Open Thread Friday
First week of June and we may have a lovely day (finally).
No Saturday School Board Directors' community meetings. (They really should coordinate it so there is at least one every Saturday. I know Lowell parents really want some answers on their overcrowding problem.)
The Gates Foundation opened their (yawn) headquarters. It's not much architecturally - you can how their ideas differ (see Paul Allen's ideas at EMP and Bill Gates' ideas at the Foundation's headquarters). Apparently, they've decided they need to act on more locally. Oh joy.
No Saturday School Board Directors' community meetings. (They really should coordinate it so there is at least one every Saturday. I know Lowell parents really want some answers on their overcrowding problem.)
The Gates Foundation opened their (yawn) headquarters. It's not much architecturally - you can how their ideas differ (see Paul Allen's ideas at EMP and Bill Gates' ideas at the Foundation's headquarters). Apparently, they've decided they need to act on more locally. Oh joy.
Comments
Mr. Ed
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-03/don-t-believe-critics-education-reform-works-jonathan-alter.html
I heard from another mom that John Rogers Elementary is being downsized by the District, and a teacher taken away?
This is happening despite John Rogers having a wait list (which under the new system indicates a 1st choice by parents), overall lack of capacity in the NE, and the additiion of portables to bordering schools Thornton Creek and View Ridge.
It seems like an odd and illogical choice to make related to capacity managment.
Related to lack of capacity...does Shoreline still accept out of District applicants?
Thurgood Marshall Library, as well as the last Lowell PTA meeting this school year, June 14, 130PM.
Interestingly, there is a wait list for Lowell APP this year as well, with roughly 8 students on it, according to someone who called Enrollment recently. The only child that I know of on that list is currently in private school but qualified for APP, submitted an on-time enrollment form, but was assigned the neighborhood school instead. The family has a verbal statement that the issue will be resolved shortly (ie, child admitted to Lowell). Hope that's true. There isn't supposed to be a waitlist for APP for families who did Open Enrollment.
How Big a Change Are the Common Core Standards?, Rick Hess, 6/1/11
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rick_hess_straight_up/2011/06/how_big_a_change_are_the_common_core_standards.html#comments
Enfield added an additional $150,000 SE Executive Director. She eliminated, from Board policy, the requirement to intervene when students struggle.
MGJ may be gone ... but the all ahead full on "Ed Reform" remains.
-- Dan Dempsey
Jenphil
Former tennis star Andre Agassi teams with L.A. bankers to finance charter school construction
Former tennis star Andre Agassi has joined with Los Angeles bankers to create an unusual for-profit investment fund for construction of as much as $750 million worth of charter schools in urban communities across the country.
The goal of the fund is to develop 75 schools serving 40,000 students over the next three or four years while earning a financial return for investors, which include Citigroup Inc. and Intel Corp.
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The fund's first campus, in North Philadelphia, is scheduled to open in August. It will be part of the Knowledge Is Power Program, a network of free, open-enrollment, college-preparatory public schools. Charter schools are public schools that operate independently of local school boards.
It's uncertain whether the fund will provide financing for any Southern California charter schools. Real estate here is more expensive than in many other urban markets, and California provides less funding per pupil than some other states do.
The fund "does need to be in areas that have higher revenues per student than California does for the most part," said Anita Landecker, executive director of ExED, a Los Angeles nonprofit that manages charter schools and isn't involved with the Canyon-Agassi fund. "In some markets it's going to work really well."
Mr. Ed
I'll talk about Mr. Rye when I do the School Board meeting thread. I might even go on his radio show.
CREW: Department of Education: Regarding For-Profit Education
CREW FOIA: Department of Education: Regarding Meetings with Interest Groups and Wall Street
Now, that was awhile back, and with a less severe crowding issue than Lowell faces, but it seems to me that if the test says APP, and the geographic rules say Lowell, then Lowell APP it will be -- until the District figures out a solution (either make Lowell all APP again and rehouse the neighborhood kids, or move the north end APP kids somewhere north) to the mess it created by lying to itself (and us) about capacity and demographic issues two years ago.
in EdNews.org
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What I didn’t know at the time was that I hadn’t been appointed because of my animated interview with the Mayor and knowledge of the teachers contract. It took a while, but I finally realized that the lame-duck Mayor had only chosen me as a way of sticking it to the new guy.
On my way into that first meeting, the seen-it-all School Board secretary pulled me aside and told me that if I were smart – “smaht” – I would shut up for six months and figure things out before making a fool of myself. She said that new Board members always think they have the answers when they first arrive (I did), but solutions are not so obvious (right again).
But I did know some things. At Rhode Island College where I was then teaching, most of my students were woefully ill-educated. From all over the state high-school graduates in my History of Theater class came to me thinking that the ancient Greeks were, maybe, a baseball team? They had trouble constructing sentences. They had zero curiosity about the subject. For the most part their educational goals were to get a job that would get them good money, with which to be a good consumer.
What was going on? How’d they graduate high school with only the vaguest idea of the function of a verb?
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My HOW familiar and similar ... to Seattle. The SPS Board's response to struggling students was to eliminate any mention of interventions or objective measure of student skills in the New D43.00 Promotion policy.
Join the resistance to the current national level nonsense.
At the local level reelect no Seattle School Director in the 2011 elections.
Given recent data from the SPS on OSPI testing ... "Differentiated Instruction" looks like the latest "ED FAD" that does NOT work.
Consider this article.
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One book we had to read in the class was "Integrating Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design" by Carol Ann Tomlinson and Jay McTighe.
... In a chapter that discussed the difference between “knowing” and “understanding”, a chart presents examples of “Inauthentic versus Authentic Work”. In this chart “Practice decontextualized skills is listed as inauthentic and “Interpret literature” as authentic.
... I asked the teacher “Do you really think that learning to read is an inauthentic skill?”
... In a paean to constructivism and the abandonment of textbooks, Tomlinson and McTighe, dispose of the notion that sequence of topics and mastery of skills is important, calling such beliefs the “climbing the ladder” model of cognition. “Subscribers to this belief assume that students must learn the important facts before they can address the more abstract concepts of a subject,” the authors state, and then quote Lori Shepherd, a University of Colorado education professor to make their point:
“The notion that learning comes about by the accretion of little bits is outmoded learning theory. Current models of learning based on cognitive psychology contend that learners gain understanding when they construct their own knowledge and develop their own cognitive maps of the interconnections among facts and concepts.”
In fact, this is the crux of how they approach differentiated instruction. Sequence doesn’t matter. Each student constructs his or her own meaning at their own pace, by being immersed in what the authors term “contextualized grappling with ideas and processes”. What does this mean?
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Keep in mind that there are "ZERO" well controlled studies of the effects of "Differentiated Instruction" and yet this is the model on which the SPS bases their current instructional design.
The OSPI 2010 MSP results and 2010 HSPE results give little evidence of any positive effects on student learning coming from the TOP-Down imposition of Educational Philosophical Ideological practices upon teachers.
In business when one keeps doing what does not work ... either change or go out of business. In the SPS just keep on doing it.
Helen Schinske
A while back I mentioned the number of teachers assigned to the central office instead of classrooms. I thought the number was exceptionally high. Here is the breakdown:
There are a total of 484 certificated staff who are not assigned to a
classroom at this time. The 484 total breaks out as follows according the the public records information:
"376 = work at the central office
100 = leave of absence
3 = displaced
5 = administrative leave"
Someone asked what the total number of teachers in the district was. I requested that information from the district and was told the following:
“We have 3,354 Certificated staff
Of the 3,354 there are 454 Central and approximately 2,846 in the classroom. The rest of the certificated staff are nurses, counselors, etc.”
"School Board Votes to Allow City to Take Over School Ethics Investigations"
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/06/01/school-board-votes-to-allow-city-to-take-over-school-ethics-investigations
Excerpts:
"The Seattle School Board this evening unanimously voted to hand over the Seattle school district's ethics investigations to an independent city ethics panel, marking the first time any school district in Washington has taken this kind of a step."
"The Seattle City Council approved the partnership between the school district and the city yesterday, which would see the city's independent ethics panel investigate complaints of improper governmental action and retaliation against whistleblowers in the district. Although the district stepped up its ethics policy in late 2010—establishing stronger whistleblower guidelines and an anonymous complaint hotline—a small business contracting scandal last December forced it to rethink whether it had a strong enough ethics program."
A District employee cannot direct District business to a company in which the employee has a direct financial interest.
That's it. That's the one and only action that the Ethics Policy identifies as un-ethical.
I assure you that there are a lot more un-ethical things a person can do than direct contracts to themselves. The Ethics Policy needs to be re-written to prohibit many more types of activity than this.
It should also be recognized as un-ethical for District staff to:
* Intentionally mislead the Board or the public
* Violate agreements with communities
* Violate policies and procedures regarding public engagement
* Evade Board review of a contract by dividing it into smaller contracts
* Accept gifts - beyond some diminimus value - from vendors
* Direct District contracts to a company with which the employee has any association - direct or indirect, financial or otherwise.
* Evade the competitive bid process through the disaggregation of a contract
* Commit any type of favoritism in the awarding of contracts
But it shouldn't be just about business. Unethical practices can also be found in the selection of appointees to committees, in the program placement process, in uneven and inequitable community input practices, and more.
The District's Ethics Policy is so narrow that even if Silas Potter did all of the things people say he did, he still didn't violate it.
The Ethics Committee will only investigate. The policies and disposition of any investigation will still rest with the District.
So... why be a whistleblower? I'm serious amd would love a good answer. Anyone?
-JC
All the employees at my school got a real pretty real fancy brochure thing about ethics -
since the district management is all about smoke and mirrors, and well paid bosses with fancy blather, and the latest greatest wiley coyote ACME whirley-gig -
why should the ethics kabuki not be about kabuki?
Sheesh
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Dear Parents/Guardians of Wedgwood Students,
In response to parent questions about our plans for spectrum next year, I would like to invite parents to a meeting that I will be facilitating next to present our plan for 1st grade next year. There will be a series of meetings for each grade level. During each meeting, I will present our plan for 1st grade next year and provide time for folks to ask questions.
K/1 Student – next Monday, 06/06 at 6:30pm
2nd Grade Students – next Thursday, 06/09 at 6:30pm
3rd Grade Students – Monday, 06/13 at 6:30pm
Grade 4/5 Students – Wednesday, 06/15 at 6:30pm
Thanks and I look forward to talking with you.
Chris Cronas
Principal
Wedgwood Elementary
A parent
I will definitely be at this meeting. I really don't want to regret choosing public over private. I really want this to work.
-VR parent
This was brought up at the Board meeting. I'll call the City guy on Monday because this isn't what I remember the original idea to be.
The Wedgwood thing sounds like it is district driven. I can't believe this is happening without telling parents.
Beyond that reasoning, is the simple fact that this is not what people signed up for. The District says that they want people to trust them and then they pull crap like this.
Perhaps, right now, during the election season, you might actually get some action.
Our board member is Harium Martin-Morris. I will contact him, but he has not seem to be a strong advocate for parents, from what I gather from the papers and this blog.
BTW - we specifically looked for a program that provided accelerated learning within a single classroom, because our child was getting bored academically, and starting too feel like the odd duck out within the current class (not her teacher or school's fault; but the other kids noticed). Having one teacher and cohorts who welcome a challenge seemed a much better situation to us, so we decided to make the plunge into public.
We ruled out Lowell because of crowding issues, and it felt like it went too far in the other direction. The current program that we saw on tour at Wedgwood looked to be a perfect fit in many ways. And I *thought* the principal communicated well within the school community, but now I am having some serious doubts.
I cannot believe, after all the hoops we've jumped through since last September, that we are just now having the rug pulled out from underneath us this late in the game. And in case anyone asks - I heartily agree that any capable child should be admitted into the Spectrum program; this extensive testing thing is just crazy.
An interesting discussion can be found on Charlie’s post from December…What is Spectrum - and What is Not Spectrum
Found this while researching gifted ed topics. How very true.
Anti-Elitism = Anti-Intellectualism?
Perhaps the most sinister force undermining gifted education programs is the re-emergence of the concept of egalitarianism. In practice, egalitarianism has come to mean that all students should get the same educational experience. States have spent millions determining baseline competencies, funding lawsuits have erupted across the nation, and “tracking” has become a dirty word.
The one-size-fits-all approach has become de rigueur in American public schools. Perhaps a more appropriate definition of equity would stress that all students have an equal opportunity to actualize their learning potential. Once we can acknowledge that abilities are not equally distributed, perhaps we can admit that a one-size-fits-all curriculum is absurd
Celebrating Mediocrity? How Schools Shortchange Gifted Students
~Adios Spectrum
-Another VR parent
VR Parent
These are very much many of the reasons parents like Spectrum. This is how it works at Whittier (more and more becoming an outlier).
New to SPS, I am sorry this is happening. I wish I could tell you there is someone on the Board who champions advanced learners but there isn't.
BUT, you absolutely should write to the Board, cc the Ex Director and the Superintendent and tell them your story. The school KNEW that they were changing the format and obviously did not tell people on the tour. This is bait and switch and it happens more often than you think in SPS.
It is wrong and disrespectful and now, out the gate, they have made you worried and suspicious. This is not how we keep parents in this district.
In a traditional district that has an established geographic plan, magnet programs are established at schools that have "unfriendly" geography and would not otherwise fill to capacity with the neighborhood. (either low density for families or very close to a boundary with another school or district)
Because of the choice system, advanced learning communities were placed at some of the most geographically desirable schools because it was less expensive for bussing.
Now that we have changed plans, it is in the best interest of the district (ie not the best interest of the students) to dismantle popular magnet programs like Spectrum at schools that are full to capacity.
Simply put, to manage capacity at a building, you need to tell someone, "you can't go to this school."
Under the choice plan, the way you did this was to say the school was full, pick another school.
In a geographic plan, that does not have the ability to turn away neighborhood students, to make room for advanced learners. You can only do two things:
1) change the boundaries so that fewer neighborhood students can attend. (theoretically already done, NOT)
2) make the advanced learning program less desirable so fewer demands on the program. (seems to be happening)
3) make every neighborhood school a quality school so nobody ever wants anything other than what they are assigned. (wasn't that in the framework???)
- exhausted north end spectrum parent.
I am so angry about this right now, because we spent months working on the transition from private to public for our child, and chose Wedgwood over the more popular View Ridge because VR had walk to math, which we don't think would work as well for our kid. I am truly regretting not pushing for Lowell now, and I don't know what to think about this. Not sure I am up for doing battle with a school district that is so flaky, to be honest.
... Talk about a bait and switch!
I will definitely be at this meeting. I really don't want to regret choosing public over private. I really want this to work.
If this really happens, it is the removal of Spectrum from the building. What they are proposing is the ALO model, and there are other buildings that provide that model. Changing this program is wrong, wrong, wrong, for so many reasons.
Everyone listen up, you need to contact Bob Vaughan (head of SPS Advanced Learning) right now about this. This is an AL decision, the buildings are NOT allowed to make these kinds of changes without approval by AL. Lawton is a special case, they got special approval from Bob and the superintendent.
What they are doing makes things easier for the adults in the building (mix and match to balance classroom #s and types of students, but it is NOT helpful to the students.
Spread the word, tell everyone who might have interest in this matter to attend the meeting, they need to get some serious pushback, and quickly.
That being said, it drives me crazy that all I know are rumors and being the parent of one spectrum child and one non-spectrum child, I don't like the lack of communication of what is going on. If anyone has heard anything more set in stone at VR, I'd love to hear about it. In the mean time, after reading this thread, I am more motivated to seek out the facts through teachers/principal. Last I heard, no changes will be made for 2011-2012 school year, but I've heard this through gossip.
Jenphil
Everyone see that the state has opened up an investigation into the MLK sale?
State investigates Seattle district's sale of MLK School
stu
http://weber4seattleschools.com/
-Steveroo