Friday Open Thread
Start of the Memorial Day weekend - give a bit of time to remembering our vets (and tell your children why it's important). I say this every year at this time but I do it in remembrance of their sacrifice. Thank you to my mother's cousin, Charles, who gave his life during WWII at the Baatan Death March and to Harry S. Ravenna, who died in Vietnam. I wore his name on a MIA bracelet during junior high.
Inspiration for your student - a short video by This American Life's Ira Glass, on the creative process (and persistence).
And, since it's prom season, a photos of President Obama going off to his prom.
What's on your mind?
Inspiration for your student - a short video by This American Life's Ira Glass, on the creative process (and persistence).
And, since it's prom season, a photos of President Obama going off to his prom.
What's on your mind?
Comments
-StepJ
No, I think AL is really in the hands of individual principals because clearly, no one at the top really cares at all. (Except for Harium who likes to harrumph about the SE.)
-Dismayed
reader
I was at the Executive Oversight Session meeting. I think the SpEd presentation was well done. It addressed a lot of parental concerns moving forward. Notably many teachers and some SpEd parents were there in support.
I did sit through the Education Directors part. It was heavily based on direction from the Center for Educational Leadership at the UW. I don't know much about organization. So I did some heavy duty research--and googled them. I could find no direct funding from the Gates Foundation in terms of grants. I was surprised at that, as they are listed as "partners" on the org's website. Did some more heavy duty googling and found that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation lists position openings for the Center for Educational Leadership on their website, indicating that the GF funds the position directly.
This brings up two thoughts: 1. Does anyone know of a way to get at how many positions in local educational reform organizations are actually GF employee positions? 2. I think someone needs to develop/write a paper delving in depth intoto the relationship that GF has with every single educational/reform org in the city/state? I know that Seattle Education has a diagram on their site which diagrams some of the influence of Gates/Waltons/Broad here, but as far as I can tell the relationships/money runs much deeper.
to this sort of data mining. But it is legal under FERPA because in 2008 and 2011, amendments to FERPA gave third parties,including private companies,increased access to student data. In 2008, amendments to FERPA expanded the definitions of “school officials” who have access to student data to include "contractors, consultants, volunteers,and other parties to whom an educational agency
or institution has outsourced institutional services or functions it would otherwise use employees to perform." HIPPA provides no protection for medical records as schools are not a covered agency.
So all of us who think InBloom can be legally challenged based on FERPA are wrong, wrong, wrong. I am now looking at WA state privacy protections to see what help they may offer.
Gretchen
...
So all of us who think InBloom can be legally challenged based on FERPA are wrong, wrong, wrong. I am now looking at WA state privacy protections to see what help they may offer.
Thank you Mary, for your efforts and sharing.
From what I've been able to discern so far, I'm not sure there are any real legal protections left -- but please correct me if you find anything at the state level! Those who have been lobbying for these changes have been doing a great job eating away at what few protections our kids have left. We need to start an organized effort to restore some of those protections, but it's not going to be easy.
What we can do right now is work at a local level and make sure that our local districts do NOT share data with ANY of these organizations. The laws are being watered down to allow sharing, but it's not required. If senior leadership in our local districts is not listening, then we need to work through the elected school boards. If they are not listening, then we need to elect new directors.
Right now most people still have no idea this data sharing is even happening. The word needs to be spread far and wide, to friends, neighbors, fellow parents, teachers, everyone. Unless our leaders hear from many voices, they will continue to assume that we don't care and/or that they can continue to sneak in these changes. Start talking with the new school board director candidates as well as our current directors. Make our voices heard!
Thanks
Gretchen
Mary, you cannot swing a dead cat in this town at a non-profit that doesn't benefit from Gates. I was just going to write about the newest charter group that ...wait for it ... is funded by Gates.
Maybe some of us can collaborate on this effort (at least for local non-profits). No one wants to listen; maybe they need to see it in black and white.
And, by the way, somehow Gates gets more of a glow but when I mention the Walton Foundation, everyone gets upside. You can certainly see the difference between Walmart and Microsoft in people's attitudes.
While it's true that FERPA has been gutted, there are best practices for data-sharing in the Federal Register. Frankly, I don't have the energy to pursue this, but someone could compare best-practice provisions against the MOU language.
FERPA FAQs
CCER MOU Amd
Privacy (Hah! that's a laugh) Technical Assistance Center
Nor surprises there. Ms. Van Voorhis is a TFA alumnus, and as such is just doing what most of them do: contribute to churn.
She stays 1 or two years in a position and then moves on. It's just a two-year stint in a classroom before the rest of your life starts. Her pathway just happens to include management in education. Of note, she did obtain a Master of Public Administration in June of 2011, which would be after MGJ hired her, but presumably would make her more qualified for her present position.
Although not directly related, they lost their Federal Head Start funding last month due to sloppy management. Their director claimed he had "no idea" why, yet the story quoted Federal officials with details of multiple written warnings. A denial culture doesn't bode well.
-- Bill
SPS property management made a presentation to the Audit & Finance committee April 11th that said everything regarding the lease is hunky-dorie. I'm sure you could get the handouts (which had specific lease terms and performance numbers) by asking the Board Office. Anita and Theresa are very helpful.
My question is… how did she get my e-mail address?
She stated she was endorsed by outgoing Director DeBell. Did she do a public records request for anyone that had ever written to DeBell? Or, how else did she get my e-mail address?
I do not respect the ethics of anyone that would glom onto an address book from – SPS, LEV, DeBell, or...where individuals have written an e-mail or made a donation to their individual school, but did not explicitly agree to have their information shared.
I will not even consider voting for her now. I have no respect for people that skirt integrity.
If anyone knows whom or which organization is sharing their address book with her, please let me know.
Thank you,
StepJ
...just a thought
No. I haven't been a PTA Board member for a couple of years now. Our PTA website intentionally does not list e-mail addresses. We do contact links through our interface software specifically so personal e-mail addresses remain private.
I have written e-mails to Director DeBell on various topics, but have never endorsed him as a candidate, nor donated money to his campaign.
I would hope the SCPTSA would not share or sell their mailing list of current or previous PTA Board members. I actually think that might be a violation of their guidelines.
I'll try to find out the source.
-StepJ
I know for a fact that other directors have done this, specifically KSB. It's not cool even when it's given to someone you ultimately support; I'd be furious if it was handed out (like in this case) to someone you're very likely to not support.
Estey is 100% off my list as well.
reader
Technically, any email sent to a school employee or director is open for public records requests. That's why we got to see all the somewhat embarrassing banter between Enfield and her "friends". So from a technical standpoint, yes, there is no expectation of completely privacy with regards to emails sent to a director.
However, unlike your BS tirade here, there IS an expectation that with email in general, people or organizations do NOT share out in bulk, their entire address books. Especially in a case like this, where there is a profit motive (getting elected) behind it. In this case, StepJ has every right to be mad at both the giver and receiver of that data. The giver, for breaching implied trust, and the receiver, for either requesting or accepting bulk contacts from individuals who did not give any permission to do so, either explicit or implied. There is no implied consent to having personal contact information dispersed merely by making contact with someone. That's where you're 100% wrong.
If DeBell wanted to share his list with Estey, he should have sent out a message to his entire list, expressing his support for Estey and suggesting that everyone sign up for her mailing list. But of course that would have resulted in far fewer takers.
Question for Mirmac: when does a public servant's email become public? Only after they are elected? Or as soon as they are officially a candidate? Would love to see emails between DeBell and Estey, leading up to and shortly following her decision to run for office. I doubt they happened over his official SPS email account though, and good luck getting those other emails.
voter
Suzanne Estey is on the board for the Community Center for Education Results (CCER), actively participated in the Road Map program and is now running for Seattle Public School Board.
If Estey is on the Board of CCER and working on RoadMap, that alone is enough for me to say No Way, No Thanks. I suspect she will have a strong campaign $fund$. I hope the other candidates in district 4 are able to compete with it.
Reader
Apparently you think the simple act of emailing someone gives them the societal right to not only add you to a mailing list, but to then give it out to others without your permission? Glad to know this, I'll certainly never email you. I can't imagine you are in anything but a small minority with this opinion. Not worth they keystrokes to continue this conversation.
Melissa said: money is not going to win a seat. Look at LA.
This is the optimistic view, but I took this: Out of three candidates, one ed reformer won, one moderate won (who had been targeted nonetheless by the ed reform crowd) and one seat went to a runoff. with a little less optimism. If the "moderate" was targeted by ed reform, they got contributions, right? And they won. Following that logic, money bought 2 out of 3 seats and the remaining seat was close, which is depressing.
I'm cautiously optimistic, because Marty and Sharon were able to pull off wins here last election. Especially Sharon, who managed this with such a small fraction of Peter Maier's war chest. But I'll stick with my original tenet that Estey will have significant fund$ to work with, and I hope her opponents will be able to compete well against it.
Ultimately, we need election reform, with low limits on contributions, and perhaps even some small public matching funds for those who move past the primaries into the general. I'm torn about this last part because I don't generally think public funds should be used for stuff like this, but after watching recent elections here and around the country where money has been a big factor in small, local seats, I wonder if it's worth consideration.
Reader