Friday Open Thread
The last Open Thread of the year. It will be a challenging year ahead but, if there were any evidence that the world should go on, look into your child's face. Wishing you all a healthy, safe and yes, Happy New Year. And, of course, go Huskies!
Great opportunity for girls, 16-17 - Inspiring Girls Expeditions is offering free glaciology and marine programs next summer. The deadline for applications is January 31st.
From 12/26/16 - 1/31/17, holiday trees, wreathes, and greens can be composted for free. Place on the curb next to your food and yard waste cart on your regular collection day.
Great opportunity for girls, 16-17 - Inspiring Girls Expeditions is offering free glaciology and marine programs next summer. The deadline for applications is January 31st.
Three teams of up to nine teenage girls and three instructors will spend 12 days exploring and learning about mountain glaciers or fjords with tidewater glaciers. They’ll conduct scientific field studies with professional glaciologists, oceanographers, artists and mountaineers.I had written before about the book by Susan Cain, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. Now she has written a second book on the topic but with the focus on teenagers, Quiet Power: The Secret Strengths of Introverts.
The three Inspiring Girls trips of 2017 will include Girls on Ice Alaska, Girls On Ice Cascades and Girls in Icy Fjords. They are operated through IARC and the UAF College of Natural Science & Mathematics.
What indeed are the right ways to think about class participation? And are we over-evaluating as an educational culture? We overvalue the person who raises their hand all the time. Why is that important? Do we overvalue in quantity, as opposed to quality, of participation? Are there ways to think about class participation differently? Like we [at Quiet Revolution] have been encouraging schools to think in terms of classroom engagement rather than participation. Take a more holistic way of looking at how a child is engaging with this material or with their classmates.On the heels of the sorrowful news that Debbie Reynolds, mother of the late Carrie Fisher, died within a day of her daughter, comes some thoughtful reading about Carrie Fisher. One article has tweets about why Fisher's latter character in Star Wars (General Organa) is more important than her earlier self (Princess Leia.) The Cut also had a compilation of great Fisher quotes. Given Fisher was both a feminist and open about her mental health issues, I think both might be good for teenagers to read but be warned there is some foul language.
As a reminder:2. “Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually the confidence will follow.” —On people with mental illness who may be afraid to pursue their dreams
3. “I got to be the only girl in an all boy fantasy, and it’s a great role for women. She’s a very proactive character and gets the job done. So if you’re going to get typecast as something, that might as well be it for me.” —On her role as Princess Leia
From 12/26/16 - 1/31/17, holiday trees, wreathes, and greens can be composted for free. Place on the curb next to your food and yard waste cart on your regular collection day.
- Trees must be trimmed to 6-feet or shorter
- Trim branches to less than 4-feet to fit into the collection trucks
- Bundle each section with string or twine (not plastic or nylon)
- Remove any metal, lights, ornaments, or other decorative objects
- Flocked and plastic trees or wreaths aren't recyclable and will be charged as extra garbage.
Comments
MW you and your feminist supporters continue to pile it on after the whistle claiming the destruction of everything just because we elected an America first platform and this type of rhetoric plays straight into the other side's plan. Trump will make America d great and he will prevail over the Ds . It will take the Ds decades to re-group.
I suppose your side will continue in trying to sabotage the country, but it won't work and will only serve to grow Trumps support.
End PC
Gail Morris is scheduled to present the Native American Educational Report.
Reading proficiency (3rd through 8th grades)
All students 66.9%
NA students 37.7%
Math proficiency (3rd through 8th grade)
All students 63.9%
NA students 37.3%
On time graduations (H.S. students graduating in 4 years)
All students 76.9%
NA students 54.5%
Proportionality (Students in Special Education K-12)
All students 13.5 %
NA students 34.1%
-Appreciative
Those numbers are terrible, what a shame and an unbelievable embarrassment for SPS.
Maybe year number two for the new board will yield better results for all. I believe there are a few seats up for election.
Circus Circus
Get trained
HP
WICHITA, Kan.
A Mexican man accused of raping a 13-year-old girl on a Greyhound bus that traveled through Kansas had been deported 10 times and voluntarily removed from the U.S. another nine times since 2003, records obtained by The Associated Press show.
Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/news/nation-world/article123768739.html#storylink=cpy
HP
The man consults his portable GPS and replies, "You're in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above a ground elevation of 2,346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.
She rolls her eyes and says, "You must be a Republican!"
"I am," replies the man. "How did you know?"
"Well," answers the balloonist, "everything you tell me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to do with your information, and I'm still lost. Frankly, you're not much help to me."
The man smiles and responds, "You must be a Democrat."
"I am, replies the balloonist. "How did you know?"
"Well," says the man, "You don't know where you are or where you're going. You've risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise that you have no idea how to keep, and now you expect me to solve your problem. You're in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but, somehow, now it's my fault."
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/12/29/climate-kids-demand-testimony-exxons-tillerson-landmark-lawsuit
The group of young people suing the federal government for failing to protect their constitutional right to a stable climate is seeking testimony in their landmark case from Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil and President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for secretary of state. (more)
-McClureWatcher
Fluoride saturated
I hope to have some time to write about it soon.
the scores are not unusual.
In the State of Arizona they compare scores for Native Students in both high density schools (those with greater than 25% Native students) and low density schools.
American Indian students in "Low density" schools (less poverty and less isolation) score much higher than those American Indian students in high density schools.
When comparing the SPS scores with those for all students in the state, (SBA 2016 averages for grades 3-8)
As Carol posted above for SPS
Reading All ; Math All ; NA Reading ; NA Math
66.9 ;; 63.9 ;; 37.7 ;; 37.3
State of WA
Reading All ; Math All ; NA Reading ; NA Math
57.7 ;; 51.5 ;; 30.3 ;; 25.0
Thus SPS exceeds state averages as follows
Reading All ; Math All ; NA Reading ; NA Math
+9.2 ;; +12.4 ;; +7.4 ;; +12.3
The scores for Native American students are particularly
low for students on rural reservations.
The education of Native American students does not appear to be a big priority for most governmental units.
It is not unusual for some teaching positions on rural reservations to go unfilled for an entire school year.
-- Dan Dempsey
Tolley finally admits that self contained Spectrum classes are non-existent. I guess the district is working to dismantle advanced learning in middle school.
Percent of students passing
average of grades 3-8
SPS scores
Reading 37.7; Math 37.3
Tacoma scores
Reading 40.6 ; Math 22.2
Marysville scores
Reading 23.8 ; Math 18.6
At the Mount Adams School District on the
Yakima Reservation
Pass Rates by grade for Reading & Math
3 - 23.8 ; 23.8
4 - 19.0 ; 21.4
5 - 11.1 ; 6.6
6 - 8.0 ; <5
7 - 10.8 ; 5.4
8 - <5 ; <5
The state will not report pass rates below 5%
thus at 3 places above you see <5
-- Dan Dempsey
Under pros of HCC at Whitman (vs RESMS) they state, Community is aware that the HCC has consistently been given the newest buildings, which appears to be favoring students who are identified as advanced learners.
That's almost laughable. Lowell?? Lincoln??? JAMS? WMS? IHS? Decatur/Thornton Creek? HIMS was the exception.
The discussion of HCC at Madison involves a detailed rec to have an HCC pathway (not optional) from 1-12 in West Seattle: Fairmount Park -> Madison -> WS (instead of GHS) or Chief Sealth (instead of IB at IHS)
-insomniac
Madrona - before it was renovated
Washington - old, rundown portable farm
Garfield - renovated along with eight of ten high schools without any preferential treatment
Lowell - when the district was thinking of closing it because it was in such horrible condition
Hamilton - HCC added to the building, against the community's will after the building was designed without HCC
Ingraham - one of only two comprehensive high schools that haven't seen total renovations under BEX
Thurgood Marshall - not in particularly good shape or bad shape, HCC added against the community's will and in contradiction to consultant's recommendation
Lincoln - a dumpy old high school with no playground and a cafeteria in the basement
Fairmount Park - a newly re-opened school building that had been closed, not a new building
Cascadia - the one and only time a building was made for HCC, after how many years at Lowell and then Lincoln while almost every other elementary in the district got a renovation, and what's happening? A significant share of the kids won't be assigned there. Instead, they will go to...
Decatur - an old, unrenovated building abandoned by Thornton Creek that no one else wants
The only way that anyone could believe that HCC gets new buildings - let alone "consistently" - would be if they had no access to data and someone told them that lie anyone
I'm not sure what is more disturbing, the mistaken belief that HCC has somehow gotten better facilities over the years (and that the document went to the board uncorrected), or the belief that groups of students are somehow less deserving of updated facilities because they've been identified HCC. HIMS, though recently renovated when APP/HCC was split and placed there, was one of the lowest performing middle schools in the north end. What has been consistent over the years is the placement of HCC in otherwise low performing schools.
wow
Baffled
We saw the writing on the wall and stayed well clear of the cohort. We work(ed) with the neighborhood schools, selfishly at first, but later in a more enlightened state encompassing the needs of the greater SPS community, and it's been optimal, to my eyes.
I'd encourage parents to reconsider abandoning their neighborhood schools. If the culture is anti-gifted, then help turn it into a more welcoming place for them. But remember to include all students because accepting differences helps ALL kids.
A school that provides rigor for all as well as meaningful contact between all is going to make a better prepared student for college and life.
TT
Baffled
I spent some time this week with good friends whose children attend an affordable private school with small class sizes that allow teachers to reliably provide differentiated instruction. They don't have to hear these constant complaints that educating their children provides them with an inequitable advantage. I don't think they're even aware this is a discussion among public school parents.
-JK
Look at the listed "pros". All of the pros listed are benefits to Whitman and the last bullet is a gripe about HCC not really a pro or benefit of any kind. The cons are all negatives for HCC and makes it look like whoever wrote this isn't really involved in HCC or familiar with it because they think HCC gets all great buildings when Charlie shows the opposite is true. So why is the person(s) who recommended trying to steer the ship of where HCC kids lands and who at the district is giving them air time to be in a place to recommend program placement?
Does anyone who is reading here know the intent and who is behind this recommendation?
-- Sporadic Reader
There is no way we could have kept our child at our viciously anti-HCC neighborhood school. Her teachers wouldn't even assess her reading level!!! They always stopped at, "meets year-end goal" and never actually figured out what level she was at. If you NEVER assess a child's reading level, there is no way to provide reading materials at an appropriate level for the child. AND the school was constantly punishing my child for being bored and being different than other kids. They punished my child for being who she is. We can't afford private school, so it was HCC or homeschool. They had lost us one way or another.
If the neighborhood school had not ignored, abused and punished my child for being who she is, we might have worked harder with them. But our neighborhood school made it very clear, year after year, that they were UNWILLING to educate my HC child. Even though "it is the paramount duty of the state to make ample provision for the education of all children residing
within its borders."
Advanced learning at the neighborhood schools needs some serious work. At some schools it is nonexistent.
DisAPPointed
I was letting people, who may have only heard the laments of the cohorted crowd here on the blog, know that there are families with highly gifted children who have had excellent results working with neighborhood schools. Families of highly gifted students who have helped educate and in turn been educated about teaching the gifted in a heterogeneous environment. If it didn't work for you, I don't feel any compulsion to challenge your experience or harass you, in fact I applaud you for doing what you felt was best.
Please give others the same respect.
TT
HC wholechild
But what we've realized (I and many of the district parents I now know) is that it's hit or miss with the neighborhood schools. The needs of many children are very well looked after at many schools by many teachers. But it is far from a universal given. It's hit or miss on a school by school basis or a teacher by teacher basis or a kid by kid basis. And when it works out, it's wonderful. But when it doesn't work out, it can have tragic consequences for children and their families.
How is it hit or miss? Depending on the kid for one thing. Many neighborhood schools won't even admit kids with known special ed needs, like, at all. Or they have a small number of special ed slots you have to "win."
Children who need advanced learning services may or may not be identified and their advanced learning needs may or may not be met. Many families agree that Spectrum used to be pretty good for most of these kids. Families who were able to get their kids into Wittier and View Ridge and and Wedgwood and Hazel Wolf were pretty happy with how the schools met their kids' AL needs. But not all families were able to get their kids into those schools, or the few others that could be relied on to provide Spectrum services. Some families weren't in the geographic zone for those schools and didn't have older siblings to get them in on tie-breakers. Some of the schools are overenrolled.
Then the district got rid of dedicated Spectrum classrooms and curriculum and now there are a lot of kids whose needs aren't being met.
Some kids are having their needs met at their neighborhood schools. Kids at a wide variety of levels. Schools are not really meeting the needs of quite a few other kids, but their families are filling in the gap with tutoring for weak areas or more advanced material at home.
The MTSS system (Multi-Tiered System of Supports) is an abysmal failure for children who need more accelerated work than "benchmark" (kids who need one or two or more years' worth of acceleration) and children who are behind but not two full years behind. Many of SPS's neighborhood schools are routinely and actively failing children in those categories. In addition to that any kid who belongs to two different groups has a good chance of being overlooked by the system: ELL kids who are also gifted, gifted kids who also have a learning disability ("2E"), etc. Also overlooked by the system are Native American kids who were promised space for Licton Springs at the new Eaglestaff Middle School but now maybe there's not space for them? Also overlooked are all the kids at Thurgood Marshall and Garfield among other places whose test scores were lower than SPS wanted, so to help raise these kids' test score SPS did NOT improve the educations they were receiving, oh no, SPS decided (against advice) to co-locate a program for gifted kids at their facilities to bring up the schools' test scores without helping the kids with the lower scores at all.
A lot of neighborhood schools are failing a lot of kids. And apparently there's nothing the people of Seattle can do. Principles are allowed to do whatever they want, even if it means not meeting the educational needs lots of groups of kids. And they don't even have to tell anyone what they're doing. People have to fill out public records requests to find out ridiculously basic things about SPS.
Here's hoping the board will help us and our kids!
Differentiated Instruction
Please read the criticism in the last paragraph at the above link.
Differentiated instruction is essentially an unproven product being sold to students and families. To view this unproven technique as an adequate substitution for HCC is absurd but that is apparently an SPS policy: replace HCC with Differentiation.
-- Dan Dempsey
As explained in the Wired article by Jarrett: "...although each of us is unique, usually the most effective way for us to learn is based not on our individual preferences but on the nature of the material we’re being taught..."
https://www.wired.com/2015/01/need-know-learning-styles-myth-two-minutes/
More here:
Learning Styles Debunked: There is No Evidence Supporting Auditory and Visual Learning, Psychologists Say, from Association of Psychological Science
http://www.danielwillingham.com/learning-styles-faq.html
--skeptic
DisAPPointed
SPS can't have it both ways. Cutting teachers - which leads to large class sizes - and then also saying there will be differentiation to meet all student needs.
-StepJ
TT
"We were informed by our classroom teacher just a couple of months into the school year that there would be no differentiation because the class size was too large. There is a wide range of learners in the classroom, from those that are below grade level to those that are HCC qualified."
Range of Learners is too large
Class size is too large
The concept of "meeting all students' needs" always smacked of an illusory aspirational goal ... not something grounded in reality.
There will be differentiation to meet all students' needs,
is a typical proclamation from "The Political-Educational Complex".
There is a huge lack of evidence in support of this proclamation pushing differentiation but that is OK as so much of "Educational Thought" is founded in belief in fairy-tales rather than ... the following thought from W. Edwards Deming.
"To improve a system requires the intelligent application of relevant data."
-- Dan Dempsey
"Since you are being so confrontational, sarcastic and downright mean about it, I'll just let my comment stand on its own. It's my experience and my opinion and I'll just leave it at that."
The problem, TT, is that your comment does not, in fact, stand on its own. On its own, without any supporting detail, it falls. That's why people asked for more information.
By the way, a request for more information is not an attack. Not on your experience and certainly not on you personally. Please engage us in an adult conversation in which you provide sufficient details to support your claims.
As for "the writing on the wall" the self-contained HCC cohort is intact and there are no current plans to dismantle it. Your child will likely get through both elementary and middle school before there is any significant change to HCC. Especially since the program structure was recently confirmed.
Really baffled
Again, there has never been any champion for students in Advanced Learning in senior management or on the Board. I knew there are a few Board members who care but because it is such a highly-charged subject, they can rarely speak out.
That Spectrum has been allowed to be dissolved is wrong. That this BS over what each principal does as "site-based management" continues is wrong. That parents in the program and prospective parents in the program can read one thing at the district website and yet the truth is different at every school and not consistent with what is at that website is BS.
Wednesday night the Board will, once again, accept the CSIP for each school as done and a living documentation of what is happening at each school. Also BS.
I'll have to say about all this in an upcoming thread but people should really, really pressure the Board.
--HCC parents with 2e students worried about both losing the cohort and the strain put on the cohort (and subsequent stress on their children) due to the influx of spectrum students moving to Cascadia after the disappearance of advanced curriculum at their schools.
--sadness from families who were happy at their neighborhood school until Spectrum was removed and they claim they don't want to be in a self-contained HCC school but see no other option.
--teachers working with kids having high anxiety because they are in over their head or the school environment is too hectic.
Their needs to be better options and more options for all learners, and a place to go besides HCC for gifted students.
Fix AL
Particularly alarming from the report are these two:
Does the state require general education teachers to receive training on gifted students after initial teacher certification is attained?
No
Does the state require professionals working in specialized gifted ed programs to have a gifted ed endorsement or certification?
No
We cannot improve equity in the district and reduce achievement gaps by intentionally and systemically stagnating and holding back advanced learners. The public schools must teach all children, regardless of how advanced they are or how fast they learn.
28% of Seattle kids are going to private school. So, if the district is attempting to reduce an achievement gap by lowering the achievement of advanced learners, they are doomed to fail. The 28% of children who come from families rich enough to send their children to private school get to learn at a comfortable pace and level. The children who are adversely affected are the advanced learners with poor and middle income families who can't afford private school. What kind of a cultural war is that? It's a fake narrowing of the achievement gap. If you want to improve an achievement gap, the ONLY morally responsible way to do that is by helping the children scoring on the low end of the gap achieve more. And there is NO reason why Seattle Public Schools cannot simultaneously improve learning outcomes for underachieving groups AND provide a reasonable and satisfying education to advanced learners.
Seattle Public Schools needs to educate ALL the children who attend the schools, not just focus on one group or another. Our school district should be pouring its heart and soul into finding the best solutions for ALL children. They are ALL valuable. Not just any one subset. All children should advance and progress every year.
Not all kids who go to private school are gifted. Some proportion of them are and, as well, there are very few private schools that say they served gifted kids. I think most of them can and do because of the rigor, the smaller class sizes and the ability to pick and choose who stays and who goes.
One of the problems with HCC is the cutoff. Kids at the 97th and 96th and 86th percentile are also not getting what they need by way of challenge, and have no options.
IMHO
This is a school where 25% of the students are Spectrum-eligible.
"We also use our learning from the DuFours and Michael Mattos (Solution Tree conference/research-based strategies) that a “guaranteed, aligned curriculum" is also a high leverage school commitment for all of our students. Therefore, at McClure, all core disciplines are fully aligned by grade level – common curriculum calendar, grading practices (i.e. reading logs, etc.), and assessments (formative and summative)."
"As of 2015-16, all of our Language Arts classrooms are fully blended with General Education and Advanced Learning-identified students."
"All Social Studies and Science courses at McClure are fully inclusive – General Education, Special Education, ELL, Spectrum-identified students."
"We have no 'honors' math courses; students are placed in math courses based completely on the previous year’s math course mastery (i.e. students taking 6th grade math will move into 7th grade math). McClure does not 'skip' students in math but focuses on genuine mastery of grade level standards."
"We assess our progress in eliminating the achievement gap/opportunity gap between students of different ethnicities and students who receive various services in our building (Special Education, General Education, ELL services, Advanced Learning opportunities, etc.)"
Take a moment with that last one. What does it mean for the school to work to eliminate the achievement gap between general education and advanced learning students given that the advanced learning students are identified as having higher achievement? Does it mean that they are going to get all of the students to work at the top 10% of achievement nationally? or does it mean that they will cap the achievement of the advanced learners? Read the CSIP. There is no mention of an effort to get all students in the top 10% nationally, but there is mention of capping progress in Math classes.
"McClure Middle School not only refuses to support advanced learning, they are aggressively opposed to it."
Hyperbole much?
Condor
--hcc curious
http://www.seattleschools.org/cms/One.aspx?portalId=627&pageId=745564
There's some info on AL and HCC in there.
Answer: no.
Read the CSIP. McClure, as a matter of site-based policy and different from every other middle school in the District and in opposition to stated District practice, refuses to offer Algebra or allow students to take math one year ahead. That qualifies as aggressive opposition to advanced learning. No hyperbole necessary.
--HCC curious
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