPS isn't fooling anybody. If we can spend 120 million on Garfield, we can invest some substantial sums in RBHS too. Excellence for All? Or not?
The scatter‐plot below illustrates that past performance is a relatively poor predictor of the % of students making gains at a school the following year (although there is a mild relationship, particularly at the elementary level). This indicates that any school can achieve a high % of students making gains precisely because student growth is compared with academic peers.
I think his point is that low performance is no excuse for low growth and also doesn't automatically mean high growth is easier--it's his way of saying that neither high nor low performing schools have an excuse for low growth because there is no relationship between the two.
I'm hoping he at least ran correlation coefficients and just isn't presenting them because he figures the Board wouldn't understand that as well as a scatter plot. Wouldn't it be great if these things had links to technical appendices?
And wouldn't it be nice if someone on the Board had enough confidence with statistics to raise Dorothy's point? I'm hoping that the answer would be that when you look at time series data for Districts that have based their interventions on MAP scores then you can see how those interventions lead to high growth and therefore growing levels of proficiency over time for all schools.
I don't have confidence that an analysis like that has ever been done. I emailed Bernatek during the SEA negotiations asking basically that and never heard back (even though Kay Smith Blum asked him to get back to me.)
Just wait until they start sending these multi-month bills to collections.
And besides that it would take at LEAST a half hour to load the bus, drive to Franklin (Rainier Ave is a mess), unload...and that would be if all the kids had their classes at Franklin in the same block. Sounds like a logistical nightmare to me.
Sure enough, our school has received a substantial amount of money which is being refunded to last year's K families because it did not cost $200/month last year to cover the cost of full day kindergarten. So why are we being charged $207/month this year? No one at the District has ever explained how the $207/month figure was calculated (and I have asked).
How this will be used in our evaluation, I don't know. I won't be surprised if grievances are filed.
Makes me think to say, "Oh SURE we trust you on boundary lines, proper teacher evaluations, and spending all that levy money wisely."
Yeah, I don't think so.
You trust the district with your credit card? :-O
;-)
I never heard back the results of the RBHS community meeting a few years back. Do you know what the community's suggestions for improving the school were?
Someday we all have to grow up, face the music, and realize that "public" doesn't mean "free."
Sorry to be such a downer, but the next time a supposedly liberal pundit scoffs and laughs at Joe Biden or anyone else who says it's patriotic to pay taxes, I want to punch them in the mouth.
It's that attitude that has people having to pay for kindergarten when every study and every statistic shows that investment will save us tenfold in the future.
But we can pay for jails, guns, security systems, etc., etc. And on to the world of Blade Runner we go.
Really, really depressing that people can't see that a stitch in time saves nine.
Awesome.
I'm not sure that's still true, but I think so. With the District allegedly picking up the moneybag, however, I can't be certain. I'll look into it.
Patu - 22 schools
Debell - 10
Carr - 12
Maier - 14
Sundquist - 17
Smith Blum - 10
Martin Morris - 10
Those slides on funding are interesting - the district appears to be spending 25-50% more at "low achievement" Elementary schools per pupil than at "high achievement" schools.
If 25% to 50% doesn't close the "achievement" gap, what will? This difference in funding makes any amount of $$ (several hundreds of thousands of dollars) a "rich school" PTA raises (maybe 100k) look like a drop in the bucket.
http://crosscut.com/2010/11/19/k-12/20374/Let-s-pay-our-teachers-a-whole-lot-more/
From the New York Times Gates meddling in a big way again: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/us/19gates.html?_r=1&hpw
And our director doesn't even advocate for us in West Seattle.
No wonder kids in the SW and SE can't get anything more than a moldy old portable to chew on.
- seattle parent
Every reader of this blog needs to read the latest and greatest stump speech from Seattle's own National Self-Annointed Education Poobah (emphasis on Poo) and cry B******T (emphasis on ***T)on it loudly and publicly. (Hey, you've got a tag with just the word in it Melissa.)
Oh, and mail the WEA and SEA too.
'Cause see...Microsoft's system of trying to compensate employees fairly for work has gone through iteration after iteration through the years and let's just say that in general it is highly politicized and also cutthroat, not to mention full of the most specious blah blah blah self-promotion-and-kiss-up-to-your-manager's a$$ Business Crap that it makes you and your loved ones want to poke their eyes out every time an eval cycle rolls around.
Yes, I really think Bill Gates' business prowess should entitle him to restructure teachers' compensation.
LMAO.
Another Seattle Parent
School budgets are not going to double or triple any time soon.
The number of schools or students doesn't correlate.
Short story:
(1) Anderson and Martin lost as they failed to show any director intended to violate a law.
It is quite apparent that these directors consider lots of opinions but fail to evaluate facts and thereby do not produce evidence based decisions. Laws were violated and policies not followed.
(2)Judge Inveen ruled the petition insufficient for recall but thanked the Activists for bringing issues to light that would otherwise be buried from Public View.
The equivalent of the "Golden Apple" for Martin & Anderson from Judge Inveen,
while Maier et al. deserve Schrammies.
(3) The full story.
Carr - 8:30-10 am
DeBell - 9-11:30 am
Patu - 10 am -noon
Held on Saturday Nov 20, 2010.
I happen to think people, as a culture and a society, LIKE having an achievement gap. If everyone was achieving, what would people say? If all schools attained 100% pass rate on HSPE, what would people say? They'd say the "standards are too low". The implication.. we need failures.
Another Seattle Parent
From my perspective (others may disagree) the whole JSIS thing kept coming back to: it should be an Option School. The boundaries are too big, they don't have room to roll up 100 kindergarteners every year. It's impossible to draw the boundaries small enough, people will just keep cramming in (families are sharing houses to get in the zone, someone moved from San Francisco just for the school.) I didn't hear any push back re Option from any of the parents in the room (they all had younger sibs, many were outside the boundary). Sheri's push back was about whether all the immersions would have to then be Options and how that couldn't work for the other two because of geography. I said why not have the immersion part of the school enroll like an Option and the nonimmersion like neighborhood? A parent said that's how Latona used to be an implied that was a bad thing(?).
Sheri is interested in the idea of making McDonald an immersion school (goal is to have two K-5s for each international MS and she is concerned there isn't enough critical mass at HIMs to make it strong).), but wants to give the McDonald families and staff a chance to choose their own program (she thinks they are leaning toward science). Sandpoint feeds to Eckstein so doesn't make sense (and HIMS is full given APP and its draw area).
I'll post more later.
They are consistently making the point (I've seen this 3 dift times now) that they are basically a different school than they were two years ago--they have a new principal, many new staff and families. They had their bus service slashed way back. Their test scores are way up (look at the segmentation map--their yellow diamond is way up high in the left quadrant). They are asking for support in building their enrollment, they can be a partial solution to the MS overcrowding in the NE, but not if SPS keeps threatening to close them. They point out that if they close, 7 classroom full of kids will have to go back out into overcrowded schools. They pointed out that they aren't even listed under Alternative Schools on the SPS web site. AS#1! That is ridiculous!
They incorporate a very strong experiential learning program that is generally not available in SPS and they have very strong support for LGBT kids and families--they have a unit in their 7th/8th grade classes on LGBT issues and local LGBT organizations are coming out in strong support of AS#1. (I think there was a 3rd program mentioned-but I didn't note it)
I hope they survive (and thrive) Seattle needs a school like their's.
I doubt this is true because I asked Tracy Libros Wednesday, "What is the order of tiebreakers for option schools?" and she said "Sibling, geographic zone, lottery."
So unless it changed between Weds. and Sat., thanks Michael for the misinformation. It is an additional disappointment when the directors can't keep their info straight and/or never admit when they are uncertain. I mean, how hard it is? I have a job too.
I couldn't find anything on Option school tiebreakers on the website, that's why I had to ask Tracy.
And on that topic, I think many people still do not realize that the huge push from last year, grandfathering out-of-area sibs in neighborhood schools, is - as Chris says - most definitely off the table as far as the District is concerned due to lack of physical space.
WV says mensinkt. Yes, men sinked indeed.
t really hear that. The implication, and what people "heard," because they wanted to, was that the issue would be 'revisited' this year. But, they won't revisit it. They aren't going to discuss it again. It's over. Because there is no new NSAP vote on the table, they have (and have taken advantage of) the luxury of just saying -- nope. No. We are done. Now, maybe they could do more, and maybe they couldn't. I haven't heard any discussion of how many siblings had to be grandfathered, what effect it had on option seats, school enrollmen, on overcrowding, etc. I guess I had thought all that would be reported on and discussed as part of the "decision" on whether the District could afford to do any further sibling grandfathering. But it seems clear to me -- as far as the District is concerned, the community engagement/discussion on this topic is over. So -- the NEXT time the District tells you they will work out something on a one year basis, and then revisit it "do see what we can do the following year," we need to remember this and see if we can't get the decision worked so that the District can't just stonewall the discussion, declare victory, and retire from the field the following year. What has really happened here is tantamount to the District having said, last year -- one year, and one year only of sibling grandfathering. Is that what people thought they heard?
Looks like the sibling tie breaker is not a done deal going forward.
What I heard them say last year was essentially no grandfathering -- not unless there's room, which essentially means no grandfathering. Some sibs got in, some didn't depending on hard the school decided to try to fit them in.
Interestingly, I'm hearing an increasing call for switching JSIS to an option school amongst families in the school's reference area. The writing's on the wall, JSIS's reference area is too big, and people are starting to recognize that sooner or later this sib issue will visit them, even if they are now in the reference area now. No one (except apparently the district) believes that the current boundaries can hold.
I expect this will be a problem elsewhere. Sibs aren't a transition year problem. They will be an ongoing problem for this neighborhood system.