Friday Open Thread
New internal audits at Seattle Schools available here.
From ProPublica, an interactive report on districts around the country and racial inequality issues. You can drill down by school as well.
Saturday events:
Seattle Public Schools Science Instructional Materials Adoption Committee Meeting
(K-5 and 6-8 combined committees)
Sat., Oct. 20, 2018, 8 a.m. – 4 p.m.
John Stanford Center for Educational Excellence (JSCEE), 3rd Floor Commons
Director Community meeting with President Leslie Harris at Seattle Public Library - Delridge Branch, from 3-5 pm.
On Sunday, Oct. 21st, I'm excited to hear from the students leading the March for our Lives movement sponsored by Town Hall.
- Central Administration Support of Schools Audit
- Hazel Wolf K-8 School
- Franklin High School
- Cleveland High School
- Center School
- Rainier Beach High School
- Hiring Practices
- Construction Management Practices
From ProPublica, an interactive report on districts around the country and racial inequality issues. You can drill down by school as well.
Saturday events:
Seattle Public Schools Science Instructional Materials Adoption Committee Meeting
(K-5 and 6-8 combined committees)
Sat., Oct. 20, 2018, 8 a.m. – 4 p.m.
John Stanford Center for Educational Excellence (JSCEE), 3rd Floor Commons
Director Community meeting with President Leslie Harris at Seattle Public Library - Delridge Branch, from 3-5 pm.
On Sunday, Oct. 21st, I'm excited to hear from the students leading the March for our Lives movement sponsored by Town Hall.
Since the tragedies at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the March For Our Lives movement has taken a stand against senseless gun violence. The Parkland students work together with young leaders of all backgrounds from across the country to hold politicians accountable and combat the normalization of gun violence.What's on your mind?
March For Our Lives brings Jammal Levy, Alex Wind, and David Hogg, all survivors of the Parkland shooting, to Town Hall’s stage to share Glimmer of Hope, a book that tells the story of how a group of teenagers raced to channel their rage and sorrow into action—and went on to create one of the largest youth-led movements in global history. Joined by actor and activist Sophia Bush, these students bring their urgent conversation to Seattle to offer us a chance to come together and take action and work to create a safe and compassionate nation for our youth.
Comments
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0885200618300279
Anyone know what to make of this? I am supportive of pre-k funding (but not the City's current proposal). Does anyone know why Tennessee's program got such poor results? How can we make sure that our local programs do it right?
WANTS ANSWERS
-StepJ
Ballard Mom
We noted the following weaknesses related to the PASS [Principal Association of Seattle Schools] and management employees hiring process:
• Screening documents were not on file for the management category candidates. We could not determine if the applicant screening techniques were consistent with the required qualifications.
• We noted instances where confidentiality statements, necessary signatures, and scoring sheets were not present on files.
• The hiring guidelines for PASS employees do not include any requirements related to the composition of the hiring team.
These items result in:
• Non-compliance with the District’s hiring procedures.
• Inconsistencies that can pose a reputational risk for the District.
• A risk that not all the categories of employees, students, and parents will have a fair representation in the hiring of building
Whoops! So there was no way to tell for some of the principal candidates whether they were screened in a way that was consistent with the job qualifications. Great.
The city is responsible for curriculum- not an elected board. K is now what first grade used to be. I"ve been concerned that the city is pushing academics further and further down the developmental scale. The city has never provided a sufficient answer to whether they are using appropriate curriculum.
The previously mentioned are only two reasons why I am voting NO.
I don't know anything about Tennessee and if there is any correlation to the city's prek program.
The city keeps saying "quality" over and over again, but they have yet to answer tough questions regarding curriculum and the research aspect of their program.
Children should have minimally structured to unstructured creative play time from age 3 onward with almost no academic work, or none, until about age 6. This seems counterintuitive, but the unstructured play time is the actual basis that all kids need for later learning. This article contains links to a variety of studies about this phenomenon: https://qz.com/1217146/child-development-kids-that-play-more-often-are-better-prepared-for-employment/
American pre-K programs tend to shift 1st grade work to pre-K level. This is done because people want to feel like they're "getting their money's worth" paying fees or taxes to support pre-K programs. However, this developmentally inappropriate and probably neutral to harmful for long-term academic success, as in the Tennessee case.
It's frustrating how slow American education policy elites have been to detect this phenomenon, which is well-known outside the United States.
OMG
With a $15 an hour minimum wage it would be very easy to work part time and easily pay for Community College.
I hope voters will not choose to bloat city government at the expense of the kids attending public school.
The monies would be better spent providing grants to families to attend pre-school or even providing grants to start pre-schools in need areas vs. funding a whole new bureaucratic arm of the city of Seattle. Please choose to fund kids vs. bureaucracy and vote no on Prop. 1.
A Voter
Another mom of 2
Scientist&Parent
If it fails, will the city introduce a new levy? Presumably for fewer dollars?
Just Curious
I urge concerned parents to write to the Board and the Superintendent about the science curriculum.
Just Curious, I would think the City would reintroduce the levy. (I had one person say they might cut out K-12 just to be mean. Huh?)
They could reintroduce it as soon as April 2019. There is $12M underspend in the F&E levy and $1M in the pre-k levy so no programs will go away.
I would assume the City and the Council would take the loss as a message about property taxes (not so much what is trying to be accomplished). That said, I would suggest that the pre-k program needs to dial back on its expectations (given it has not met its own goals for enrollment), listen to others (like the UW education grad student who wrote at Crosscut)and perhaps just offer one year of community to all public school grads.
And, of course, put in explicit language that the K-12 dollars are only for Seattle school district.
Policy changes since the turn of the century force more students to take more science, sweeping up a lot of students who don't want to be there. Combine that with the discipline-lite trend in middle school and high school, and you get a lot of science courses that are tough to teach. To survive in that environment, a teacher must have buffalo hide and outstanding classroom management skills. Perhaps the problem is: SPS can't consistently find enough teachers with both the classroom management skills and the content knowledge for science. So their fallback option is to hire capable classroom managers and leave the content to the computer. That would explain why "the teacher seems to just read the script."
Who are these teachers using Amplify? Are they qualified in science? Do these teachers like using Amplify?
In the dark ages of inequity, middle school science and high school chemistry and physics would have been electives populated by students with a genuine interest in the subject or a pressing need for their college track. Fewer classrooms would be needed, and the classes would be relatively easy to teach. Filling every one with a qualified live teacher would have been possible. Perhaps the switch to online science is not so much a choice as a side-effect of having a lot more mandatory inclusive science classes relative to the number of teachers who could handle them. Is that the real reason?
If so, and if it happens in high school as well as middle school, the contrast will get more and more awkward between AP science courses (with strong curriculum and live teachers) and computer-based regular science.
You can’t teach middle school or high school science without a science endorsement as per Washington state law. So your theory of placing teachers in science classes with good management skills but no background in science doesn’t work.
We are using Amplify for elementary and I think it’s 100 times better than the 20 year old science kits that I’ve been teaching and hating for years. . Amplify aligns to NGSS and is phenomenon based. It’s a mix of hands on science, reading appropriate grade level text and some online components. My students LOVED science last year.
-Amplifier
NW
Science Matters
-Amplifier
Not to mention, the experience the students have is actually relevant to the worth of a curriculum.
Science Matters
And, where is the MTSS? this is supposed to be an HCC science class, but they just follow the script and finish early every day. Kids are BORED OUT OF THEIR MINDS.
I certainly understand that some classrooms have issues with behavior or ability, this is not the case here. (Although if it continues being this slow and boring, then there will be behavior issues soon).
It is super sad. Brains are a-wasting in that room every day. every teacher I have spoken to about it says "that's amplify."
* Spoke with an HCC 7th grader that goes to school in Bellevue. Hates Amplify Science. Thinks its very boring.
* Spoke with a Seattle Middle School Science Teacher. Hates Amplify. The school does not have enough working computers. Computer work instead of hands-on experiments is very boring. Many parents were angry last year. The old curriculum was much better.
* Spoke with an HCC 6th Grader at different Seattle Middle School: "Amplify is fine; we do lots of experiments."
I have seen one of the old 5th-grade science kits. There were supplies missing. And it referenced using books from the school library that didn't exist.
My perception is that some schools had developed there own science curriculums that included many experiments that were very good. But this was inconsistent across the district. Perhaps some schools / teachers are integrating their old well-developed curriulumns with Amplify and have sufficient computers, so things work well. Perhaps other schools have fewer computers and are trying to just use Amplify, so it's a disaster. And there is probably a range in between.
We all need to take ownership over our children's education and of what happens in schools. I'm willing to go to the next board meeting and demand the end of Amplify in science classes. Will any of you join me?
MC Hawking
Prior drafts of materials and/or early implementation phases of MTSS always focused on students below level, but there was always this supposed idea and vague reassurance that MTSS would also be used to appropriately serve students above grade level. Are there any updated documents that reflect this? What are the criteria for intervention at the different tiers, and what strategies are to be used? Is ANY school actually using MTSS tier 2 or 3 for highly capable students, and if so, how?
MTSS is also supposed to involve a lot of assessment to see how things are working in real time, including a lot of pre-assessment. Does Amplify science involve pre-assessment, and if so, are teachers looking at how classes do before the lesson--and whether there's even much opportunity for growth? What are the average pre-post assessment changes, and how do these look for HCC vs. other classes? Surely Amplify data also so show how long students were working on their assignments and assessments, so how do these look? Are many/most students finishing significantly early? If so, that's pretty clear evidence they either need more help (if finishing early but doing poorly) or need more challenge (if doing well).
Basic classroom instruction using the regular curriculum (e.g., Amplify science) is MTSS tier 1. For MTSS to exist, there needs to be assessment of tier 1 implementation and outcomes--that's how you know whether or not to move to tier 2. What is tier 2 Amplify science, and what assessment takes place to see if tier 3 intervention is needed instead?
These seem like important questions for Michael Tolley, Supt. Juneau, the Board, and the AL office to answer.
DisAPP
https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/education/article220278435.html?fbclid=IwAR0A6qDBQJ73ELOlKslOXM-wjIdWpl4hVeaMjHBB0ERR32B97eK-0Itlj1c
When will SPS begin talking about their deficit?
SEA will negotiate their contract again next year.
No, the Board didn't approve it because it fell under the Superitendent's purview. However, from an email I published, it is clear that the Science team at JSCEE really doesn't know what it is doing and Amplify is just one issue.
So even if the Board didn't vote for these changes, they darn well know it's an on-going issue.
And yet, here we are.
Marmauset
rick.burke@seattleschools.org
boardoffice@seattleschools.org
-NW
science curious