Tuesday Open Thread

Update:

Parent Workshop: ‘Positive Behavior Supports at School and at Home’

Wednesday, December 6 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm at South Shore K-8
| Free

Presenter: Dr. Stephanie King, PhD, NCSP

Seattle Public Schools, Behavior Program Team Lead

Registration required

Send RSVP confirmation to Cilia Jurdy  ciliaj@multiculturalfamilies.org  using online form below
Or
Call our office: 253.216.4479
For languages other than English, contact our staff directly

end of update

Congrats to Rainier Beach High School's varsity football team which is the runner-up for state champions in their division.  Sorry, that game is to be played on December 8th.
Talk to your student about what they "like"on Instagram or Facebook; it could come back to haunt them.

A Bay Area school district acted properly when it suspended five students who “liked” or commented on racist images on another student's Instagram account that included nooses drawn around the necks of a black student and coach and comparisons of African American women and students to gorillas, a judge has ruled.

The judge rejected arguments that the Albany Unified School District violated the students' free speech rights because the offensive posts were on a private account and made off campus.

The case raised thorny questions about how strictly schools can regulate student speech and whether “likes” on social media should be treated similarly to the original posts.

“These cases establish that students have the right to be free of online posts that denigrate their race, ethnicity or physical appearance, or threaten violence,” he said. “They have an equivalent right to enjoy an education in a civil, secure and safe school environment.” 

I'm hearing rumblings that the Board would prefer the City Council not change zoning rules to include charter schools for departures from said rules. 

As I stated previously, I can see how the Board might not find the City a great partner if that partner is doing things that will undermine the work of the Board.  It's bad enough that the district plays nice and gives the City multiple pre-K spaces for free (while the City charges the district for space at Seattle Center for the Center School) but if the Council changes the availability of departures for charter schools, that's an even bigger issue.

While charters may be "public" schools, they decidedly do not fall under the state funding name - via the constitution - of "common schools."  That's one basis the Council should use in deciding this issue.

Again, Seattle voters - by a good margin - said no to charter schools.  The Board has said no to charter schools and the district has never applied to be a charter authorizer.  And, if Green Dot's school opens in that location, it will very much undermine Rainier Beach High School.

Avoid Facebook’s New Messenger App For Kids To Protect Your Family’s Privacy & Future, an important article from blogger, Bradley Shear.

Facebook has announced that it has launched a new messenger app for kids under the age of 13 that is controlled by parents that will allow children to send texts, videos, photos, and partake in other digital activities. While the app is advertised as helping protect the privacy and security of kids, parents shouldn’t be fooled and should not trust this new platform.

Additionally, Facebook planned to allow Admiral Insurance (which has a U.S. subsidiary: Elephant Auto Insurance) utilize teens’ private Facebook activity to price insurance polices; however, after a swift public backlash the company backed down. Facebook was also caught helping advertisers target teens who had emotional issues. These actions followed Facebook manipulating users’ emotions for science in 2014.

I'd say no if it were my kid.

Betsy DeVos claims test scores are stagnant because parents don't have choice for schools.

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos used America's stagnant performance on an international exam to make her case for her favorite policy prescription—expanding school choice—in a speech to Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education in Nashville, Tenn.

Decades after the publication of 1983's landmark report "A Nation At Risk" DeVos said America remains "stuck in the middle" on the Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA.

Given DeVos' background and job performance so far, it's unlikely that she truly knows much about the PISA or who takes it in each country.

Also from DeVos (who helps set the rules on these issues):

States are not doing enough to inform parents about the special education rights they give up when they enroll their children in private schools with publicly funded vouchers.

That's according to a new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office that also urges Congress to compel states to tell parents about the tradeoffs they are making when they opt to participate in a private school choice program.

Speaking of choice, the GOP is giving that in spades in their new tax scam - parents who have their kids in private schools would receive at $10,000 deduction.  

They also seem to have it in for higher ed.

The highest profile item is the plan in the House bill to tax graduate student tuition waivers as income, effectively making the young people who are helping the nation move forward with critical research pay taxes on “incomes” that are tens of thousands of dollars higher than they actually get paid.  However, higher education takes multiple hits in the House bill such as taxing endowment earnings that go towards school advancement, reducing incentives for charitable giving, and eliminating student loan interest deductions that benefited 12 million borrowers in 2014.

This bill threatens federal aid for needy students by exploding the budget deficit, puts pressure on municipalities via decreased home values and loss of property tax deductions, and puts pressure on states via loss of income tax deductions.  School budgets HAVE to rise just to keep up with growing student populations and other fixed costs even if there is no concerted effort at school improvement.  Flat or decreased funding for any significant length of time threatens numerous factors that impact school quality such as class sizes, the length of the school year, and capital improvements.  We saw this play out across the country during the Great Recession and, more recently, with Kansas which plunged deep into a supply side experiment under Governor Brownback – and which precipitated a long term public education crisis.

 What's on your mind?