Odds and Ends
- Tonight's School Board meeting still has lots of speaker slots open.
- From yesterday's Work Session on Strategic Plan Guiding Principles, a draft document.
Don't like/believe: Strengthen family engagement through transparent communications and continue to build partnerships with city, business and community leaders that support student achievement.
Transparent? As President DeBell has secret meetings (and I'd like to know if the other Board members know this) with Tim Burgess, I'm not sure about that transparency.
And, check out how they want to "strengthen family engagement"? See that word "parents" anywhere? That word is not used a single time in this document. That's where you stand in the Strategic Planning.
Like: Implement an information and communication technology infrastructure and environment that
enhance teaching, learning and all aspects of student success while protecting our students, staff,
and their personal information.
Glad to see a directed concern over protecting student and staff personal information.
- I did not find any document relating to the Work Session on Ethics but there was this one called Program Evaluation & Assessment Annual Report: Development of a Comprehensive Assessment System. Interesting reading. (I can't recall how or why I downloaded it but I did find it yesterday.)
- Tim Burgess is running for Mayor. I will do what I did last time, readers. I'll interview all the candidates (who are willing) and then let you know. What I can say up-front is that clearly Councilman Burgess cares about public education and that's great. But he pretty much sticks with the usual suspects especially the downtown crowd.
I will listen to you. I will learn with you. I will lead to get things done for you.
Big words. I can only say that his office is one of two council offices that I have found to be the least responsive. Meaning, just answering a question or acknowledging a communication seems to be beyond his office. Do I think that will get better if he is mayor? That remains to be seen.
As for listening, I can only say that I tried, repeatedly, to talk to him about 1240 and the last thing he said to me, face-to-face was, "Melissa, I'm not talking about that now. See you."
And that was just to get his take on 1240. If you can't ask an elected official for their stand (or even opinion) on an issue, I have to wonder what a candidate for higher office will do.
Comments
The Washington State Auditor charged the previous board with failure to over-see district operations. Despite a failing audit,Peter Maier extended MGJ's contract- costing tax-payers $0.3M in severence package.
Maier's lack of oversight caused the district enormous amounts of dollars. Yet, Burgess endorsed Maier.
Considering Burgess's involvement with the Family and Education Levy..don't you think he'd want competent school board members to oversee district finances?
Burgess is part of the Good Old Boys network. He won't get my vote.
Though I am no fan of most of what passes for communication from SPS, I cut them a break here.
Solvay Girl
Allow me to summarize:
I) Equitable opportunities for students. They can develop some strategies to pursue this goal, but I think we are more likely to get excuses about why they can't and we will lose some exceptionally good things. Will they switch to option school assignment for language immersion programs? No, but we'll get an excuse about why they can't. Will they provide some assurance of quality in advanced learning programs? No, but we'll get some excuse about why they can't. This is likely to result in an expansion of the "academic assurances" which killed some of our best programs in the name of standardization.
II) Community engagement means engagement with community leaders, not community members. That's just bad. They used to try to reach the hard-to-reach student families with translations and outreach. Now they just want a closer relationship with the Downtown Seattle Association.
III) Sure do hope the state starts to fund education. I don't see how this is a strategy.
IV) Meaningless HR blather. I'm always suspect when employers say that they want to encourage "individual responsibility for excellence". Part of me wants to believe that this means that they will grant their professional employees more autonomy, but I know that it really means that they will crack down hard on anyone that doesn't meet measurable goals on a day-to-day basis. I suppose I should be pleased that they pay lip service to the goal of building "positive relationships through honesty, respect and compassion" but I don't think we're going to see any specific concrete action on this. There is nothing I would like better than to have someone - anyone - in the district leadership say that Seattle Public Schools is going to start keeping their promises instead of breaking them.
How about giving us a seat at the table, in place of city bureaucrats, "business leaders" etc,
I know, I'm a cynic.
Good to see district/principal plans on communicating w/ families.
http://westseattleblog.com/2012/11/pedestrians-hit-near-chief-sealth#comments
But once the dollars came that way, have he and Holly Miller in the downtown office of education made even one plausible effort on community outreach regarding the spending of millions of dollars? If so, I'm not on that mailing list, and I do try to keep up with education.
Burgess as mayor gets a huge thumbs down from the education voter. All positioning, no doing, no outreach.
The fact that he lined up "democrat" Lisa Macfarlane as a baseline endorser, as reported online today, is another negative in my book. No wonder he did not want to take a stand on charters. Politics can be so slimey.
EdVoter
Of those, McGinn and Burgess are no-gos for me. McGinn said he was all over schools and he has done nothing. I've always had the gut feeling that Burgess's involvement with the family and education stuff downtown was to advance his career versus a genuine interest in the subject. If it was a genuine interest he would spend time with actual teachers and students and not just business people and politicians.
I'll be looking at the other people in the lineup for their education stances. It is the issue that will decide my vote, so I hope you make good on your promise to do interviews with everybody early in the mayoral race.
SavvyVoter
Again, these idiots get it upside down. They make strapped schools and non-profits compete with onerous grant proposals, while they hand out personal service contracts and goodies for their friends.
It is going to be fun watching those that endorse Burgess. So far, the line-up includes Lisa McFarlane, Steve Sundquist, Jon Bridges and Michael Debell.
I wonder when DeBell's and Burgess's BFF J. Knapp is going to jump on board!
Dear other candidates - having the SEA endorsement means that you'll have hours and hours of your life wasted in meetings with leaders, and, if you're not a putz, you'll have activist teachers helping you out because that is what they do, regardless of SEA pronouncements.
If you're a putz, just say "bipartisan" and "compromise" a lot while your in those meetings, on the way to cash the fat checks from Stand On Children and the rest of the Gate$-Ill-Vain-ia astro turfs.
BestWishesToNonPutzes
I should have said
" if you're not a deformer putz, you'll MIGHT have activist teachers helping you out because that is what they do, regardless of SEA pronouncements. Since there are so few activist teachers, good luck.
If you're a deformer putz, just say "bipartisan" and "compromise" a lot while you're in those meetings,"
BestWishesToNonPutzesII