Washington State Board of Ed Seeks Input

 From their website:

The State Board of Education is in the process of developing its 2019-2022 Strategic Plan and is seeking your input to help define a comprehensive vision for the future of education in Washington state.


We hope you will take a few minutes to complete a brief survey to share what you feel makes the Board successful and to provide ideas for improvements, needs, expectations, and priorities that will help the Board establish key strategic objectives, measures and goals to serve as our guide for action for the next four years.

The Board wants to hear the voices of those who care deeply about education. This is an opportunity to help shape the future of the K-12 system and impact its effort to improve outcomes for all students. 

It's basically four questions plus a ranking of issues plus a comment section.   I do wish they had asked what successes and failures that people see in their own districts.  Might be interesting to see what folks say in various regions.
They do ask about districts providing full-day pre-k to four-year-olds.  Yes, and I'd like a pony but with what money? I guess if they got enough yeses, they could leverage with the Legislature but most parents with preschoolers don't follow the Board of Education.

I love this one:

Students, parents, and educators collaborate to plan a student's high school coursework aligned with postsecondary aspirations and goals.

Again, in a perfect ed world, sure but I'm not sure that even 10% of parents get the opportunity to work with teachers on high school coursework for their students.  And what would that look like?

Interestingly, there's this timely issue:

Schools are encouraged to develop a calendar that recognizes holidays from a broader range of traditions and cultures.

But nothing about tech, personalized learning, PE, arts.  Hmmm.

Here's a link to their survey.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I am frustrated with the push for universal preschool. Yes, there have been some small, positive studies regarding its impact. But all of the big studies (such as on Head Start) indicate fade out by third grade. The most recent large study was of the Tennessee Prekindergarten Program. The study looks strong, with a large randomized control trial. The results were actually negative. Remarkably, the study's authors had a really hard time getting it published. No one wants to hear bad news: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0885200618300279

Why would the City of Seattle be subsidizing upper middle class parents to send their kids to preschool, given the evidence? Why not make sure that homeless kids have a safe place to sleep, and have some food security?

We have limited tax dollars. Why aren't we sticking to programs that have good empirical evidence regarding their efficacy, like Nurse-Family Partnership programs?

BeSmart
7/16/18, 4:28 PM
Jet City mom said…
I wrote that I thought they should look to the preschool programs that have been run through the community colleges for decades.
Parent education is embedded in the program.
It is much more appropriate to use developmental guidelines from NAEYC, rather than from a tech company that is pushing their curriculum.
Play is the work of young children, not standardized testing and worksheets.

7/16/18, 5:12 PM
Anonymous said…
@BeSmart, that was my sense of the pre-K literature as well--short-term academic gains are not sustained over time. I don't know whether there are possible short-term, non-academic benefits (e.g., increased self-esteem, better health screening, parent education/engagement) that may contribute to improved long-term outcomes in areas that may or may not be measured, but if there are other benefits besides academics that may be an argument in favor of universal pre-K (although it should only be subsidized on a need basis). If.

Regardless, the cost of the Seattle program seems ridiculously high for the number served.

B. Wise
7/23/18, 11:28 AM
Speedypaper said…
great post!
I want to share with you too:
Speedypaper - it's the best essay writing service!
8/10/18, 1:45 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tuesday Open Thread

The speaker list is up for the Board meeting tomorrow; not as packed as I thought with just four people on the waitlist. The majority of the speakers are speaking on high school boundaries (with several wanting to talk about Ballard High). There are only three of us speaking about the Green Dot resolution asking the City to not grant the zoning departures that Green Dot has requested.  It's me, long-time watchdog, Chris Jackins, and the head of the Washington State Charter Schools Association, Patrick D'Amelio.  (I knew Mr. D'Amelio when he headed the Alliance for Education and Big Brothers and Big Sisters; he's a stand-up guy.)
Read more

Breaking It Down: Where the District Might Close Schools

Update 2: an absolutely fabulous interactive map made by parent Beth Day (@thebethocracy on Twitter - she covers Board meetings and is fun to read).   end of update    Update 1: Mea culpa, I did indeed get Decatur and Thornton Creek mixed up. Thanks to all for the correction. end of update   I suspect some who read this post will be irate. Why do this? Because the district seems very hellbent on this effort with no oversight skid marks from the Board.    To clearly state - I do not believe that closing 20 schools is a good idea. I think they hit on 20 because they thought it might bring in the most savings. But the jury is still out on the savings because the district has not shown its work nor its data. I suspect closing schools and THEN leasing/renting them is the big plan but that means the district really has to keep the buildings up.   But this district, with its happy talk about "well-resourced schools" is NOT acknowledging the pain and yes, grief, that is to come fro
Read more

MEETING CANCELED - Hey Kids, A Meeting with Three(!) Seattle Schools Board Directors

 Update 2: So I have seen a message from President Liza Rankin on why she, Director Evan Briggs, and Director Michelle Sarju backed out of this meeting.  In a nutshell: - She says there was no organization to the meeting which is just not true. They had a moderator lined up and naturally the board members could have set parameters for what to discuss, length of meeting, etc. All that was fleshed out. - She also claimed that if the meeting was PTA sponsored, they needed to have liability insurance to use the school space. Hello? PTAs use school space all the time and know they have to have this insurance.  - She seems to be worried about the Open Public Meetings law. Look, if she has a meeting in a school building on a non-personnel topic, it should be an open meeting. It appears that Rankin is trying, over and over, to narrow the window of access that parents have to Board members. She even says in her message - "...with decisions made in public." Hmmm - She also says that th
Read more