Open Thread Friday
What's on your mind?
No Community Meetings tomorrow with Board members.
Upcoming threads; furloughs still on the table for the Legislature, foundations try to throw yet more money for ed reform, Reuven Carlyle weighs in on paying School Board members a real salary.
Appreciations
Today is the last day of Teacher Appreciation Week. Know a special teacher? Tell them thank you for the work they do. My high school band teacher, not a "fun" teacher, died recently and he taught me more about striving for excellence and the discipline that takes than any other teacher. Thank you, Mr. Brendan.
Hey Moms, it's Mother's Day. Thanks to the moms that raised us and thanks to all the moms out there who love, nuture and advocate for their children.
The Daily Beast says Seattle is the 4th best place in the U.S. to "mom." (The same survey gives schools a 6 out of 10.)
No Community Meetings tomorrow with Board members.
Upcoming threads; furloughs still on the table for the Legislature, foundations try to throw yet more money for ed reform, Reuven Carlyle weighs in on paying School Board members a real salary.
Appreciations
Today is the last day of Teacher Appreciation Week. Know a special teacher? Tell them thank you for the work they do. My high school band teacher, not a "fun" teacher, died recently and he taught me more about striving for excellence and the discipline that takes than any other teacher. Thank you, Mr. Brendan.
Hey Moms, it's Mother's Day. Thanks to the moms that raised us and thanks to all the moms out there who love, nuture and advocate for their children.
The Daily Beast says Seattle is the 4th best place in the U.S. to "mom." (The same survey gives schools a 6 out of 10.)
Comments
"Colleagues – as you know, the new student assignment plan means changes to FTE that do not allow us to offer the full range of ELD content area classes. Next year you will have 9th and 10th graders who would be in ELD if we offered it. In other words, students who may be reading/writing in the 5th grade range."
"FOCUS GROUPS FOR PARENTS
Want to share your public school experience? Lesley Lavery of the University of Wisconsin-Madison is reaching out to Seattle public school parents to hear their views on the state of the public schools, school reform, and the connection between government and schools. She
will compile this data and send it to the district and our elected officials. To share your views or invite Lesley to a parent meeting in your community, contact her at 503-428-2858 or lavery@wisc.edu."
Here is the reply I got from Ms. Lavery:
"My name is Lesley Lavery and I am conducting research on the relationship
between education policies and parent views toward education and government. I NEED
YOUR INPUT! Please come share your views on the schools with me and other concerned parents:
Wednesday, May
11, 5-6pm
New Holly
Library Meeting Room
7058 32nd Ave S.
Thursday, May
26, 6-7pm
Beacon Hill
Library Meeting Room
2821 Beacon Ave. S.
For more information feel free to call or email. Please also pass on to other concerned parents."
I'm not sure if it's worth the effort or not. This is for Ms. Laverly's PhD and whether or not the feedback will make any difference I couldn't tell you, but they are in my part of town so I may go.
Whether it helps our district, it's a good opportunity to have a public discussion about education that is not directed by the district, the Alliance or any of the other usual suspects.
I would suggest that parents in other parts of the city contact Ms. Lavery so a more representative sample can be taken. And, unfortunately, I agree with Melissa...I am not sure how much this data will benefit the families of Seattle.
SolvayGirl
WV thinks I'm a a smart cookie today: mensa
In the next school year we will be adding seats for more elementary students. In our current configuration, we have one and a half classes at each grade level. Over the next two years, in stages, we will add the equivalent of ½ more class at each grade, which will result in having two full classes at each grade level, and a total capacity of 320 instead of 240 elementary students.
(re Leslie Lavery)
Whether it helps our district, it's a good opportunity to have a public discussion about education that is not directed by the district, the Alliance or any of the other usual suspects.
Actually, Lavery does have a connection to the usual suspects after all.
She is a former Teach for America recruit, for starters, and she currently works for the Center for Education Data & Research, with Dan Goldhaber. From what I've read CEDR conducts studies that push a corporate ed reform wish list: end to seniority, support for tying teacher evaluations to standardized testing (merit pay), etc.
See: http://www.cedr.us/researchers_lavery.html
"Lesley Lavery
Lesley Lavery, a PhD Candidate in Political Science at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, is an affiliated researcher with CEDR. Lesley's research interests focus on education policy, political behavior, and civic participation. Her dissertation examines how education policies structure parents’ social and political behaviors and views towards school authorities and government.
Lesley holds degrees from Willamette University (BA, Politics) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (MA, Political Science). Prior to her graduate studies Lesley taught 2nd grade in San Jose, California with Teach for America."
I have this from another source:
"Goldhaber is also on the review board for the Broad Prize and an expert at the "Flunked Solutions" website, which promotes Green Dot schools & "school choice." Their list of "solution," include merit pay, high-stakes testing, dismantling of units, and deregulating schools to "basic health, safety, and civil rights standards." http://flunkedsolutions.com/solutions/
And take a look at this site:
http://www.edvoices.com/blog/2011/01/11/rif-raff-double-talk-hidden-agendas-the-real-solution-to-the-teacher-layoff-debate/
(...) Corporate-model education reformers, salivating at the opportunities afforded them by current economic conditions, are pushing for RIF to occur on the basis of student standardized test scores. A “study” – exclusively released to the Associated Press in December – claims to provide a research-based rationale for such a RIF system. However, in typical corporate-charter-privatization reform style, this study is deliberately misleading. Not only that, but its premise rests entirely on a favorite logical fallacy of education-reformers: the false dichotomy.
(...)
This “study” was conducted by the Center for Education Data and Research (CEDR). Lead author Dan Goldhaber is an affiliated scholar at the Urban Institute. The Urban Institute has a well-documented track record of misleading publications and publicity stunts designed to garner support for the corporate-reform agenda. The Urban Institute also receives funding from the Gates Foundation.
More than half the “researchers” listed on the CEDR website have ties to the corporate-reform agenda. Mike Puma comes from the Urban Institute and now from Abt Associates, Inc., a group that conducts research for the Gates Foundation. Lesley Lavery is a Teach for America alum. Mark Long hails from the West Coast Poverty Center, a Gates-funded organization. In fact, CEDR itself is substantially funded by the Gates Foundation. With such a pedigree and the absence of peer review, this “study” is questionable at best.
So if Lavery is conducting research for a CEDR report, it may be along these lines.
--Sue p.
2011 Middle & High School
Naramore Art Exhibit
featuring ~150 works from SPS students opened last night at the Seattle Art Museum. It runs through June 4.
SG
Friday reader
No mention of cutting the bloted administrative staff.
Who were these people who were cut at mid year? All the usual suspects seem to retain their bloated job titles with the bloated salaries. This district is SO BLOODY dysfuctional.
Dear staff,
In these challenging budget times, I want to assure you we are doing everything we can to keep budget cuts from affecting students and our classrooms.
However, given the uncertainty of the state budget, and our need to balance our own District budget, we made the difficult decision to ask the School Board for permission for a reduction in force, or RIF, of 70 positions. This comes shortly after significant mid-year reductions in our Central Office.
As of now, the Legislature has yet to reach a compromise budget, but we know the projections for education funding are dismal. Substantial reductions in state and federal funding will have a dramatic impact on our 2011-12 budget. This is on top of $24.5 million of cuts in 2009-10 and $12.5 million earlier this year.
While final reductions in state funding for K-12 are not yet known, it is clear that we will need to have a reduction in force. Because we are legally bound to notify any certificated staff member by May 15 if we are considering not renewing their contract, the School Board passed a resolution at Wednesday’s meeting authorizing me to take action as necessary at this time.
Regrettably, we must inform approximately 30 certificated staff that we do not expect to renew their contracts for 2011-12 at this time. Principals whose staff will be directly affected by this RIF are in the process of informing those employees. In addition, approximately 40 classified staff are affected by the reduction action.
This is a very difficult decision. I value each and every one of our staff. Your dedication in the classroom, or to support the classroom, is the core of our work to ensure every student receives a quality education.
It is our hope that a certain number of these affected staff may be called back based on increased enrollment, leaves, grant awards, retirements and resignations. In the meantime, our Employee Assistance Program (EAP) remains a valuable and confidential service available to all Seattle Public Schools staff.
I will continue to keep you informed during this most difficult budget process. As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Susan
Dear staff,
In these challenging budget times, I want to assure you we are doing everything we can to keep budget cuts from affecting students and our classrooms.
However, given the uncertainty of the state budget, and our need to balance our own District budget, we made the difficult decision to ask the School Board for permission for a reduction in force, or RIF, of 70 positions. This comes shortly after significant mid-year reductions in our Central Office.
As of now, the Legislature has yet to reach a compromise budget, but we know the projections for education funding are dismal. Substantial reductions in state and federal funding will have a dramatic impact on our 2011-12 budget. This is on top of $24.5 million of cuts in 2009-10 and $12.5 million earlier this year.
While final reductions in state funding for K-12 are not yet known, it is clear that we will need to have a reduction in force. Because we are legally bound to notify any certificated staff member by May 15 if we are considering not renewing their contract, the School Board passed a resolution at Wednesday’s meeting authorizing me to take action as necessary at this time.
Regrettably, we must inform approximately 30 certificated staff that we do not expect to renew their contracts for 2011-12 at this time. Principals whose staff will be directly affected by this RIF are in the process of informing those employees. In addition, approximately 40 classified staff are affected by the reduction action.
This is a very difficult decision. I value each and every one of our staff. Your dedication in the classroom, or to support the classroom, is the core of our work to ensure every student receives a quality education.
It is our hope that a certain number of these affected staff may be called back based on increased enrollment, leaves, grant awards, retirements and resignations. In the meantime, our Employee Assistance Program (EAP) remains a valuable and confidential service available to all Seattle Public Schools staff.
I will continue to keep you informed during this most difficult budget process. As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Susan
-I wonder how many certificated staff will be RiF'd from JSCEE?
-never gets a straight answer
The job cuts are part of Mr. Bloomberg’s effort to slice an additional $400 million from various city agencies. He needs to plug a multibillion-dollar deficit in his $65.6 billion spending plan for the fiscal year that begins July 1. That budget is about the same size as the current one.
-- Dan Dempsey
2- Decided I am NOT down with PTSA pushing to stop funding school staff positions. Money talks. If PTAs cannot dedicate funds to their liking, what power does PTA have? Not like the business Alliance is going to stop funding their preferred positions at HQ or for dedicated use within the school system. Why should we?
-skeptical-
First announcement:
Parents Across America Seattle, a real grassroots organization, is meeting tomorrow, Saturday, May 7th at 2:00 PM in Volunteer Park in front of the Noguchi (Big Tire) Sculpture.
Bring lawn chairs and blankets. This will be a time to get to know members and hear about our goals and plans for this summer and fall.
We will also be discussing potential school board candidates. PAA Seattle plans to support viable candidates in conjunction with two other organizations. Working with other organizations makes our voices stronger and clearer.
This will be a time to chat and get to know each other.
Family members and children are welcomed.
If it rains, we will head to Vios on 19th and Aloha.
Dora
Architecture 101 Summer Workshops are available for students of all ages.
Checkout Architecture 101.
Dora
After this year's NSAP changes, which saw Salmon Bay w/out a waiting list at middle school for the first time in ages, Tracy Libros (enrollment) made repeated comments that K-8 education isn't necessarily popular w/ families. The alt-ed community pushed back, saying continued access and support of alt schools were very badly marketed/explained in the 1st year of NSAP enrollment.
So whether Salmon Bay is growing at both the elementary and middle school level, or just the elementary level, is an interesting data point.
During times of diminishing state funds, the district and majority of the board led the district down a path of new and non-sustainable initiatives.
The district handed out administrative raises, entered contractual agreements with SEA, spent $4M on MAP computers, unknown dollars on an academic warehouse, funded Research, Evaluation and Assessment $3M yr.
The WSS has been chopped up; funding is exiting our schools. Now...it is time to let staff go. Strategic and non-sustainable initiatives remain.
In light of RIFs, is this deal set in stone?
Could the principal have opted for teachers instead of the asst. P, or does she have no option?
If Lawton comes in under 450 next year, does the AP and associated expense stay at Lawton anyway?
SPS Dad
The answer is yes the District needs more administrators, especially centrally so they can help students from remote locations. They need to RIF more teachers so they can have two administrators per teacher. You know administration is important.
The district seems to be oblivious to what is so clear to everyone else.
Yet it appears that there is nothing we can do to keep them from robbing our students to support their dysfunction.
http://www.minorityreporter.net/fullstory.php?id=456
Linda Shaw's article said 30 teacher FTEs were going, plus some other, but now it's 70? Also, LS had painstaking detail on the level & subject area of RIFed positions, but some vague comment about 90 gone from "Central." Now SE says "significant mid-year reductions at Central" --even more vague.
I know I can dig out the details of the teacher RIFs, but the central, I doubt it. That 90 number is a lot like last year's number, that turned out to be more like 19. Anyone have some good numbers, or even good guesses, about what was cut from central?
And the coaches can't be riffed, because they have seniority, right? Maybe I could make a compromise with the reformers that teachers give up their seniority when they are no longer in the classroom, every day, with students. Non-adult students, that is.
There's a matrix for funding that allocates resources. They may not have had a choice in the new principal as the staffing matrix is set. I don't know if the staffing matrixes are available to the public, but they should be.
Former teacher
Salmon Bay, which has a "mushroom model" (more middle school seats than elementary seats), will keep the same number of MS seats that they currently have. They are expanding the number of elementary seats however. The district always views the school as under capacity, building-wise. In addition, this will have a side-efffect of helping to fill those middle school seats. Last year was the first year without a MS waiting list, probably due to the NSAP, the new lack of transportation, and the lack of explanation of how to apply to option schools under the NSAP.
In anycase, Lawton may be one of those failing schools that need 2 full time adminstrators. If so, since we are getting rid of school counselors, maybe getting an assistant principal maybe helpful for Lawton.
Parent
Unless my posts are VERY short (sigh -- they rarely are), they get munched the FIRST time I post -- when the post is followed by the log in. Something in the log in process seems to eat the post. Once I am logged in, if I make another comment, it generally goes through.
The other thing -- if you are pushed for time and don't want to copy so you can resubmit, I just use the other signin -- for name/url, and sign myself in that way.
So yes, I think when they updated the host awhile ago -- so that the log in is now on a new page that opens, it did something that eats posts.
Jan
(Word Verifier thanks memate Jan, too!)
(from their blog post)
"Technology has revolutionized our lives. But has it changed education in the 21st century?
Join us to hear leaders share their experiences using technology to deliver better individualized learning and outcomes for students.
John Danner, CEO of Rocketship Education
Cheryl Vedoe, CEO of Apex Learning
Shantanu Sinha, President of Khan Academy
Moderated by Tom Vander Ark
Innovations in Learning:
Technology in (and out of) the Classroom
Thursday, June 9 at 7:00 p.m.
University of Washington
Kane Hall, Room 210
4098 15th Ave NE, Seattle (map)
Read More | RSVP for this free, public event"
WV had a long, hard week and bemoans, "sormi"
I find some of my posts with hyperlinks don't make it out of the ethersphere. Yes, it's frustrating.
Then again, perhaps we can buy more computer equipment and lay off counselors. Wait- they already did that.
LEV seems to be bringing in all the "star" reformers with its "speaker series." I think LEV is the Broad propagandist. I don't think a small "hom grown" organization would have the pull to bring in these edu-businesses; LEV is merely the front for the organization of edu-business itself (that organization, I believe, is the New Schools group.)
So which local organization is actually independent? Not Stand For Children, not Partnership, not the Alliance or LEV...All these groups are (or have become) mere shills for New Schools and the foundations.
Too bad. We really don't need national Reform directing our "citizen action."
ELD is the new ELL,= students who are just learning English. Many of these students are not literate in their home language.
The new ELD director believes these students should all be mainstreamed even if they cannot read or write in any language.
Very interesting as the revised D 43.00 for promotion/ non-promotion introduced on May 4th no longer mentions interventions. So when mainstreaming does not work .. Struggling Students will likely not be provided any interventions, as interventions will no longer mentioned in board policy if the Board adopts D 43.00 on May 18th.
The proposed D 43.00 =>
It is the policy of the Seattle School Board to recognize the concept of individualized instruction and the development of each student's potential. Promotion from grade to grade should be based upon consideration of the academic and other developmental factors of the student. Promotion from grade to grade at the high school level is based on the number of credits a student has earned as outlined by School Board Policy D 15.00 Typically students are promoted annually after meeting the standards required for that grade, spending one year at each grade level. Exceptions should be rare, but will be made when, in the judgment of the professional staff, retention or acceleration is in the best educational interest of the student. Retention or acceleration will only be made after a collaborative process between the school staff and the student's parent/guardians. However, the final decision regarding placement, promotion, acceleration, or retention will rest with the principal or, for students receiving special education services, with the student’s individualized education plan (IEP) team.
============
Spring 2010 the MSP tested the 2008 WA Math Standards. The are supposedly the standards used by the Seattle Schools.
Black Grade 4 math results by level.
Not meeting Standards 71.8%
Level 4 = 7.3%
Level 3 = 20.5%
Level 2 = 20.1%
Level 1 = 50.8% far below basic
Limited English Speakers Grade 4 math results by level.
Not meeting Standards 79.0%
Level 4 = 4.6%
Level 3 = 14.9%
Level 2 = 22.6%
Level 1 = 56.4% far below basic
=================
So how rare were the exceptions when it came to promotion of students who scored far below basic on the MSP math test that measured the Math Standards used by the Seattle Schools?
Please give an analysis of the JSCEE budget. They say they are cutting, but then they add a 6th Excecutive Director, one of the highest-salaried positions in the district, and positions held by the least-experienced people, such as Bree Dusseault.
Kay Smith-Blum pledged to be a watchdog on this, but I fear she has been bought off by Enfield. (I am sick of seeing them chat so chummily during School Board meetings.)
Meanwhile, great teachers and counselors in our buildings are being RIF'd in the name of "we have no money."
Meg, what do you see?
Meg, Meg, Meg, Meg,
Where are you?
He sold one of his companies to Microsoft for $6 Billion....
and read this old report about conflict of interest issues surrounding him, vis a vis education and the monorail....
http://www.usefulwork.com/shark/archives/002264.html
Individuals are trying to tell the Board and Superintendent that District is spending atrocious amounts on Central admin.
This continues to fall on deaf ears as it has for well over a decade.
The superintendent and Board say they want to re-build trust with the public and employees but definitley that is cheap talk.
Large amounts of people need to show up at the next Board meeting and demand change.
We need to do this for the children, since the Board will not.
Starting in the 2012-2013 school year, the Feb. mid-winter break will be shortened to one day off the Friday before President's Day, making it a 4 day weekend.
First the faux roots "coalitions" then the op-ed's.
thanks.
A bit of URL registration sleuthing (and other evidence) has revealed that Strategies 360 has created yet another faux 'coalition' with the same genesis, make-up, objectives and demands as the "Our Schools Coalition." Just in time to infiltrate and influence the Tacoma teachers' contract negotiations which begin this month.
Heads up, Tacoma teachers! Don’t be fooled by the “Vibrant Schools Tacoma Coalition
What this latest entity is primarily pushing for, I believe, is to tie teacher evaluations to standardized test scores -- "performance pay" -- using Seattle as an example. (See:
A new player in teacher talks, Tacoma News Tribune.
That's bad news. Here in Seattle, the "performance pay" stipulation which regrettably made it into last year's teachers' contact, has only led to the misuse of the excessive and expensive MAP test and pressure on teachers to teach to the test. This is bad for our kids and bad for teaching.
Hopefully Tacoma can learn from Seattle's mistakes and not go down this path.
And isn't it reassuring to know that the shady Strategies 360 is now in charge of SPS communications? ...!
- Sue p.
(p.s. original post got eaten by Blogger, so apologies if this ends up being a dupe.)
signed,
Public means accountable.
As a minority parent, I resent the manipulation/manufacture of these so-called representative community orgs, to inject the corporate perspective into public education. What a bunch of pawns. They should open their eyes and see who's paying and making the big bucks to push this drivel.
Districts, unions, the feds, the states...all are addressing the question of educator evaluation (including principals and classifieds...should include boards and edu-reform puppetmasters, too, but that's another story.)
It's not easy. "Grow up, unions!" you say? How rude. Unions protect their membership (edcuators protect educators...and students...) from bad evaluation procedures, as they should. SEA, the Seattle local, has worked with SPS admin to refine the evaluation process recently, and this is as it should be. To jump into the unproven waters of the Reformers' pond would be stupid of SEA and SPS.
Not fast enough for you? Tough. Bad evaluations affect students as well as educators, and shouldn't be rushed. There really is no simple answer, but all concerned ARE looking at change.
Public, why don't you peruse this blog for a variety of opinions and ideas about evaluation, about Strategies 360, uh, I mean the Our Schools Coalition and the Vibrant Schools Tacoma Coalition" to get an idea about why some on this thread are so offended, pissed off, and agitated by S360 and its minions? You write that "the folks on the Tacoma coalition look pretty legit to me." How so? Have you noted that S360's OSC and VSTC both share the exact same sort of list of supporters? Both are "coalitions" (manufactured by S360, a PR company) of minority groups and the usual Reform suspects, such as LEV and P4K. Please share with us why you think these groups are all "legitimate." Please share with us why you think these two coalitions both have the same boilerplate text on their websites?
Your apparently unknowledgeable granting of legitimacy to groups you probably know nothing about, groups you've evidently only seen the names of on the cheap websites of S360, uh, OSC and VSTC, leaves me with the distinct feeling that your words are merely vitriol spewed at "immature" union educators and all the non-educator people who have done the research and know wherefrom they speak.
So tell us, in order to ease my mind: Why, exactly, do you grant legitimacy to the OSC, VSTC, and their parent, Strategies 360? Explain.
Public, the money (since you asked to be shown the money) flows from the Gates, Broad and Walton Foundations, and from the Reform-driven US Dept of Ed, to schools and districts that do it THEIR way. Local districts? Not under the carrot of big bucks dangled by the feds with Race to the Top (look it up).
Local districts? Not with millions and millions of dollars "strategically" spent by the above-named foundations, each aimed at reforming education into THEIR vision. Nothing local about it: Those non-educators, the "leaders" who recently graduated out of Teach For America (after a long and grueling two years in the classroom...they are happy to be NOT teaching but rather telling teachers what to do) join an edu-business model that purports to tell the world it knows what it's doing, it has The Way. It doesn't. Research tells us "reform" is no more effective that other changes that have been tried over the years to address poverty and motivation...
The money comes from them. It goes to Strategies 360; to carefully placed Reformers such as the four Broad graduates placed in SPS (and half-paid by Broad); it goes to the Alliance for Education, League of Education Voters, Partnership for Learning, and other "grassroots coalitions."
(continued: where money GOES)
It goes to computerized tests sold to SPS: NWEA corporation, a non-profit, sold SPS MAP for hundreds of thousands. (The CEO of NWEA pulls half a mil, not incidently). That contract, as we all know, was set up by our Broad superintendent while she was on the boards of both Broad AND NWEA (and she didn't disclose the NWEA seat to the board as she sold them on MAP)
Gates paid for MAP; WE pay for continuing it.
So what's the payoff for Reformers? The attack on public education opens the doors to selling schools to charter operators and to depofessionalizing edcauton, and also deunionizing. It's the free market approach: There's gold in them there hills. Some, out of the goodness of their hearts, might actually be convinced that the Reform Package (restructure schools...into charters....fire teacher, merit pay, etc) will result in a sort of assmbly line efficiency as "product" (students) is measured, quantified, and pushed along the line, as educators use packaged curriculum (with expensive technology, paid for with tax dollars and spent at the warehouses of Microsoft, Dell, NWEA, et al) and get packaged results.
Some think that's great, but it ain't education and everybody knows it. Everybody knows RELATIONSHIP is education, and you don't get that out of a box. Everybody knows that every child is different, with different needs and styles and levels, and they don't come in boxes either.
But there's money to be made, you can't stop the engine of capitalism that gave us Blackwater, the privatization of our armed forces (now employing John Ashcroft...shudder...) They've found a new money-maker, so they pump money into it expecting great returns with cheap labor, with technology, with standardization, with commodification, with the co-opting of legitimate civil right s issues into a faux concern for minorities...
Heck, public, they're making money on HEDGE FUNDS derived from tax breaks granted to those who purchase some crappy old building in a distressed area and call this factory a "school." They're making money renting buildings to other branches of their entreprise, basically being property managers. They're making money enough to pay the "CEOs" fo charter schools big bucks, to pay the head of NWEA big bucks, and guarantee a docile, ill-informed work force (note that history, the arts, social studies and civics aren't on any state tests, nor are they tested by MAP
Ka-ching! Big bucks in product, selling it and cheapening the cost of educating it; big bucks (public taxpayer bucks) in management. Big bucks in producing enough people, ignorant of labor history or civil rights, to staff the middle-management ranks and work the assembly lines. Sans union.
There's the money, Public. Follow YOUR money, your public education tax dollars, into the coffers of business.
Just got my 46th LD Dems newsletter and the minutes from April say, "Although money is not available for summer school, Martin-Morris said that negotiations are taking place with colleges in the area to share facilities during the summer."
Anyone know what that means?
My parents were part of some real coalitions back in the day, too, and fought for civil rights, labor issues, getting out Vietnam...These were REAL groups concerned with social justice. That many small minority groups are allowing their leaders to make political deals with Strategies 360 makes me sick. As if privatized education is going to help the power, the disenfranchised...Like TFA is going to teach for awhile, without training, to the poorest children, like NWEA will assess them using the barest, basest metrics, like the loss of civics and history and art will make them more competitive workers...
It's freakin' unbelieveable. It so completely opposite social justice...
Oh, and while I'm on a tear, Public: What you think a few "boos" at a board meeting are disrespectful? Really? Have you watched the last five years of board meetings? Have you seen how they WERE, with chaos in the aisles? People toned it down, and the last few years we've seen many, many well-reasoned speakers politely making the case for rational policy. To no avail: The board was NOT in charge of the supt, she was in charge of them. It was like spitting in the wind. Who wouldn't be angry when rationality goes out the window?
Just wait until the district, after laying off thirty teachers next week (along with many other support staff), tries to "hire" 20-25 TFAers, as Ms Kopp promises will happen. THEN you'll see boos, THEN you'll see marching in the streets.
I just posted something for Sue because she said that Blogger kept eating her post, it was up and then it disappeared.
Is Blogger sensitive to html? There was a lot in the post.
This is why I switched over to Wordpress, Blogger kind of sucks.
Well, Public, if you want to see the money, we'll post it this week on the Seattle Education blog. It's a lot and it all comes from Gates.
And by the way, who boo's at the school board meetings?
Dora
In the meantime- BYU online offers credit retrieval courses for very reasonable fees. And the Bellevue SD offers summer school classes to any interested SPS student too. And for those who can afford it, there are several private organizations that offer credit retrieval at a very high price tag.
Doesn't explain Harium's statement about colleges this summer though.
Scratch "require". It is just a proposal, so nothing required as of yet. My mistake.
Thanks for that, Dora.
"He says that Dr. Enfield is going to require each high school to offer their own, in house, credit retrieval program by this fall. He also said that every high school may not be able to offer every subject and in the case where a students school did not offer the class they needed they could attend another nearby high school that does offer it."
Is this at night? Because they can't offer a kid a space at a school just because he/she needs to take one class; that seems weird. And, if it's just one period at a different school, how would the kid get there? Sounds fishy.
Roxhill is looking for event underwriters, silent auction donors, and people to attend the event. One hundred percent of all proceeds will go directly to the school. For further information about ways to contribute and join the event, visit the school’s website at www.seattleschools.org/schools/roxhill/ or call the school at (206)252-9570.