Friday Open Thread
What a week, no? I sense a parent Spring Uprising coming (I hope so). I am sorry that it is in the face of so many schools suddenly losing staff and parents pitted against each other over bell times. But really, do not allow yourselves to be divided.
On the staffing front, I am aware of a group of schools forming to discuss this issue. My understanding is that schools have until been told that final decisions have to be to the district by Monday the 12th and that changes to the classroom would start the next Monday the 19th. That means a weekend for parents to find money (a la´ Gatewood last year). Kids, that's crazy talk and crazy action. Do not do it.
At the Audit and Finance Committee meeting this week, grants were discussed and a document shown that had PTA grants at $3M. That's just grants to the district and NOT all the money raised by PTAs in service to their schools. That is generous and wonderful but PTA is NOT there to fund for staffing and maintenance. The district is now counting on you doing this and frankly, it's some leverage. But you have to use it.
On that note, an excellent essay by Fairmount Park PTA President, Hillary Shaw.
Ideally, our PTA — or any PTA — should not cover costs of staffing, supplies, or any other expense that meets the basic educational needs of students. Funding basic needs is as antithetical to the mission of the PTA as striking is to the values of teachers. And yet, we — along with 32 other PTAs — funded salaries for nurses, school counselors, tutors, aides, music and art teachers, librarians, and specialists last year. And yet, Seattle teachers — in a unified, unanimous group — raised a blazing red flag in September, an absolute last resort gesture. PTAs stepping in to amply fund education and striking teachers are indicative of the long-standing education funding and reform failures endemic to the Washington State government. The ending to this epic saga has yet to be written, and we can, should, and must have a hand in creating a positive outcome for all students in our school and in our state.
Interested in learning more about school levies and teacher compensation? TVW has produced a short documentary on the subject.
Worried about mental health in our country? There's a pop-up Depressed Cake Shop tomorrow only. (I wish I could go and pick up something myself. )
The Depressed Cake Shop, a one-day pop-up bakery to encourage conversation about mental-health issues, is happening this Saturday, October 10, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., at Capitol Hill's Sole Repair. The goal is simple—and important: Sell gray-colored cakes, cookies, and other treats (all donated by local bakers) to raise awareness of and fight stigmas that often come with mental-health issues. While they look sad on the outside, all the baked goods are colored on the inside to symbolize hope. Proceeds from the event go to support the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Greater Seattle.
Please check the thread on School Board candidate forums tomorrow.
Some good news about a great program in Detroit for teens to train teens to become firefighters, from NBC News. This is how you get kids out of the classroom, learning hands-on skills, discipline and a greater understanding about the world of work.
What's on your mind?
On the staffing front, I am aware of a group of schools forming to discuss this issue. My understanding is that schools have until been told that final decisions have to be to the district by Monday the 12th and that changes to the classroom would start the next Monday the 19th. That means a weekend for parents to find money (a la´ Gatewood last year). Kids, that's crazy talk and crazy action. Do not do it.
At the Audit and Finance Committee meeting this week, grants were discussed and a document shown that had PTA grants at $3M. That's just grants to the district and NOT all the money raised by PTAs in service to their schools. That is generous and wonderful but PTA is NOT there to fund for staffing and maintenance. The district is now counting on you doing this and frankly, it's some leverage. But you have to use it.
On that note, an excellent essay by Fairmount Park PTA President, Hillary Shaw.
Ideally, our PTA — or any PTA — should not cover costs of staffing, supplies, or any other expense that meets the basic educational needs of students. Funding basic needs is as antithetical to the mission of the PTA as striking is to the values of teachers. And yet, we — along with 32 other PTAs — funded salaries for nurses, school counselors, tutors, aides, music and art teachers, librarians, and specialists last year. And yet, Seattle teachers — in a unified, unanimous group — raised a blazing red flag in September, an absolute last resort gesture. PTAs stepping in to amply fund education and striking teachers are indicative of the long-standing education funding and reform failures endemic to the Washington State government. The ending to this epic saga has yet to be written, and we can, should, and must have a hand in creating a positive outcome for all students in our school and in our state.
Interested in learning more about school levies and teacher compensation? TVW has produced a short documentary on the subject.
Worried about mental health in our country? There's a pop-up Depressed Cake Shop tomorrow only. (I wish I could go and pick up something myself. )
The Depressed Cake Shop, a one-day pop-up bakery to encourage conversation about mental-health issues, is happening this Saturday, October 10, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., at Capitol Hill's Sole Repair. The goal is simple—and important: Sell gray-colored cakes, cookies, and other treats (all donated by local bakers) to raise awareness of and fight stigmas that often come with mental-health issues. While they look sad on the outside, all the baked goods are colored on the inside to symbolize hope. Proceeds from the event go to support the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Greater Seattle.
Please check the thread on School Board candidate forums tomorrow.
Some good news about a great program in Detroit for teens to train teens to become firefighters, from NBC News. This is how you get kids out of the classroom, learning hands-on skills, discipline and a greater understanding about the world of work.
What's on your mind?
Comments
Enrollment data is ultimately the most public of public data. It is the intersection of taxpayer dollars and school funding. As such OSPI requires monthly reporting of this information.
One really bizarre and short sighted decision in the staffing cuts is the cuts at JAMS. JAMS was opened quickly when Eckstein and Hamilton were both dramatically over-enrolled and once again Hamilton is dramatically over-enrolled. Per the OSPI reports, Hamilton's September enrollment is 1096, almost the same as the enrollment that triggered the last cohort split.
Continuity and mitigation funds were promised for the new school but ... there are still going to be cuts at JAMS.
This is not promising news for the families that will ultimately be assigned to Wilson Pacific, Meany and Lincoln. It takes more than ONE year of mitigation funding to get a new secondary school underway.
For the district to cut and run and JAMS now demonstrates the District's total lack of planning, or maybe it shows how deeply insincere they are, or their cheap talk about commitment and follow thru, or confusion about implementing a brand new secondary comprehensive school. Basically, this will tell all of us do not trust them, do not believe a word they say when they come looking for you to geosplit you out of your school.
Students and families of Hamilton and Washington and the future Meany and Eagle Staff comprehensive schools should be shaking in their boots if this goes through, because it will be the poster child for how this District does things: push the new school out of the blocks, and then just simply turn your back on it and wish it luck. Because if the District is willing to cut FTE from JAMS in these circumstances, (geo split children, promises made about equity and SpEd, inability to access world language or music as electives because of a master schedule with too many constraints because of the stitching together of multiple communities from different middle schools, etc), then it will certainly do it to all the next new secondary schools and their seeding school communities too. Parents will know this, and find a way to slip the noose, so the new schools will resemble a falling knife no one wants to catch. Cutting JAMS is the harbinger of bad things to come for all new schools and it will ultimately end up making parents run for the hills. Further eroding of parent trust and support is not what this District needs right now as we stare down 2 major school levies in February. The system is much too brittle for these short-sighted antics.
Write the district now, HIMS and WMS families! Before it is too late. Tell Nyland, Herndon and Tolley to keep their commitments to kids pushed into new schools. This is your only chance.
Waste Not
Bryant mom
It is really troubling news for Lincoln HS and the middle schools that will open that the district's version of "support" is for the first year. I would be really, really worried about sending my kid to those schools. If the district only provides additional support for freshly opened schools in the first year of operation, it will be incredibly difficult for those schools to provide their students with the array of classes of established comprehensive schools. JAMS should be getting mitigation staffing for the first 3 years.
October staffing removals mean that a huge number of schools - and so a really large percent of students - are experiencing serious upheaval and disruption. If there are 20+ schools losing staff (this is surmised from a list - I don't have the official numbers), approximately 20% of district schools are going through turmoil that directly affects student learning.
I can see why it is attractive to have someone responsible for coordinating a more consistent approach to serving outliers, but it would be far down my list. Frankly it is really the responsibility of staff to serve whoever is in the building. There have been coordinated plans to address every grade level for differentiated math & reading, from the days before standardized lessons with MGJ. Maybe someone should look in the file cabinet.
-Bryant Alum
Questioner
-SPS Tired
Laugh of the day - thanks
SPS Tired, agreed but only the BTA.
Formative practice benefits EVERY student. This work exemplifies the concept of “targeted universalism” – the practice of following targeted strategies to reach universal goals. Formative practice targets struggling students but ultimately benefits all students, universally. Our strategies target struggling students, but when we can document that opportunity gaps are closing for them, this helps confirm our overall success. In other words, a boost in their achievement tends to reflect a universal boost for all.
Are they basically saying they're going to teach to the bottom, but no need to worry about high performing students, because positive outcomes for them aren't based on their own learning, but rather that of their classmates?
HF
In the interests of transparency ... ???
The SPS fails on enrollment stats.
===== ====
On to Valerie Strauss and the Answer Sheet
about Arne Duncan's tenure largely in his own words....
The tenure of Education Secretary Arne Duncan — in his own sometimes startling words
May 2009
And so we have to stop lying to children. We have to tell them the truth. We have to be transparent about our data. We have to raise the bar so that every child knows on every step of their educational trajectory what they’re going to do.
In this May 29, 2009, speech at the National Press Club, Duncan sets himself and his Education Department as the truth-tellers in education.
Epic Failure on the part of SPS Staff at the Board Work Session on "Closing the Opportunity Gap" on Sept, 30, 2015
No the SPS Staff did not lie ...Staff simply failed to present any Opportunity (achievement) Gap data. Good luck kids with knowing "educational trajectory"... the Board apparently does not even know.
Is Alfred E. Newman on the Board? What me worry?
-- Dan Dempsey
Equity4All Y'all
Stank
Think about Seattle when viewing Duncan's words below.
June 2015
“I want to describe a set of educational rights that I firmly believe must belong to every family in America — and I hope you’ll demand that your leaders in elected and appointed offices deliver on them. They come together as a set of rights that students must have at three pivotal stages of their life, to prepare them for success in college and careers and as engaged, productive citizens. First, every child should have the right to attend a free, high-quality preschool…. Second, I believe all children have the right to high, challenging standards and engaging teaching and leadership in a safe, supportive, well-resourced school….[And] I believe we must see an affordable, high-quality college degree as every child’s right.”
Classic one size fits all rhetoric ..
Duncan used the occasion of a speech to the National Parent Teacher Association Convention and Expo in Charlotte to talk about a new set of educational rights for parents. The question for Duncan is what he has done to ensure those rights for parents.
As I wrote at the time he made the speech:
Were his policies geared to achieving educational equity for each student? (No.)
Or was his chief policy initiative something called Race to the Top, which forced states to compete for federal funds by promising to implement specific reforms Duncan favored, such as expanding charter schools and requiring that teachers be evaluated in part by student test scores. (Yes.)
Did he take any important steps to bring about a change in the way public schools are funded so that the poorest schools don’t wind up with the fewest resources? (No.)
Did his department talk about the need for high-quality teachers but then support with many millions of dollars a program called Teach for America, which recruits new college graduates, gives them five weeks of training and then sends them into the neediest public schools? (Yes.)
Did he make a major push on early childhood education and quality preschool in the first term of the Obama administration, given that it is the No. 1 right of parents? (No.) Etc., etc.
Remember Duncan's successor is worse than Arne.
The coming school board elections in Seattle are extremely important.
-- Dan Dempsey
--budget curious
Our strategies target struggling students, but when we can document that opportunity gaps are closing for them, this helps confirm our overall success.
WOW ... documenting that "opportunity gaps" are closing. How rich is that phrase?
Hey is that why the SPS Staff failed to present any data on "Opportunity Gaps" at the "Closing Opportunity Gaps" school board work session?
Transparency and accountability are nowhere to be seen just an enormous pile of edu-babble is evident and the Superintendent and Staff march on apparently unsupervised.
-- Dan Dempsey
We are a very, very diverse country with many non-English speakers and a huge socio-economic range. It would be great if each child had their own achievement gaps to close, but that's not possible so let's make goals for the various groups since they are facing really different challenges than each other. I think it is important to give the child coming to the US from, say, Somalia, mental health counseling if needed, transition support to the US and goals of mastering our language. Once those goals are met, we can talk about test scores.
Keeping down the top is not Equity 4 All. Not giving specific children the additional support they need to succeed is not Equity 4 All. Coming up with stupid, unsupported saying like Equity 4 ALL is just keeping someone's $200k job downtown.
As well as Arne Duncan's.
Race to the Top and the failure to make Adequate Yearly Progress was built on this stuff. Hella Edupreneurs, charters and big testing companies making $$$$$ of of it too.
Equity 4All Y'all
15 recent articles on Valerie Strauss's Answer Sheet
Answer Sheet
-- Dan Dempsey
Race to the Top and the failure to make Adequate Yearly Progress was built on this stuff. Hella Edupreneurs, charters and big testing companies making $$$$$ off of it too.
So let us examine all that Big Testing Companies' data for which we pay.
Teacher: Why the ‘rich’ student data we get from testing is actually worthless
Read the above to find out about the Value Added Baloney Model so popular with Education Reform advocates.... remember if a state wants RttT dollars ... teacher evaluations need to include student test scores for VAM.
Another Big Thank You goes out to Mr. Gates and Obama/Duncan for this VAM requirement. Do not forget to thank members of the WA legislature and Superintendent Randy Dorn for this as well.
-- Dan Dempsey
Anyone know how to get to the video archives?
Thanks,
Dead Horse
HF, as a teacher I find that quote so depressing. Seriously, you think struggling students improving will help non-struggling students. HOW!! That's like saying advanced students succeeding helps non-advanced students OR sped students improving helps non-sped, non-sped improving helps sped... What!! They are different populations. So much for differentiation.
As a teacher I can't teach well to anyone when I trying to differentiate my lessons for students who are below standard, on-level students, advanced learners, sped students,and ELL students. I don't have time to prep 5 different lessons a day for each subject. Apparently, I don't need to worry anymore. If the struggling students are improving, apparently they're all getting what they need. (sarcasm)
SPS has always had issues, but this is the worst I've ever seen it. It's almost as if someone is actively trying to destroy the district. It used to be that I could ignore downtown, close my door, and teach. But now...they are messing with teaching. It is becoming harder and harder, with all the crap they are sending us and requiring of us, to be able to teach.
SIGH!
Amplify Curious
I couldn't find the link from the SPS website, but they are now posted to YouTube (!). Search for seattle public schools board meeting, and you should find it.
- North-end Mom
widget
Differentiation is what we need. I've learned to ignore Tolley, his inept C&I Ex Director, and their all-around insipid ed reform script. They're just spewing what they think will hypnotize the majority of this sorry-ash Board.
As long the billionaire(s) decide the success measure (closing the achievement gap), ya better build that into the plan.
Just because SPS Central thinks it can set the bar low enough its Supt boss can meet it doesn't mean that the ultimate goal is wrong. I will NEVER take that insular approach.
If ya want to go after me, do it on the APP thread.
#1.. you wrote:
"As long the billionaire(s) decide the success measure (closing the achievement gap), ya better build that into the plan."
Does this make any difference? The Staff ignores those Gaps and did not report them in the last Work Session. So who cares?
#2.. you wrote"
"Differentiation is what we need."
What does this mean? Can you give an example of where this "Differentiation" is being successfully used? How is that success verdict determined?
SIGH and I would profit from a fuller explanation of #2.
Thanks,
Dan Dempsey
This enrollment “discrepancy” is less than 1% of the total enrollment in the SPS district. Yet, you are willing to cause much more harm, hardship and upheaval than is justified by this number.
The district loses much more money engaging in these adjustments than is saved.
Try doing nothing - the parents, students and teachers of the Seattle Public Schools will thank you for that.
-DoNoHarm
N by NW
I wish our schools, the PTAs/PAs are more enlightened in how we deal with immigrants. This is something we can learn from Bellevue SD on how to accommodate cultural difference and language barriers to welcome immigrant students and their families into the community.
widget
The video contrasts Highline School District and Bellevue, and talks about teacher salaries around the state- with the exception of Seattle Public Schools.
Very odd that Seattle is NO mention of Seattle Public Schools. I'd feel better if an individual from LEV wasn't featured.
'Unconstitutional:' The Problem with School Levies and Teacher Compensation
http://sps.ss8.sharpschool.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_543/File/District/Departments/School%20Board/committees/Exec/2015-16/20151014_Agenda_Exec.pdf
Formative practice benefits EVERY student. This work exemplifies the concept of “targeted universalism” – the practice of following targeted strategies to reach universal goals. Formative practice targets struggling students but ultimately benefits all students, universally. Our strategies target struggling students, but when we can document that opportunity gaps are closing for them, this helps confirm our overall success. In other words, a boost in their achievement tends to reflect a universal boost for all.
I can see this being interpreted two different ways.
The first way is that modifying lessons makes them easier to teach to struggling students, but still effective (and no less effective than the previous teaching method) for the rest of the students. For example, I was talking with a friend a while ago about teaching geometry to autistic students. She was saying that the way that geometry is currently taught is incredibly confusing to some high-performing autistic students, because it's being explaining in a way that's inherently confusing for them. You can modify the lessons to explain geometry to them in a way that they can grasp more easily. It doesn't require dumbing things down or spending more time on the lesson -- just changing the way that information is presented. The same methods work fine for neurotypical students, as well. I would love to see SPS do this, but they can barely agree on a math curriculum. I'm not holding my breath.
The second way is that SPS wants to teach to the bottom. Given SPS, this interpretation makes more sense.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/10/08/the-remarkable-ways-a-little-money-can-change-a-childs-personality-for-life/