Friday Open Thread
The end of an unhappy week for Seattle. Let's hope and work for better going forward.
Anyone attend either of the two education events last night? Give us some feedback.
It's interesting that a six-year old girl at a spelling bee can easily spell "dirigible" and yet Mitt Romney's campaign can't spell "America" for their campaign app. She, like many of the spelling bee contestants and winners, is home-schooled.
I will be attending the Board Retreat tomorrow (Superintendent Banda had promised to come up for it). The location has been announced as the Best Western Plus Executive Inn, 200 Taylor Ave N. It is from 10 am-4:30 p.m. and the public can attend (but to listen only).
What's on your mind?
Anyone attend either of the two education events last night? Give us some feedback.
It's interesting that a six-year old girl at a spelling bee can easily spell "dirigible" and yet Mitt Romney's campaign can't spell "America" for their campaign app. She, like many of the spelling bee contestants and winners, is home-schooled.
I will be attending the Board Retreat tomorrow (Superintendent Banda had promised to come up for it). The location has been announced as the Best Western Plus Executive Inn, 200 Taylor Ave N. It is from 10 am-4:30 p.m. and the public can attend (but to listen only).
What's on your mind?
Comments
Matt
After they come out, we will be able to comment on the work done and where we go from here.
As you can imagine, it is difficult for Charlie and I to NOT say anything but we want to respect the work and the other members of our committee.
-StepJ
Wondering
The previous four Reading MAP scores have ranged from 60 percentile to 82 percentile, and we don't know what the wide range is meant to suggest other than unreliable data. Any links to pages that refute my current opinion are welcome.
My daughter has spent this year teaching at a school that opened this year under the state's voucher system. She and the other teachers were not paid between Nov. and March, then got a lump payment on March 31 when voucher money came in. Since the voucher money went to salary already due them, now they have not been paid since March 31.
Each pay day, the administrator just ignores the fact that it's payday - no explanation, no thanks for being understanding. A couple of times he's told them that checks would be available the next day - including one time when he told them to come to the school at 3 p.m. on a Saturday to pick them up. He didn't show up, and has also scheduled then skipped other meetings.
They recently filed a complaint with the state labor board and contacted their state senator and the department of education. The press is chomping at the story.
Should they go public? She loves her kids. She also feels guilty every time the administrator brings a prospective teacher for next year on a tour of the school. Her thinking is that if this goes public she can safe other teachers from this mess, and if the school is closed now, rather than in the middle of a school year, it will allow the kids to avoid changing schools midyear.
I'm not sure which state the 'voucher' school is in, but expect stories like this play out in charter schools all over the country. Poor kids!
http://bit.ly/12-13-Bell-Times
Per the email, View Ridge, Bryant, Wedgewood, McGilvra, North Beach, and Adams moved more than 30 minutes later than this year.
"Re MAP, my 8th grader was asked exactly the same math question twice on the same test (out of fewer than 50 Qs). Also her computer flaked in and out during the test and she's pretty sure she ended up skipping at least one Q.
On Language Arts, she read exactly the same sonnets (Shakespeare) she has had for the last three years, but thinks maybe she was asked different Qs about them. Her friend got the same poems, but had exactly the same Qs about one of them twice on the same exam.
She has learned so much from her teachers this year, but I doubt those exams will measure any of it.
STUPID. WASTE. OF TIME AND MONEY"
I will add that my 9 year old had questions on Twain and Shakespeare and is hitting the threshold at which additional RIT growth is meaningless. There was no growth in the score from Winter to Spring. How is this a meaningful measure of teacher effectiveness? Does it make a good teacher look bad and a bad teacher look good?
"back to basics" era we're in.
Are we in a back to basics era? I'm not sure I think that. I think if we did DO basic stuff like having counselors (both mental and college/career), direct intervention programs (visible ones), etc, we would be better off.
Instead it's testing, testing and charters and TFA. That's not basic.
http://www.nwea.org/support/article/532
meh on MAP
also meh on MAP
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/06/01/kitten-adoption-center-should-be-shelved-in-proposed-eastlake-development-project
http://azstarnet.com/news/local/education/precollegiate/school-voucher-eligibility-may-reach/article_1f759305-fc85-5823-8ced-01936630b1c1.html
Helen Schinske
BTW can someone explain to me why some schools start at 9:25 and others at 9:30 but both type of schools end at 3:35?
Bell struck
Just seems odd that official start times would have some schools, at least on paper, getting 25 more/less minutes of instruction each week.
--signed, SPS might be opaque, but you don't have to be
North End Mom
meh on MAP
Bottom line: you need to have a significant quantity of out-of-level material on the test in order to ascertain that a child's achievement is truly out of level. Adding in a few random high-level questions at the end of a lot of lower-level ones isn't enough to make that distinction.
Helen Schinske
No matter what "harder" questions are given in later years, once the reading RIT score >245, a student has hit the ceiling. Yes, they may get reported scores greater than 245, but they can't say a score of 260 is any more meaningful than a score of 250, just that they both scored high.
Helen, if a student hits the ceiling in elementary, are you saying that there is no opportunity to get the "harder" questions until 6th grade? Would students then see a sudden jump in their scores in 6th grade? Or a drop? How does this affect the growth calculations?
http://www.nwea.org/support/article/532
meh on MAP
n...
The ITBS tests, which tested one grade level at a time, had similar scores. You could get a score in third grade that overlapped with the sixth-grade range. Didn't mean there were actually ANY sixth-grade-level questions on the third-grade test AT ALL.
Helen Schinske