Senator Murray to Join Super Nyland to talk NCLB
From SPS Communications:
Republicans are hatching an ambitious plan to rewrite No Child Left Behind this year — one that could end up dramatically rolling back the federal role in education and trigger national blowouts over standardized tests and teacher training.
Press Conference Friday:
U.S. Senator Patty Murray and Seattle Public Schools Superintendent to discuss “No Child Left Behind” Law
What:
U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) and Seattle Public Schools
Superintendent Dr. Larry Nyland, will discuss the “No Child Left Behind”
law tomorrow morning at Madrona K-8 school. Murray will address her
ongoing efforts to fix and improve the legislation and
Nyland will talk about NCLB challenges from an administrator’s
perspective.
Murray will read to a 1st grade class, followed by the press conference.
Who: Senator Patty Murray (D-WA)
Larry Nyland, Superintendent, Seattle Public Schools
Rachelle Moore, 1st grade teacher at Madrona Elementary
Madrona K-8 parents
Madrona K-8 Principal Mary McDaniel
When: Friday, January 16, 2015
10:30-11:30 a.m.
End of SPS Communication
Great article from PoliticoPro on this subject about how the Republican power base in Congress see NCLB.
Republicans are hatching an ambitious plan to rewrite No Child Left Behind this year — one that could end up dramatically rolling back the federal role in education and trigger national blowouts over standardized tests and teacher training.
Comments
- drinking some tea
Just more posturing and blather
DoYourJob
DistrictWatcher
Chris S
Since Andrews exit at the school, Madrona had Thaxton as a principal for 3 years and now McDaniel in her 2nd year; she was previously the assistant principal.
-Over Seattle
-Nonamenocredit
Madrona is not a school as the techy mom describes in the least. They have no SPED only Subs in that area, empty room after empty room and a library only open part time. There has been turnover and new teacher after new with only one or two there with any experience. So please tell me why that school was chosen again.
- Drinking some tea
Please enlighten us with something other than "all PR over enigma over latte" because I'm too stupid to know what that even means.
--- swk
http://blogs.seattletimes.com/educationlab/2014/10/09/teacher-residency-patty-murray-dave-reichert/
- drinking some tea
I'm in my first year as a parent at Madrona, and it seems like a palace compared to a lot of the crap sandwiches I read about on this blog!
The old kids of color are gone. That's not a turnaround. That's a displacement. The kids there now were gerrymandered in by the new school assignment plan. They largely didn't choose it. Their school TT Minor was closed under mass community protest. If academic success is now at Madrona, it is probably correlated to the new cohort of families of means who were no longer reluctant to attend once the old cohort left, since the old principal made it clear she did not care to serve children of families of means.
So at Marona we've got families who didn't want or couldn't be with the old cohort and we've got families forced by enrollment to attend. The facility is still mostly empty, does not offer strong services to non-gen-ed kids and has a history of teacher turnover.
If you want to talk about current families trying to make a go of it, fine. Glad that there may eventually be a strong school there. No doubt this is because of community efforts not downtown efforts.
If this press conference is going to highlight multiple decades of failed central administration "help" in our schools, Madrona is a poster child. If it is meant to talk about a success, it is the height of district hypocrisy and laughable that Nyland and his administration would choose it for a Murray press conference.
DistrictWatcher
DistrictWatcher
Did you even read the article? The press conference is about changes to NCLB, not the success or lack thereof at Madrona.
But since you've gone there--
Spend a minute on the playground and you'd see how ridiculous it is to say "kids of color are gone," (where else would the neighborhood kids go?) and if you think the expanded assignment area fits the definition of "gerrymandering" in any way, I don't know what to tell you. If you have an under-enrolled school and overcrowded schools around it (Stevens in this case) isn't that the thing to do?
Ask yourself, why would Nyland's team pick Madrona. Would a school super pick a failing school for a photo opportunity with our senior federal legislator? No. A school super would not. (S)he would pick a success story. Any effort to prop Madrona up as an SPS success story is not credible. I refer to SPS history, not the efforts of the community to do the right thing for its students.
I also did not say kids of color are gone. I said the old cohort of kids of color is gone. That cohort came largely from south Seattle and into Renton. Replacing one cohort with another is a trick out of the Corporate Reformies book that alert parents here and throughout the US are now calling out when we see it.
This blog's veteran readers know that the bait and switch cohort replacement is one of Charlie's favorite criticisms of schools claiming improvement who are in reality just shoving the old chairs below deck.
DistrictWatcher
We don't know who picked Madrona, but there's a link a few posts above that may explain it. Where would you have them do the press conference?
I'm a newbie here, but I am totally anti-corporate reform, testing, NCLB, loss of lunch/recess time, etc.
Natural cohorts were most broken up when SPS closed schools through an epic close to $100 million failure to listen to the community. Cohorts were broken up when SPS downtown has continued to not plan adequately for growth. Cohorts have been broken up when SPS downtown has placed programs and replaced programs like so many 3 card monte tricks because they cannot define a roadmap for most programs for 5 minutes let alone 5 years.
And when we went back to neighborhood schools the cohorts most broken up there were those communities who were not able to voice their objections to how boundaries were drawn or to give alternate suggestions to how to keep natural cohorts together. Who were these neighborhoods with lesser voices? Look for communities of poverty and you will mostly find your answer.
Where should SPS pick a press conference regarding NCLB? Someplace that has a plurality of cultures, with Caucasian being less than the majority. Someplace that is made up of close to half or more of the families at free-reduced lunch status. Someplace where at least some of the families of students do not speak English as a first language. Someplace that has all these conditions but still demonstrates a strong, creative learning environment, a nondysfunctional administration-staff dynamic, a school that reaches out to families and most of all a school where kids are safe, welcome and learning to the best of their abilities. There are schools like that in the district, led by really good educators who overcome the crap dished out by Downtown and the clueless Feds year after year. I applaud those schools. A photo-op at Madrona engineered by Nyland and Co? No applause.
DistrictWatcher
Natural cohorts were most broken up when SPS closed schools through an epic close to $100 million failure to listen to the community. Cohorts were broken up when SPS downtown has continued to not plan adequately for growth. Cohorts have been broken up when SPS downtown has placed programs and replaced programs like so many 3 card monte tricks because they cannot define a roadmap for most programs for 5 minutes let alone 5 years.
And when we went back to neighborhood schools the cohorts most broken up there were those communities who were not able to voice their objections to how boundaries were drawn or to give alternate suggestions to how to keep natural cohorts together. Who were these neighborhoods with lesser voices? Look for communities of poverty and you will mostly find your answer.
Where should SPS pick a press conference regarding NCLB? Someplace that has a plurality of cultures, with Caucasian being less than the majority. Someplace that is made up of close to half or more of the families at free-reduced lunch status. Someplace where at least some of the families of students do not speak English as a first language. Someplace that has all these conditions but still demonstrates a strong, creative learning environment, a nondysfunctional administration-staff dynamic, a school that reaches out to families and most of all a school where kids are safe, welcome and learning to the best of their abilities. There are schools like that in the district, led by really good educators who overcome the crap dished out by Downtown and the clueless Feds year after year. I applaud those schools. A photo-op at Madrona engineered by Nyland and Co? No applause.
DistrictWatcher
You just described Madrona K-8 in 2015. :)
It's one of the few places that could fit one.
It is easy to say the MEME when it comes to anything anymore. If it affects only you and yours then what does it matter right? There is a cohort of kids there and they may not even live in the neighborhood so how do they get to school?
Lots of questions that need to be answered. This has been a school in transition a long time. Why so long?
- drinking some tea
Don't expect that pattern to change until Madrona proves there's a reason to select it for middle school. It's a chicken or egg problem and since SPS has never seen fit to put a program at Madrona that would interest middle school parents with enrollment choices, I doubt the situation will change anytime soon.
It's not Madrona's fault. And who at Madrona would be at fault anyhow? The staff and student turnover has historically been early and often. I agree that the fault lies with SPS administrators. Good luck to Mr. Montgomery's family as they try to make Madrona work. Many others have tried and failed.
Nyland and Murray appearing there is kind of creepy in an Orwellian way: "Things Will Improve."
Mid-Capitol Hill
What I hear around the neighborhood about Madrona is most mostly good. That is vastly different than what I heard around the neighborhood when we were picking a kindergarten. Some of the same people who listed 10 schools on their open choice forms and applied to private school, are now considering choosing Madrona over Washington/Meany. Some of that, I'm sure, is trying to avoid crowded Washington + move in 8th grade + totally unknown Meany. TOPS usually only has 5 or 6 openings at 6th grade. Last year the wait list was around 60 kids.
Whether my neighbors are right about Madrona's program, I really don't know. I do think this change neighborhood reputation is interesting.
I'm aware of the school's history and all the issues with SPS, believe me. But we live in the neighborhood and chose to attend and support our neighborhood school. Is that wrong? Isn't that what we need everyone to do on an individual basis if we want things to improve? And not just for our own kids, but all kids.
Thank you for speaking about Madrona. Schools can change culture quickly, based on changes in teachers or leaders. Those who have no direct recent experience as Madrona parents might be wise to take their own assumptions with a grain of salt....
Teacher
Lastly, turnover in staff in the middle school is not accurate, the core teachers have been together a couple of years. I'm always amazed at playground reputation regarding Madrona! We should be embarrassed to throw around stereotypes of what we think a school is like. It is a special place that delivers.
Take a look at the middle school test scores and the FARMs levels.
I don't like to see a building with so many empty seats when other schools are overcrowded. I am especially irritated when that school is over-staffed. (6 FTE for 92 middle school students!) Turning Madrona into a K-5 would save over $250,000.
The middle school has staff with less than 5 years experience, that is an age that regardless needs some gray hairs there. It is is an utter waste of money and energy when Meany comes in.
As for the gentleman who toured the school with the principal two years ago, uh Thaxton is now at Emerson and hasn't been there in two years. The house Admins have since that time changed twice. There are empty rooms everywhere. Did they actually hire a full time SPED teacher? Is the Music teacher full time or a Sub? Who is the reading teacher? There used to be one full time. Is there any art program? Tech program? Many K-8s have those PT staffed but in the curriculum.
The numbers speak for themselves. Sure people can have great kids and great success but there are more kids there than yours. Look at the big picture. I think that is why the other posters are saying look at the playground as it shows the entire school population and either that is sad as its is small group when a middle school and elementary fill a small ground. The secondary ground is not even used. Back in the day the adjacent to the kindergarten was.
And the teachers are all well meaning as all teachers should be but they are only one variable in a large equation. They are not the problem nor the solution on their own.
Each K-8 have their own dynamic and composition but when you look at a school the size of Aki also underpopulated and under served and with reputation issues, then down the road a K-8 South Shore with all the money and yet equal problems. Or what about Orca? Did anyone mention that is another school that seems to be under the radar? Why?
You wonder why this is so hard to resolve. Moving the chess pieces around is not serving the community its just moving the pieces.
- Drinking Some Tea