HB 1860 - Bye, bye SPS
Well, it appears that the Seattle Weekly's statement that Reps. Pettigrew and Tomiko Santos wanting to divide up Seattle School district is true. Meet HB 1860.
It opens with this:
AN ACT Relating to first-class school director districts for the purposes of dividing large districts and limiting their number of board of director members; adding a new section to chapter 28A.343 RCW; creating a new section; providing an effective date; providing an expiration date; and declaring an emergency.
The superintendent of public instruction must submit a final report and recommendations to the governor and the education and fiscal committees of the legislature by December 1, 2015.
It opens with this:
AN ACT Relating to first-class school director districts for the purposes of dividing large districts and limiting their number of board of director members; adding a new section to chapter 28A.343 RCW; creating a new section; providing an effective date; providing an expiration date; and declaring an emergency.
Okay, where's the fire? If I had the time, I'd love to compare SPS to other mid-sized urban districts. I'm not sure it would fall anywhere near the "emergency" label.
Then,
Effective September 1, 2018, no first-class school director district may comprise more than thirty-five thousand students or have more than five members of its board of directors.
Well, that would mean SPS not only would be divided BUT would no longer have seven members of the board. That would play well if Seattle's mayor was able to appoint two members of a five-member.
Well, that would mean SPS not only would be divided BUT would no longer have seven members of the board. That would play well if Seattle's mayor was able to appoint two members of a five-member.
The superintendent of public instruction must submit a final report and recommendations to the governor and the education and fiscal committees of the legislature by December 1, 2015.
And the bill would go in effect by July 2015.
Quite the throwdown by the ed reformers. Nothing like going for broke.
I will be talking to Tomiko Santos soon and I'm eager to hear what this is all about.
Comments
joanna
Gotta love the 2 legislators for swinging a big bat.
'Divide away'
Someone suggested that some districts are divided by grade, with secondary schools and elementary schools in different districts. Seattle is too large, both population-wise and geographically to make that work. The district would have to be split along north-south lines.
Momof2
HB1860 might be well-meaning but it is also ill-advised.
Veteran
This is the SECOND bill from Pettigrew that seems to come out of left field and without public engagement.
The school district of my home town covers the entire county and has over 60,000 students. I'm sure there are others in the US that are at least as large.
- North-end Mom
at HB 1860
What is in the water down there this week - wowza
reader47
This bill is just 'Neighborhood Schools' with no transport for outside kids, writ large.
Not a peep when that vote went down.
Divide and conquer.
So Eric etc. thought they could take it a step farther and carve out some nice big chunks for the charter investors.
Under the Bus
Whywhywhy
1) Adequately fund basic ed and spedial ed.
2) Tackle funding inequities between rich districts and poor districts. How to level out the inequity in facilities and spending between Bellevue and Yakima?
3) Then look at district size. Seems like the 35K number was chosen specifically to split Seattle(and not Tacoma?), rather than aiming towards a philosophically ideal size. Persoanlly, I would have chosen 20K on the basis of smaller districts are more nimble and democratic. But, maybe a few years of debating the concept before floating a law, right?
-NNNCr
see Seattle's Population and Demographics
reader47
And you base that "get better" on what? What solid evidence?
As for those asking, "how would they be dividied?" You know that answer; it would be north/south. Logistically it would not make sense to do it any other way. Two long skinny districts side-by-side?
A split along the Ship Canal would hurt the north more than the south. Both sides are already near their levy lid and the north needs new buildings desperately while the south has several schools with space. The south would have the high property values downtown to tax.
-NNNCr
Pettigrew and his ed reform allies likely believe that a district split would make it easier for them because, in their eyes, it gets the more active and powerful north end parents out of their way. But they aren't reckoning with the enormous backlash that their policies will create in central, west, and south Seattle.
I’m not a fan of the idea (realities of implementation and potential to exacerbate divides within the city), but it definitely redirects state attention from teachers to the central office. And it calls out that there is more to the issue of opportunity gaps than access to early learning. There are issues of race (and poverty, but also race all on its own) and cultural gaps. Santos is heavily invested in trying to improve bilingual education.
And anyone who lumps Santos into the reform crowd has NOT been following Olympia for the past 5 years.
- Ramona Hattendorf
I've always thought it unfortunate that low-income children are tied to strings attached to dollars.
RTT. Great- right? Not until you consider the fact that these kids have their discipline records being released to third party entities.(!)
Tim Burgess, Ed Murray, and the Gates Foundation working to provide low income children with free pre-k. Fabulous- right?? Not until you consider that these children are part of a research problem called P20. Free prek in exchange for being part of a research project. Fabulous.
Gawd help-us and the victims of "free".
Another couple democrats trying to outdo the Tea Party. Just what we need.
Republicans are supposed to be the ones tearing apart government institutions and hollering about the evils of Big Gov'ment, not Democrats.
These folks don't even know who they are anymore.
These moves have nothing to do with improving SPS, and everything to do with making it easier to be taken over and infiltrated by corporate interests.
WSDWG
SPS was in double secret probation over the last three years and now there's a plan in place that looks like it might work. My understanding is after the split every employee will need to re-apply for their position and that's when the house cleaning begins.
Shuter down
Agree with WSDWG. This is an idea maybe worth considering at some point - but it's not a solution to the core problem, which is the Legislature's failure to properly fund our schools as well as to fund solutions to systemic racism and poverty. The problems at SPS cannot be separated from the lack of funding. Fix that first, then let's see what else needs to be done. Besides, there are plenty of smaller and well run districts that still struggle because they aren't properly funded.
I'm all for big changes to SPS management, but those changes involve cleaning house at JSCEE. That doesn't require splitting the district or changing how we pick board members - it just requires picking board members who make this a priority.
Phone: (360) 786-7944
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ExpressYourself
Robert: I totally agree with you, but the Board doesn't have the power to clean up the inertia, outside of hiring an effective Superintendent. Remember all the Times' editorials about "micro-management?" There's a firewall between the Board and Staff, and only the SI has the access codes.
I don't know if a complete house-cleaning is required, but real leadership that changes the culture is an absolute necessity. Does Larry have it? Can Larry do it? Only time will tell, but that's what we need.
WSDWG
Unfortunately, I feel this move will only allow for charter eruption in the south-end.
We've seen top = level administrators receive $38K pay raises over the past 4 years. These individuals now have benefit packages and salary of $200K. Nyland and Wright cost the district $500K per year in salary and benefits. Imagine doing this- again- in another district. Oy.
Tomiko Santos has been very critical of SPS administration-- for years. I agree with Mary in that Tomiko-Santos must have reached her limit with SPS administration. I have respect for Tomiko-Santos, and she decided to take an alternate approach.
Now there's a light, we just need to follow it.
kumbaya moment
But you didn't hear that from me.
Go Hawks
I hope the above commenter is correct in they are going to clean house. The people I've had to interact with are not very efficient in the intellectual arena (trying to be PC).
Mom of4
I honestly think a smaller district would be better for EVERYONE. I hope it happens.
Mag mom
Worth noting that Chris Reykdal- Vice Chair of the Education Committee and charter school supporter Chad Mengendez supported HB 1860
or maybe it was ...
A house divided against itself cannot stand?
These feel like things I learned somewhere in my education ...
signed: enough said
Mag mom
Splitting the district won't help because the district's size is not the problem.
Mayoral appointment won't help because the problem is not a dearth of establishment type board directors who are unaccountable to the public.
Mr. Pettigrew thinks that Seattle Public Schools is failing. By what measure is the district failing? What other districts in the state are failing by the same measure? Why doesn't he propose mayoral control for all of those other failing districts as well?
Ms Tomiko-Santos thinks that Seattle Public Schools is failing. By what measure is the district failing? What other districts in the state are failing by the same measure? Why doesn't she propose splitting up all of those other districts as well?
If mayoral control or splitting a district is the solution for Seattle's failures - whatever they may be - then why are they not the solution for all of the other districts in the state that are failing in the same way?
The truth, of course, is that Seattle Public Schools isn't failing at all.
We don't care what other districts do or don't do, it's irrelevant.
Now do you understand what failing is?
--Michael
Congress failed all schools in the U.S. by kowtowing to the Bush admin and their market-based ideology and the rhetoric in NCLB.
The Feds have never fully funded IDEA the entire time it has been in existence.
Even if SPS could get its act together in the Sped stuff, they - and all other schools - are still stuck in a Federal system of unfunded mandates. I get that you have a big old beef with SPS, but not everything is their fault. There are definitely issues created by the system in which they have to work.
CT
Sped Parent
Old timer
https://www.k12.wa.us/safs/rep/app/1415/17001mb.pdf Thus districts are subject to the Fed regulations & the unfunded mandates that come with.
Estimates are that Fed funds make up about 13% of a district's budget, most of it to meet mandates in IDEA. State monies make up about 65% of a district's budget, with the remainder coming from local sources & reserves. Perhaps McCleary will change that reliance on Fed funds, which currently cover about 15% of a child's sped needs when the actual IDEA legislation called for it to fund 40%, and force the state to cover what they should be covering in Basic Education. Then perhaps the state can stop spending millions of dollars in worthless testing to meet the fed mandates so they can get the fed funding and spend it on sped kids and other education programs that have proven benefits to kids.
CT
Furthermore, the state adopted laws supporting students with disabilities prior to IDEA (as Sped parent stated). The state also adopted laws requiring standards, assessments, and accountability prior to NCLB.
And finally, test-based accountability isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Congress may very possibly reauthorize ESEA/NCLB this year and maintain the annual state testing requirements and interventions based on the results.
--- swk
Yes, a state or district could conceivably not take federal funding, but depending on where you are and what your local tax base is, that's not necessarily an option. If you were a small Vermont school district where federal funds made up less than 3% of your annual budget (approx $130,000) then yes, you could easily tell the Feds where to stick it. But if your state/district includes areas of high-poverty (like most of the southern states, or good portions of E Washington), or your district contains a state school/rehab center like Fircrest or Rainier, and the state doesn't cover enough of your funds, there's no way you're going to turn down that money. Thus the Feds have you over a barrel. It costs you x amount of money to meet these mandates to get you y amount of money.
There were states at one time who considered dumping NCLB, but when the economy tanked, they did not. Utah would have given up $117 million to dump NCLB at one time, which would not have affected the wealthier districts much, but would have killed some of the poorer and rural districts since the state did not intend to step up too much of its financial support. Other states also looked at it, including Vermont and Virginia.
Even now, the threats for not following Fed orders on testing exist - Duncan threatened to fine California at least $15 million if they did not administer the SBAC. Chicago has opted not to administer the PARCC in all their schools because they do not have the technology to do so (similar to many districts), and their state Supe recently received a letter from USDOE indicating that they could lose up to $1.2 billion in school funds for the state if the PARCC tests are not taken.
When states like WA first started the WASL testing regime, it was more of a dipstick, and occurred less frequently, and without the high stakes attached. It was mostly tolerable, home-grown, and actually prompted some good conversations about student learning. Prior to that, many districts had used the ITBS or the SAT-9 in a few different grades to see how kids were doing, and again no high stakes were attached to scores. NCLB ushered in the high-stakes and the narrow definition of failure and success solely based on test scores.
As for HB 90 - I'm quite aware of its existence and that it predates IDEA (and even was the scaffold for IDEA). My point is that the state is not fully funding sped, thus districts are forced to take the limited federal funding to make up for the shortfall, particularly when they have large special ed populations, subsequently they have to jump through all the IDEA hoops the Feds want them to. Some of those hoops are good, some are not so good, but they have no choice, regardless. If you are a small, rural school district with maybe 10 identified sped students, there again you can probably get by with turning down fed dollars. If you are a district with a large, complex special ed population, you can't turn down that funding - minimal as it is - and still provide for kids unless the state steps in with the funding it should. That has yet to happen. And when IDEA was first passed, Congress promised to pay for 40% of special education costs. They have yet to fund beyond 15%. Thus sped students get shortchanged both at the state and federal level.
CT
However, I'm confused by your statements that the USDOE is threatening to fine states/districts for not administering SBAC and/or PARCC. No state is required by the USDOE to administer these consortia assessments. States are required to administer annual accountability assessments but they can choose their own. Again, SBAC and PARCC are not required under NCLB.
--- swk