Updates on Middle College/K-5 STEM Siting
From Director Marty McClaren:
Bob Boesche, Interim Deputy Superintendent, met with South Seattle Community College President, Gary Oertli on Thursday, 6/28 to discuss possibilities for continuing to house Middle College HS at SSCC.
Mr. Boesche reports that President Oertli was very cordial and expressed great regret at having to ask MCHS to vacate its classrooms at SSCC. He made it clear that the college has had an excellent relationship with the Middle College students and staff, as well as with Seattle Public Schools, and that the college simply has no more space, due to increasing SSCC enrollment. He also confirmed the decision was not based on any financial obligation (facilities have been provided at no cost). In addition, he confirmed that there is not space in the parking lots for portables.
Bob Boesche, Interim Deputy Superintendent, met with South Seattle Community College President, Gary Oertli on Thursday, 6/28 to discuss possibilities for continuing to house Middle College HS at SSCC.
Mr. Boesche reports that President Oertli was very cordial and expressed great regret at having to ask MCHS to vacate its classrooms at SSCC. He made it clear that the college has had an excellent relationship with the Middle College students and staff, as well as with Seattle Public Schools, and that the college simply has no more space, due to increasing SSCC enrollment. He also confirmed the decision was not based on any financial obligation (facilities have been provided at no cost). In addition, he confirmed that there is not space in the parking lots for portables.
Mr. Boesche and SPS staff
are continuing to explore other sites in the Delridge/West Seattle area,
ideally in proximity to South Seattle
Community College. Updates will be given as soon possible when we have
any news.
Comments
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/reports/dropout/midcollege_hs/info.asp
"One study [from Mathmatica] of Middle College High School meets What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evidence standards. This randomized controlled trial included 394 students in the Seattle Public Schools who were assigned to either an intervention group that was offered admission to the alternative high school or a control group that was not offered admission. Control group students were free to participate in other regular and alternative high schools operated by the school district, as well as General Educational Development (GED) programs. Most control group students participated in one of these other education options.3
Based on this study, the WWC considers the extent of evidence for Middle College High School to be small for both the staying in school and the completing school domains. No studies that meet WWC evidence standards with or without reservations examined the effectiveness of Middle College High School in the progressing in school domain."
Can anyone tell me, from this research, how they identified both control and intervention-targeted students? Did students approacj SPS and ask for intervention, and some were sent to MC and some not? I'm unclear how this selection process happened, and maybe someone could clue me in.
I am not sure why some were offered a seat at middle college, and why some were only offered other alternative or traditional options.
It would have been helpful to show what outcomes for all of the students, and to see if the students accepted to middle college were different in some way.
My daughter has a friend from high school who attended middle college and went on to recieve his AA certificate from SCCC and his BA from UChicago. but as he had attended private school until middle of high school and her parents are a university professor & former school board member, I doubt if he was typical.
I think that remedial/re-entry programs fill a need in SPS but we need to do a better job of targeting the population. Why with so many support services are less than half of students receiving a GED or diploma?
Our re-entry & remedial programs should be more intentional.
Students who do poorly in school because of behavior issues and lack of family support need different supports than students who need perhaps 18 months to complete 12 months of curriculum. ( or perhaps that could have been accomplished with simply lowering class size)
Completing school. Dynarski et al. (1998) found that 40% of students in the Middle College High School group had earned a high school diploma or GED certificate two years after random assignment, compared with 38% of control group students; a difference that was not statistically significant or substantively important.5
http://www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_Effectiveness_Middle/
--Old School Music.