Tuesday Open Thread
Coming up on Thursday is the one-year anniversary of the MAP test boycott.
It's also the day that SEE (Social Equality Educators) are introducing their "Respect' slate of candidates to challenge the current SEA leadership. They are having a forum on Thursday at Garfield Community Center. Lead by Jesse Hagopian, a Garfield teacher who was named "Secondary School Teacher of the Year" by the Academy of Education Arts and Sciences, the group has a mix of current SEA Board of director members and award-winning and/or veteran educators.
The event starts at 4:30 pm and City Council member Kshama Sawant is scheduled to make an appearance.
What's on your mind?
It's also the day that SEE (Social Equality Educators) are introducing their "Respect' slate of candidates to challenge the current SEA leadership. They are having a forum on Thursday at Garfield Community Center. Lead by Jesse Hagopian, a Garfield teacher who was named "Secondary School Teacher of the Year" by the Academy of Education Arts and Sciences, the group has a mix of current SEA Board of director members and award-winning and/or veteran educators.
The event starts at 4:30 pm and City Council member Kshama Sawant is scheduled to make an appearance.
What's on your mind?
Comments
SavvyVoter
-FedMomof2
For too long, Seattle teachers didn't want to have to get their hands dirty. Arrogance has its limits when you learn you are nothing more than a working stiff.
--enough already
Why doesn't the district buy enough books? Is that going to be typical as we go into the rest of middle school and high school?
I fear routine photocopying of parts of the book is going to get the District in trouble for copyright violations. "Educational use" is one factor in whether use of copyright material is fair use, but it's not the only factor, and routine use every semester to avoid buying enough books is not acceptable.
We bought two copies of the book, one for mom's house and one for my house, so our child doesn't have to carry it back and forth, and to save a copy for other kids. At the end of the year we'll donate them and there will be two more to go around. Are we going to need to do this most years?
Dear School Board and Math Adoption Committee,
We strongly encourage the School Board and Math Adoption Committee to postpone the adoption of a new K-5 math curriculum.
After reviewing all the curricula under consideration it is clear that they are not adequate for preparing our students to meet the high standards of the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics (CCSSM). The curricula materials that exist now have not been written with the depth of understanding required by the Common Core. These materials have been slightly adjusted from already existing curriculum and have had Common Core stamped on them. While none of the curricula under consideration are well-aligned with the new standards, there are curricula currently being developed specifically to address the Common Core in its entirety. We are losing the opportunity to look at these curricula by forcing a decision to be made this year.
The Common Core has raised the expectations for what our students need to understand and do in mathematics. CCSSM details quite specifically the content standards at each grade level; teachers and students deserve a curriculum that completely matches these standards. We need a curriculum that will support teachers in helping our students be successful. None of the curricula under consideration do these things.
The CCSSM leads with the Standards for Mathematical Practices – these are eight statements that describe the behaviors that students must engage with in order to be mathematically proficient. They include such behaviors as making meaning of non-routine problems, communicating thinking about mathematics, justifying reasoning and making generalizations. These challenging and complex behaviors cannot be adequately addressed with a curriculum that is primarily worksheet based, yet all the curricula currently up for review are just that.
The second aspect of CCSSM is rigor – a balance of conceptual understanding, procedural fluency and meaningful application in non-routine problems. In order for students to be successful on the upcoming Smarter Balance tests, they will need ample opportunities for all three forms of work. Again, none of the current curricula being reviewed provide for that depth of work.
We understand there is a sense of urgency to adopt a new K-5 math curriculum as the current one is not supporting students in meeting the CCSSM. Many of the current school board members rightly pledged to address this issue. However, we see a great danger in rushing into a new adoption when none of the materials that are currently being reviewed adequately support the new standards. Seattle elementary schools have lived with an inadequate curriculum for the last seven years, and it would be a disaster to adopt a curriculum that will not support our students in learning mathematics as described in the Common Core. It would be far better to wait another year if it means getting a curriculum that is truly aligned with the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics.
Sincerely,
Janet Osborn (1st grade teacher Pathfinder K-8), Missa Marmalstein (2/3 teacher Pathfinder K-8), Lisa DeBurle (2/3 teacher Pathfinder K-8), Jennifer Niemann (kindergarten teacher Pathfinder K-8), Andy Darring (4/5 teacher Pathfinder K-8) Shel Harris (K-2 self-contained Pathfinder K-8), Patrick Wildermann (2/3 teacher Pathfinder K-8), Genya Scharks (1st grade teacher Pathfinder K-8), Kelly Hower (Kindergarten teacher Pathfinder K-8), Ruth Balf (Mathematics Education Project University of Washington), Chris Lloyd (2/3 teacher Pathfinder K-8), Scott Rose (4/5 teacher Pathfinder K-8)
-Teacher
I am grateful that I can help out in this way, but it is a shame that these sorts of things aren't funded by the state. Schools with a higher percentage of FRL than Ingraham (currently in the mid-40s I think) just can't possibly raise the funds they need.
Jesse Hagopian,
- Marian Wagner, National Board Certified Teacher, Salmon Bay K-8, current member of SEA Board of Directors—For SEA Vice President
·Dan Troccoli, current Vice President of the SEA Substitute Association, founding member of SEE—For SEA Treasurer
·And a slate of other candidates for the SEA Board of Directors
Math, we can only wait. I have heard nothing.
Karen, it's been awhile. For math, you test into honors math and everyone can take the test. There is Spectrum for LA. To the best of my knowledge, there are no science honors classes.
You do try out for sports but there are also club sports (not sponsored by the school) as well. How competitive it is may depend on the school. I would definitely talk to the coach of whatever sport you are considering.
Patrick, that wasn't my experience. Maybe the district is between editions. Good question for the principal or executive director for your region. But books are basics, no one should be fundraising for them.
Good for Pathfinder teachers for speaking up. Common Core is going to weigh heavily for both teachers and students. Again, not enough prep/piloting for this to go forward. What's the rush? Better to get it right.
At Roosevelt textbooks were often purchased by the PTSA or the foundation. I have seen them very often in AP social science classes where memorizing the text is a big part of the curriculum. They use them in math, but more often problem sets come out of the AP practice books each family has to buy. I have not seen textbooks used in LA classes, science, or foreign language.
-HS parent
Has anyone heard anything about this?
HP
Maybe if I thought we had a decent curriculum now I'd be fine with more wait and study, but I can't stand the idea of another year of kids receiving an inadequate mathematical education. I see in my job every day how being math illiterate gravely harms otherwise stable adults. I do wish they'd get a move on for middle and high school students- particularly middle school.
-sleeper
Science has aspiral curriculum; similar to EDM. Teachers pull materials from various sources.
For music, students were playing their instruments with music on their laps. Fortunately, there were parent organizers that chipped in.
TERC Investigations were supposed to teach kids critical thinking skills yet damaged a generation of students and made them math illiterate. The choices this time around are far better than what we have now. Some people will have us believe that Common Core is the fix but there are great math textbooks being used by parents, teachers, and tutors that have nothing to do with Common Core.
Also I'm a little concerned that none of the people who are associated with the UW Mathematics Education Project who seem to want further rumination on math curriculum appear to be scientists or engineers who use math for practical purposes. I think this has been a core problem for SPS in developing appropriate math curriculum.
Several of the math programs under consideration are very good for teaching practical computation and mathematical principles at K-8, Middle and High school levels.
-Scientist
-No Posting
Gen Ed Mom
-sleeper
We've seen textbooks for math and for high school level science classes taken in middle school. That's about it.
-MS (and APP) parent
Gen Ed Mom
Your kid is elementary, right? Is it language arts or math? I was thinking of middle school, but for math right now it's mostly everyday math, or if you are at Salmon bay it might be TERC investigations. Both terrible, get a Singapore book covering the same material to help. For language arts none of my kids had textbooks in elementary, and for history the one time I remember them having one the class had one copy the teacher would occasionally make copies of. That's gen ed and APP. So far my elementary experience with gen ed has had some more curriculum materials, because it is defined.
-sleeper
Gen Ed Mom
Schools with PTAs that can fund books, or who have heavy parent involvement, tend to support buying books and are able to do so. I feel for those schools that don't have the means and most are high FRL. This is a district problem, not as much a program related difference.
Ugh
Gen Ed Mom
Gen Ed Mom
No one even mentioned AP and yet you brought it up. What has that got to do with books?
I did not write those two sentences together so why you linked them is a mystery. My belief - from being both a parent and a long-time PTA board member - is that books are basics. But that appears, from current parents' experiences, not to be the case.
I never take anything for granted in this district. Woe to the parent who does.
Gen Ed Mom
they have frequently seen textbooks for AP classes.
Gen Ed Mom
Last year in 6th grade: There was a social studies book but it was classroom only--they share with the other class. Same for CMP math book. No science book. No LA book.
This year in 7th grade: They have the horrible CMP math books. They have a science book. Social studies has no book, just handouts that they cannot keep, nor does LA.
This weekend an assigned SS project came home: make a poster on an assigned topic from the unit they were studying (American Revolution). The kids spent several days in class last week researching a subtopic on the revolutionary war. They were given handouts printed from a book on their topic. They were told to write down notes in their SS journals on their topic. They shared these handouts with the other class. So they could not come home. Over the weekend, my kiddo determined she did not have enough recorded in her journal to complete the poster. And because she was not provided a book, or a set of handouts, we had to spend our afternoon Googling with her. Most of the information on the web on the revolutionary war is not really geared toward middle schoolers. So we spent way too much time trying to find something appropriate to her topic. Also, if I had known about this project more than a few days before it was due, I would have bought her materials. But, as usual, the communication is too little, too late.
This is TRULY an absurd way for kids to learn. Frankly, I am really beside myself with the lack of curriculum, the lack of consistency between schools, and the horrible math curriculum.
-Getting Tired
Gen Ed Mom
Besides the deluge of paper that comes home, I generally think it is a good thing. I feel as though the teachers aren't phoning it in via a textbook - they are using more sources and a more thoughtful outlook on what needs to be covered.
Our parents don't pay for textbooks. They have raised money for in-class reading materials, science and math manipulatives, etc.
Alt Mom
PF
DistrictWatcher
An SEA slate question. Is that it? Knapp has to step down after 2 years but doesn't the VP usually take over? That's a woman, right? It's not Jesse Hagopian. So is she running too or is she punting to Hagopian's group?
I have the opposite sentiment. It seems incredibly wasteful - the copy budgets must be huge, not to mention the time the teacher needs to spend finding and then copying material. From our experience, significant content is being missed as there is no textbook to anchor the lessons or the coverage of content.
-weighing in
The Friends of Ingraham group has funded me to buy AP Statistics books and graphing calculators. I will probably be asking for money for more Statistics books for next year, if the number of students who say they are going to sign up, actually. All I can say, is "thank you" to those of you who fund this. You make it possible for me to teach the class the way I want to.
Gen Ed Mom
Good catch. Yes, I meant Pathfinder and not Arbor Heights. Thanks.
When I spoke with Harium prior to the current adoption he said he would not approve any HS math adoption without 100K a year for replacements. His intentions aside I'm not sure that happened (and if so where is that budget line). The poorer schools (mine) lose the most due to student mobility, thus hindering the availability for the next teacher, etc.
Unfortunately some teachers don't like the books (I'm not saying they're the greatest - but they are a school resource) and thus some classes become worksheet driven. Pity the poor disorganized student who now can never find his homework or show family something to read and remind them how to do a math assignment. Same happens, as noted above, in middle school.
-- Former Alg1teach
-speechless
Frustrated staffer
I don't think my middle schooler has any textbooks. Nothing comes home. Lots of photocopied sheets for math and many are handwritten by his teacher.
Gen Ed Mom
I have been bringing up this topic for many moons on this blog, as well as in the school district. It has gotten worse, not better.
Don't expect the PTA donation idea to get any traction. Seattle parents on this blog have overwhelmingly been against it, even though Portland and neighboring Seattle districts are making PTA donations more equitable.
The rationale for perpetuating the inequity seems to be this: My child isn't getting all that he/she deserves, so I can't focus on glaring unfairness in the meantime.
BTW, Michael Rice seemed to confirm the obvious. Ingraham did not have these basic resources just a few years ago before it went IB and the parent money followed. Yes, Frustrated Staffer, this district is definitely a tale of two cities, and people keep turning a blind eye to this reality. I'm glad Michael Rice is thankful, but I hope he's also aware that his fellow teachers at other schools do not have the minimal resources.
Textbooks should be basic instead of MAP, high teacher evaluation costs, etc. GenEd mom, follow the money. It correlates with APP enrollment, but also with certain neighborhoods. The discrepancies are truly breathtaking.
As I've stated many times before, the FRL lunch money does not even begin to address what the students need. It is a very lame argument against making PTA donations more equitable.
--enough already
-NH
No I do not think pooling PTA resources will work until state funding goes up. For a lot of reasons, none of which are the malicious ones you like to assign absolutely anyone who disagrees with you. The resources are not fungible. If you change what they are going to, they will go away. People give to what they want to give to. Private individuals cannot and should not make up what lacks in government funding- unless of course you agree with the Republicans(bush 2 would say you are right, that's how to fill the gap, possibly churches should step in. That right there is enough to let me know I am right.), that we can keep government small and let those in need and worse, public institutions, kowtow to the larger public opinion and whim. And that argument is so specious- I assume we expect Wing Luke to give all its PTA funds to Darfur? Children are dying and we are supposed to worry about whether a teacher teaching students who all have socks and their own chair has a projector? Surely Broadview Thompson students don't need new shoes so much as one Syrian child needs any shoes? No one should give to PTAs anywhere until every child in the world is fed, at least.
I agree with you that I would rather the district pay for more books than the MAP. But many teachers genuinely don't like textbooks, so in some cases it would be a waste.
-sleeper
-sleeper
Gen Ed Mom
I'm saying villainizing people for not making your same charity choices is morally suspect at the very best. If you've ever given to money to any cause besides starving children in war torn countries, you've when the exact same lack of compassion you are accusing me of. I do think the posters on here espousing this view should absolutely give their personal money to whatever cause they want, including specific seattle area schools, or a few seattle schools they seem underprivileged enough, and not ones they send their kids to if they are too privileged (though there are many poorer districts than ours that could really use your money before you go privileging your local, relatively privileged kids, even if they are slightly less well off than another nearby school. Try looking up some rural Mississippi schools, and see if ours don't look so bad after all.) I give some of my charity money to my children's public schools. I match that with foster child help donations. What do you do? If you want to demonize charitable giving and effects, go after churches' tax exempt status or possibly private secondary education, but I'm far too liberal to think what public elementary schools need is to run on charity. Those are government institutions. I think the government should fund a LOT more, but that is a whole lot different than wanting to run the government on charity or hoping people will become less involved in their community schools.
-sleeper
Legitimate because they believe it to be so?
-book lover
-sleeper
NEP
Secondly, the student is left with no resources for review or study. A student can't simply read the book as a means of dealing with a less than competent teacher.
And yet...the district math texts were vetted and are awful. So where does that leave the debate?
-book lover
My sense is a strong principal can get all this under control but since the school district often gives the poorer schools the weaker principals and even the "good" schools in the wealthiest neighborhoods have frequent principal turn over, many kids are getting the short end of the stick.
Gen Ed Mom
Gen Ed Mom
Yet I don't thing anyone would ask me to stop tutoring my kid in math at home, in the interest of equity. I don't think anyone would suggest that PTAs mandate that any hour spent volunteering at one school is matched by an hour volunteering at another school that needs it. People do have the freedom to shore up an inadequate system as they see fit.
I believe we should all support candidates and legislation that will fully fund all schools. I have always done so, even long before being married and even thinking of having kids.
I don't believe the burden of creating equality in school resources should be borne only by those who participate in their kids' schools.
SPS Mom
Policymakers: Stop Being Agnostic About Curriculum
I challenge anyone to tell me the general scope and sequence (the curriculum, not the standards) for each grade and subject in Seattle Schools. It doesn't seem to exist.
-chiming in
-Getting Tired
Gen Ed Mom
Gen Ed Mom
But I am tired of Googling for SS materials and buying books for my kiddo to constantly fill the gaps. And I am very sick of relearning all the math concepts that the CMP book does not explain (so I can support at home), but that they are magically supposed to learn via inquiry.
Last year for 6th grade, the science teacher (a lovely man) told us during curriculum night that he did not have a science book to use. He said he would love a new book, but that he couldn't use the ones he had because they were 15 years old.
To what extend do teachers long for new materials and have their needs unmet? (They don't necessarily have to be books, but something that can be shared with each and every student.) It may be that the answer to that question is different for each teacher. But the answer from parents is clear: we want our kids to have materials to support the curriculum.
-Getting Tired
Chiming in, for better or worse(probably worse) I could actually completely tell you the scope and sequence of elementary school subjects in gen ed, except that I have to get off the Internet in a second here. You know the science kits, right? Balls/levers, dirt, worms, rocks, yada yada. There are 3 per grade, and teachers pick how many to do, I think, and the schools gets them in slightly different orders to reuse materials across the district. And then the math is by textbook, so it's defined that way. Subtraction introduced second half of k, I think, and I remember fractions being introduced the same day in 3rd grade, too. I really hope it's math in focus starting next year. Language arts I would divide into reading and writing(and reading is obviously highly differentiated, but standard at the end of kindergarten is some number of sight words, low DRA, right? I remember being told expected progress through DRas/ fountas and pinnell letters, something like 2 a year. And they use that relatively unpopular program for teaching reading in k and first.) but everybody in my family wrote an autobiography with more than one draft in second grade, for example, and a fiction story with more than one draft and a beginning, middle, and end. And I think there was also a non fiction writing unit that year. We all remember small moments, that writer's workshop stuff, which has a well defined scope and sequence, and weekend reports, which switch from pictures to writing in the middle of kindergarten, right? And then the teachers are supposed to have the kids write more and more. The third grade native cultures project in social studies has been remarkably consistent (and I don't think that great so I wonder why), and they all love the second grade Washington state unit.
Does every 5th grade class put on midsummer night's dream? I think so, right? Or a different play?
-sleeper
Gen Ed Mom
parent
It sounds like you experienced a teacher who did not communicate well with parents. I don't think having textbooks available to teachers will solve that problem. You can't make teachers stick to the textbook. The district tried that with fidelity of implementation & pacing guides when they introduced every day math. Maybe some teachers would improve if they were forced to parrot the textbook, many would not. We parents might know more about what is going on in the classroom, but perhaps not. I never knew what they were doing in EDM & had to reteach it at home using other materials anyway.
I think that having a curriculum map that refers to standards & what ever they are using for glees now, would probably serve you better. There are pluses & minuses to standardizing instruction. I think we have seen both in this district in the last couple of decades.
The 2 times I have seen a school work at aligning curriculum school-wide, changes in staff, administration or district policies have destroyed it within a year or two. I have had more luck by meeting with the teacher & asking my questions about classroom goals directly.
-HS parent.
What was missing to my mind last year, was what they were supposed to be learning. And so, when my daughter clearly didn't learn I had no recourse. And the principal told me she did not have much recourse other than offering support to the teacher. She could not MAKE her teach the kids anything. Why?
Now, at my current school I have asked questions about curriculum as well. I have not gotten great answers but I feel like my fourth grader is learning because her teacher is good.
Am I missing something?
Gen Ed Mom
Would it be so hard to say "In third grade the kids learn this grammar," and then spell out what that is? They can teach it however they want, I don't care. They can do worksheets or teach it by writing and correcting the writing, but there should be certain things they have to know by the end of third grade. If a teacher's way of teaching that isn't working, the principal make her do it in a more rudimentary, less fun way but it still gets done. Creative teaching methods are great for creative and organized teachers. For those who aren't this system allows them to hide the fact that they aren't teaching.
Gen Ed Mom
But mostly, teaching is a profession, and reducing that job to flashcard reading and exact automaton instructions serves no one. There was a curriculum for your third grader (who was in a split class- I have a child in a split class now and am giving the teacher, who is great- a break on covering exactly the same things as my other kids, because it is and has to be different. I am glad she has some freedom and flexibility. A rigid curriculum in there would be death. How could that even work without a cloned teacher?). The teacher did not use it. I don't think we should be able to "make" them, because for the most part if they are not it's for good reason. Once my then third grader's teacher noticed that like 80% of the kids couldn't tell time well enough, so she did an extra unit on time, and shortened a later unit they got pretty quickly. And thank goodness she didn't have to just ignore it and send them on with bad skills, and follow the curriculum to the letter. That flexibility is critical.
I am not saying all the curriculums are good. The one I am most educated about-math- is terrible, and it's not that there aren't good canned ones out there, as is the case I gather with some other subjects. Math in focus is great. But they are definitely there, in schools.
-sleeper
Gen Ed Mom
Familiarize yourself with Washington State standards.
Whatever you do, don't count on our schools to meet your children's needs. Teachers are overburdened.
There are the grade level expectations.
http://www.seattleschools.org/modules/cms/pages.phtml?pageid=177512
There are discussions of the curriculums the district has bought for the different subjects. If you go to the websites for the curriculums or google, you can find more of their specific ways of getting to those grade level expectations. But obviously it's proprietary so they don't want it just out there, otherwise no one would ever purchase it. I have asked to see it from teachers before (to see what a kid was talking about about, for example), and I am sure you could too, if you want to see more.
-sleeper
Please don't tell me not to count on the schools to meet my children's needs. If you really think I am doing that, you haven't read anything I've written. I pulled my kid out last year and home schooled for a while her although we both work. Parents are overburdened too. But I am doing my best to meet my kids needs. That does not mean I think the schools get a free pass.
I am trying to get the schools to meet ALL of our kids needs. My kids are pretty normal kids with pretty average needs. I asked Sleeper a specific question because she seems to have a lot of knowledge in this area.
Gen Ed Mom
What? Yes, they are. It's a launch for classes in high school(which are tremendously important). Fine if you don't think so but pass that onto your child and find out how much does matter when they get to high school.
Getting Tired, you are right. Parents should not be supplementing basic curriculum. That you feel something isn't happening in the classroom is troubling. I would have a heart-to-heart with the teacher (difficult as that might be).
I would advise people to search for the word "curriculum" here; Charlie has written extensively on it.
Gen Ed Mom
-sleeper
Gen Ed Mom
But I am tired of Googling for SS materials and buying books for my kiddo to constantly fill the gaps. And I am very sick of relearning all the math concepts that the CMP book does not explain (so I can support at home), but that they are magically supposed to learn via inquiry.
We are in the same situation. I am tired of playing part-time teacher for my children.
-tired2
First, not what should be happening. This is not about being an involved parent - this is making parents do work that is NOT their job. Their job is to make sure homework is done - not help with it.
Second, what about single-parent families? Or even both parents - tired at the end of the day - why should this be happening at all? What about poor/immigrant parents with no Internet access and/or language barriers?
-Getting Tired
Gen Ed Mom