Happy New Year (Make an Education Wish)
What's your education wish for 2015?
Let's go with three wishes; one for Seattle Schools, one for the state, and one national.
1) For this district, a perennial favorite of mine, a School Board that does its REAL job. Providing oversight and accountability. Examining the "priorities" of the district vis a vis school-based needs/parent desires. Not accepting excuses from upper management on serious issues. But this will not come from the majority of the current Board (clearly) so we have the work to find, support and elect four new people for the Board. (I know - it's a big job but it has been done before.)
2) You might have thought I would say "enact McCleary" but honestly, that's the Legislature's job and it's the constitutional mandate. There shouldn't even be any discussion that drags on for months and months.
Nope, my wish is for the Washington State Supreme Court to overturn the charter school law. I think the law is unconstitutional. There is just one charter school open at this point (and it's already on probation).
During the campaign, we were told, over and over, that this was the "best" charter law in the country. That may be but apparently, the creators forgot to align it with our state constitution. So, if it is overturned, they can go back to the drawing board and start again. (My best guess is that the Court will split the baby somehow. I don't think that will truly work and will engender more arguing so throwing the whole thing out makes more sense to me.)
3) Nationally, I would like to see every single state and the feds enact student data privacy restrictions with REAL gatekeeping and REAL punishment. Every single entity that wants access to data should fear the ramifications if they foul up.
Wishing you all a safe and happy New Year's Eve into our new 2015.
Let's go with three wishes; one for Seattle Schools, one for the state, and one national.
1) For this district, a perennial favorite of mine, a School Board that does its REAL job. Providing oversight and accountability. Examining the "priorities" of the district vis a vis school-based needs/parent desires. Not accepting excuses from upper management on serious issues. But this will not come from the majority of the current Board (clearly) so we have the work to find, support and elect four new people for the Board. (I know - it's a big job but it has been done before.)
2) You might have thought I would say "enact McCleary" but honestly, that's the Legislature's job and it's the constitutional mandate. There shouldn't even be any discussion that drags on for months and months.
Nope, my wish is for the Washington State Supreme Court to overturn the charter school law. I think the law is unconstitutional. There is just one charter school open at this point (and it's already on probation).
During the campaign, we were told, over and over, that this was the "best" charter law in the country. That may be but apparently, the creators forgot to align it with our state constitution. So, if it is overturned, they can go back to the drawing board and start again. (My best guess is that the Court will split the baby somehow. I don't think that will truly work and will engender more arguing so throwing the whole thing out makes more sense to me.)
3) Nationally, I would like to see every single state and the feds enact student data privacy restrictions with REAL gatekeeping and REAL punishment. Every single entity that wants access to data should fear the ramifications if they foul up.
Wishing you all a safe and happy New Year's Eve into our new 2015.
Comments
I don't want to see anything PreK on an agenda!
I want the state to pass legislation mandating that all districts adopt curriculum based on science, not curriculum that pretends to have a basis in science. It has been 15 years since the National Reading Panel's report, and yet the knowledge has not trickled into most SPS classrooms. The greatest tragedy is that most SPS teachers think they are actually teaching phonics because they teach letter sounds and have a word work center. The lack of knowledge about teaching children how to read by teachers is astounding, at the city, state and national level. My wish for 2015 is that this will begin to change.
TS
Special shout-out to Director Peters. She is a strong parent/ community advocate and is attempting to keep the district accountable; she has the support of Director Patu. The problem: she needs support from the rest of the board.
Best wishes in the New Year.
parent
For the state, I would also like to see discovery math textbooks replaced with fundamentally sound curricula.
For the nation, I would like to see more support for public schools and less money diverted to underperforming charters.
S parent
If I-1240 is declared unconstitutional, First Place would have to give up public funds and go back to being a private school. Since they were successful under that model and don't appear to be successful as a charter, that might not be such a bad thing.
How is First Place charter school working out??
Are you implying that you support charter schools.
No, I am not a charter supporter. The Stanford CREDO studies show they do not outperform regular public schools and I think they are a huge distraction. From what I have read, they cherry pick students, have big overhead in administration and suffer from high teacher turnover.
I do not think charters offer new innovations, in spite of their generous funding from Bill Gates.
S parent
For the state, I have absolutely no confidence in the legislature, so I am just looking forward to the sanctions imposed by the Supreme Court on the legislature for being in contempt. I want to see legislators in jail.
For the nation I would like to see a revision of ESEA which includes the end of NCLB, the end of RttT, and the end of corporate Education Reform institutionalized into law. Corporate Education Reform is running out of steam. It has been exposed as a huge failure and needs to fade away.
Yep. I'm going for a pony on all levels.
Sped Reader
Crooked SPS
Wish #2 - Charter schools legislation in WA State is overturned.
Wish #3 - The emphasis on testing, VAM, evaluation, grading schools, competition, and other shallow Ed Deform measures brought on by our corporate overlords would fade into the ether. Quickly
CT
--Michael
--Michael
I wish for SPS leadership & SEA leadership to embrace special education civil rights intelligence & literacy across all departments and operations.
Anne S.
-Ready
http://saveseattleschool.blogspot.com/
PTB
KT
Do I want schools to be sensitive to social and emotional issues? Yes. Is a canned curriculum the best way to address social and emotional issues? Maybe not.
What may be good for some students becomes an opportunity cost for other students. Time spent on the RULER program is time not spent on academics - be it keeping up with homework, reading, meeting with teachers, or in school tutoring.
What's weird to me is how it's even been incorporated into some LA/SS writing assignments. My child's mood would be greatly improved if more time was spent on academic content and less time on the mood meter.
So...opinions vary.
-another perspective
http://www.seattleschools.org/modules/groups/homepagefiles/cms/1583136/File/Departmental%20Content/Business%20&%20Finance/KinderG_Toner.pdf
It looks as if it's being implemented through the SPS Early Learning Department.
-another perspective
Only thing I'd add is that, at the federal level, I'm hopeful we may see a lot more federal funding for education, something that is long overdue. The leading candidates (Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush) both have pushed education as a major issue in the past and both may try to top each other with education proposals, though we'll have to see.
I have to admit, I thought Obama was going to double down on education funding too. It remains one of my biggest disappointments in him that he did not, but perhaps we'll get some positive change in 2016 (or at least we can hope for that change).
(2) My wish for the state is for certain members of the legislature to realize that they are not education experts, regardless of how long they sat on a school board or an education committee. There needs to be much more deference to practitioners and education research. We don't need full-time legislators continually mismanaging state education policy because they think they know best despite any real background in education.
(3) My wish for the nation is to finally put this debate over the Common Core to rest and get down to the business of teaching and learning. Congress and the US Dept of Education needs to support quality education research and to fund best practices supported by that research.
--- swk
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