Tuesday Open Thread
What's on your mind?
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
Did you know that Tucson is currently under court order to desegregate its resegregated schools, offer choice schools, recruit minority teachers, and offer more opportunities to disadvantaged students?
This stems from a federal civil rights suit. TUSD is doing today what SPS will be required to do tomorrow.
TUSD undos "neighborhood schools" under court Special Master
Interesting that two TFA teachers have a fulltime TFA "volunteer" in their classes on Fridays. Do ALL novice teachers get "free" classroom assistance?
Oh, and I see the Director of Government Relations at LEV personally introduced the Southshore principal, Keisha Scarlett, to TFA's NW director. LEV now controls the New School Foundation - so Scarlett knew what she needed to do.
Mag Parent
February 29th, 6:30-8:30 PM
Washington Middle School Cafeteria
2101 S. Jackson St. Seattle WA 98144
Many of you already know this, but I
thought I should inform all of our
families that this will be my last year at
B. F. Day. I have been here for 14
years and I absolutely love working
here. But after 14 years, it’s time for
new leadership. I’m grateful to our
district for letting me stay so long at B.
F. Day. The average stay for a
principal is about seven years, so I feel
very fortunate to have doubled that."
Giving great examples, he calls Corporate Reform "anti-progressive" and calls Hanauer's arguments "deeply disingenuous".
It's a must read opinion piece.
Savvy Voter
I believe no one wins until all schools offer equal quality and opportunity. Skimming through the TUSD docs, it appears that the resegregated schools did not offer much for its students, like advanced learning etc. The Ed Reformers, with all their equity rhetoric, don't do squat.
To me, that's what we lost out as a community of whole vs. community of islands.
-standing lonely
I know, I know, we shouldn't complain after all, some of our schools got the best of the brightest stars, those lovely 5 week trained eager beavers. Ahh, the answers to my kids' prayer. Actually what they want for their school (if we ever win the lotto) is a high quality star (of the night sky varieties) gazing telescope, better, more powerful microscopes, and gasp-- those lego Mindstorms, but that's another doesn't quite fit into science kit, MAP testing, or must have laptop learning experience.
standing lonely
a reader
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/science/
young-women-often-trendsetters-in-vocal-patterns.html?hpw
The somewhere in be"tween" mom
Wondering
Lynne turns the ed reform-as-civil-rights issue on its head and SLOG applauds Lynne. It's brilliant.
EdVoter
randi
The next School Board election will be Fall 2013. Believe me, it will be a doozy. Will DeBell run again for a third term? No doubt he will receive tremendous pressure to do so.
And, clearly as we see from the Times and Crosscut, there are those who are out to replace Betty and Kay. I'm sure at the end of the election I will once again smile as most of those who want to replace them really don't understand School Board elections. Maybe they should hire me as a consultant (but I wouldn't work for anyone trying to unseat Betty or Kay).
mirmac1 - I just read through 200+ emails and I see nothing about 2 Aki teachers having a full time volunteer every Friday. The email says the two Aki teachers and the volunteer would "meet on Friday to set up a plan." How did you get "full time Friday volunteers" from that?!
-more snow please
From the ST article, regarding banning the use of PTA money to fund staff positions in Bellevue, Lake Washington and Issaquah:
"A similar shift is unlikely in Seattle, said School Board President Michael DeBell and Lauren McGuire, president of the Seattle Council of Parent, Teacher and Student Associations. They each cited the issue's political sensitivity and a reluctance to do anything that would limit donations in the current budget climate."
Leadership at its finest. Don't govern by fairness and ethics but by "political sensitivity."
--enough already
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2017620208_seattleschools29m.html
Pg 133 and 152. Regular volunteer in Robinette's and Abernathy's classroom. Let's clone her for everyone else.
Pettigrew slips $3M into budget
"A+ Washington"
http://www.apluswashington.org/about/
was apparently spun off of the "Excellent Schools Now Coalition"
which apparently gets money from LEV (and possibly the Washington Progress Fund)
originating from Gates (of course).
From the Gates' grants site:
League of Education Voters Foundation
Date: September 2011
Purpose: to launch a regional teacher advocacy group supportive of the Excellent Schools Now Coalition goals
Amount: $150,000
Term: 1 year and 6 months
Topic: Community Grants
Region Served: Global, North America
Program: United States
Grantee Location: Seattle, Washington
Grantee Web site: http://www.educationvoters.org
Washington Progress Fund
Date: March 2011
Purpose: to better understand the positions and perceptions of the Asian American and Pacific Islander community on education reform topics, such as those put forth by the Excellent Schools Now Coalition; and to provide training and opportunities for these communities to get more involved in education change across Washington state
Amount: $300,000
Term: 2 years
Topic: Community Grants
Region Served: Global, North America
Program: United States
Grantee Location: Seattle, Washington
Grantee Web site: Not available
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/grants/Pages/search.aspx
FEY
No correlation, let's call it good.
http://tinyurl.com/84u8bpc
He discovered several very important things:
(1) There is almost no correlation between a teacher’s score in 2009 to that for the following year.
(2) There is almost no correlation between a teacher’s score when teaching math and when teaching reading – to the same kids, the same year, and in the same elementary class.
(3) There is almost no correlation between a teacher’s score when teaching different grade levels of the same subject (i.e., Math 6 versus Math 7, and so on).
In other words, the Value Added Methodology is very close to being a true random number generator — which would be great if we were playing some sort of fantasy role-playing game or a board game like Monopoly or Yahtzee. But it’s an utterly ridiculous way to run a school system and to evaluate teachers."
rosemary.mcauliffe@leg.wa.gov
frank.chopp@leg.wa.gov
edward.murray@leg.wa.gov
kathy.haigh@leg.wa.gov
ross.hunter@leg.wa.gov
Tell them that you are opposed and why.
I have been told by several people that this is the case, but I find nothing on the SPS website indicating this. Tried calling enrollment but have not been able to speak to a live person.
http://www.rainiervalleypost.com/aki-kurose-wins-attendance-challenge-gets-surprise-visit-from-ne-yo/
They won the attendance challenge and got a performance by a hip-hop star as their reward. I hope attendance will stay up (3.5% I think) without the carrot.
Solvay
standing lonely
I get "more snow's" point. This blog often posts stories about things happening in NY, California, and now Arizona, not to mention prominent mention of Roosevelt and Ballard bands getting awards. About Aki, doing something more basic and more critical-raising school attendance, we get crickets. It was in the media, both print and television.
There's a certain skepticism among some South Seattle residents about well-intentioned north Seattle people wanting to help them. It's this kind of thing that's part of the reason why.
On Cedars
Now lets see ....
Will the bacon drippings in my eyes cloud my vision of his backing of all things Gates and Duncan?...
Eric loves Common Core and RttT.
Consider this from Utah:
Here's the resolution and the amendments that are now in front of the Utah Legislature. Both are brief (3 pages each) and power packed.
SB 287 - CORE CURRICULUM STANDARDS AMENDMENTS
http://le.utah.gov/~2012/bills/sbillint/sb0287.htm
This bill: provides that the state may exit any agreement, contract, memorandum of understanding, or consortium that cedes control of Utah's core curriculum to any other entity for any reason
SCR 13 - CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON COMMON CORE
http://le.utah.gov/~2012/bills/sbillint/scr013.htm
This concurrent resolution of the Legislature and the Governor urges the State Board of Education to reconsider the board's decision to adopt the Common Core standards.
Lawmaker wants Common Core standards reconsidered
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/53608674-90/board-common-control-core.html.csp
------
I would love to see Eric Pettigrew step up with a reasoned argument for something .... other than the big Money players said to do it.
Our PTSA board passed an anti-charter resolution last night. Still some work to do, but our plan is to forward it to the WAPTSA as well as legislators. We're going to try to pass it on to other Seattle PTSAs as well.
We realize it's too late for this session, and maybe charter legislation is off the table anyway, but it'll be back, I promise.
I'm on a mini-vacation right now (visiting my elderly mother) but I'm sitting here working on the blog. Charlie is working full-time. We honestly do the best we can.
You can search this blog. There are many posts about good things going on EVERYWHERE in this district.
blog reader
Kidding! : )
I posted a reply to Chris Korsmo's 2/18 Roundup. It made it through moderation and appeared there for at least a day or two. Today, I happened to go back and check and it is gone. I posted the below reply which contains my original comment (which I had cross posted on the Fighting thread linked to above).
Wow, how weird, LEV seems to have deleted my reply to this thread (it had made it through moderation and appeared for a little while). Good thing I had copied it onto a thread over at the Seattle Schools Community Blog! I’ll recopy here and see if it is allowed to stay this time. Please do email me if you think I am somehow being uncivil or breaking a rule. It seems odd that mine got deleted and Charlie’s didn’t given that he called you a ‘puppet’ and I called you a ‘smart education advocate.’:
Over the past 50 blog posts (excluding Ms. Korsmo’s roundups), LEV mentioned charters at least three times more often than they did early learning (about 15 to 5 ratio). It’s pretty clear where LEV’s efforts are being expended. I don’t understand why so many of Washington state’s smart education advocates are spending so much time and money supporting charters. We can certainly learn from what good charters have done in other states (extended day, targeted interventions, cradle to college supports) and implement them in more of our existing public schools. But that sort of investment will mean fully funding education in Washington. I would like to see LEV put all of their efforts behind that goal.
2/24/12 12:45 PM
(that date and time is when my comment originally appeared here)
(I edited the above to correct two typos)
Ben
"I work in a sanctioned school where they are promoting TFA to improve the school. LOL. One of the TFA's shared with me that her supervisor at TFA told her that within the next 5 years TFA plans to replace us all with TFA's including administration. HMMMMM Cheap labor- they only work for 2 years and TFA pays a part of their salery- no union- they don't join because this is not their career- just a temp job to get their student loans forgiven- no pensions- eventually no benefits. Are they planning to turn teaching into a temp job????"
SHORT ANSWER - YES....
-wondering
thank you for the info. I find it ridculous that i kept getting a busy signal on the enrollment phone line.
-get use to MAPs and class size of 35
Here is some critical information about the CCSS
http://www.utahsrepublic.org/common-core/
Duncan and CCSS pushes the USA Onward to an even more dumbed-down nation. The WA Legislature approves these actions.
It is time for the Seattle School District to live within it's means, just like the other 294 public school districts must do.
This, after MLK was sold for nearly $3M under market value...
-maddening
HERE
So why are WA districts stuck with funding CCSS with at least $165 million from district funds? .... Largely because few "with power" actually care about much in the way of improvements to education .... Too Busy Posturing to do any real research.
Also, have you thought through transportation? Nine years is a long time to schlep a kid from Broadview to Eastlake!
Tiny Neah Bay school (gr.6-12 with about 160 kids) is a finalist in a Samsung $100,000 science and technology contest. They are there for their project to use mushrooms to clean diesel contaminated sand on Tatoosh Island. You can read about it in ST today. Also if you go to the article, you can go the contest site and read up on their presentation and vote for them to win. They are 1 of 2 schools represented from the West coast. Pretty impressive!
http://today.seattletimes.com/2012/03/tiny-neah-bay-school-a-finalist-in-national-science-competition/
-go RD
We are in the midst of trying to decide what kindergarten to send our son to next year. We live in the Broadview-Thomson reference area and are considering Queen Anne and TOPS but with the new geozones, we know our odds of getting in anywhere are pretty low. Sigh.
What's wrong with Broadview Thomson?
What do you like about TOPS and Queen Anne?
What don't you like about Broadview-Thomson, or the next closest schools, like Viewlands?
What are you looking for?
Choice is not completely gone.
-Kindergarten bound
- no longer there but still a fan
I love Pinehurst and even toured it early in the year. I liked the principal, and their attitude toward special education. Lovely school, a bit far from us (in Fremont) but not too bad. What I keep hearing is that they are threatening to close it down.
-Kindergarten bound
I don't mind Broadview-Thomson and if we land there I'm sure my kid will be fine--he loves to learn and he's a likeable kid, and he'll probably be fine wherever he ends up. I also love that it's a diverse school. But my main concern is that after touring quite a few schools, what we discovered is that schools in Seattle are struggling to fund basic programs and are surviving on their PTAs' ability to pay for things. TOPS and Queen Anne are clearly able to raise huge sums of money. B-T's PTA officers talked about looking for grants. Which is what happens when 51% of your students are living in poverty, the parents simply can't make up the difference and fill the holes left by our society's total failure to fund public education adequately. Also, some of the reviews of B-T that we found online talk about bullying, although I take that with a grain of salt--the internet isn't always a reliable source of info.
For us, both TOPS and Queen Anne could be part of our route to work, so it's not a huge deal to do drop off/pick up. The only school we're in the transportation zone for is Salmon Bay, and frankly, I wasn't that impressed. We liked the vibe at Queen Anne and TOPS and I was especially impressed with the teachers we spoke to at each school.
We also don't necessarily plan to stay in this neighborhood, which makes an option school more appealing--if we move to, say, Ballard, we wouldn't have to face the choice between leaving our son at B-T and having to drive him all the way up here, or having him start at a new school in a few years.
TOPS will have 2 K classrooms next year. That's about 50-ish kids. They had over 100 kids put them down as a first choice this year. So half the kids who listed them first didn't get in. Add in siblings and the geozone, and the odds are even lower for the rest of us. When we visited Thornton Creek (my parents live nearby and could do before/after school care for us), they told us that if we don't live in the geozone, the odds of us getting in are pretty much slim to none. TC will have either 2 or 3 K classes and also had about 100 kids list them as a first choice this year.
We are also looking at Greenwood, which seems nice and again could be on our route to work. Viewlands' program didn't really ring my bell, it seemed like we'd be just as well off at B-T (and B-T is closer to us). We looked at Salmon Bay too but I just wasn't impressed and DH was horrified by it. He's a tech guy (he's practically obsessed with QA because of their tech focus--note to readers: it is not a STEM program, just a program that uses tech to support their teaching) and was concerned at the near total lack of tech at Salmon Bay. One of the PTA parents there basically told us in a PC way that the teachers are so old as to be afraid of their computers.
I was scared off from AS1 because I don't think the district has a commitment to that program. I like the idea of Jane Addams, but it had a little bit of a test-scores-are-the-focus feel to it. It just felt a little MJ-G to me, although the parents we spoke to seemed to love it there.
Like I said, if we wind up at B-T, we'll be OK--we'll get involved and volunteer, and our son will make friends and be fine. But it's frustrating knowing that if we'd been doing this process last year when the geozones (especially the ones around TC and QA) were smaller, we'd have a much better chance of getting into an option school.
Also, I think it's kind of unfair that there are so many option schools in the NE part of the district, and so few everywhere else. Especially because most of the neighborhood schools there are good, so if you're trying to get out of a struggling school and into an option school, you have less of a chance to get in than a family whose neighborhood school is already good.