Science Updates for Seattle Schools
Update:
At the Board meeting, Director Jill Geary, head of the Curriculum and Instruction committee, said that she would welcome questions from parents/staff about the Science adoption. She said knowing the questions would allow her to pass them along to staff.
End of update
Once again, I have to shake my head. (At this rate, Linda Blair will have nothing on me and many days, I do feel like my head is going to go around and around, trying to take in all that this district's dysfunction has to offer.)
(Yes, I just said the district is dysfunctional which is something I have denied for a long time. No more. And this thread is just the start.)
Updates on the ongoing Science adoptions:
Apparently at Ballard High, students are "piloting" this curriculum, Physics Thru Reasoning.
A teacher who retired had been asked to come back to Ballard to fill in for the new teacher who was unexpectedly yanked from the class under not-great-circumstances (I know no details but it was not because the teacher could not teach.)
The returning teacher, to get up to speed, asked the students about what they were being taught (nothing to do with the new teacher). Their answers are telling. The students were asked about what they did the first 100 days in class - take data, make graphs on Excel, test/engineer a device you made, using curve-fitting or slope analysis to analyze data and find patterns, etc. Thirty-eight students gave answers. Most of these students are in AP Calc.
Also to note is that there is this push to get aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and yet, if you read the students' comments, there's not much alignment with this physics curriculum.
- The material is easy and we don't do experiments.
- Over and over, "not challenging" "boring"
- I don't think this material adequately prepares me for a college-level class.
- The majority of the students said they finished the classwork with more than half of the class time left.
- "No math in this class." "The math in this class doesn't come close to what I know how to do."
- Are you still excited about physics? Not so much but I'm hopeful.
- Would you recommend this class to a sibling? "I wouldn't recommend it to my worst enemy." "Yes, because it would be an easy A."
- "It wasn't as hands-on as I thought it would be."
- "I learned this vocabulary in middle school."
The two statements that made me laugh (boy, I love high school kids so much):
- I'm a math god.
- I try not to pass out in class.
Note to Mary Margaret Welch on Physics Thru Reasoning - that would be a hard no.
Update: members of the C&I Committee; Director Geary is now Chair.
jill.geary@seattleschools.org
rick.burke@seattleschools.org
scott.pinkham@seattleschools.org
At the Board meeting, Director Jill Geary, head of the Curriculum and Instruction committee, said that she would welcome questions from parents/staff about the Science adoption. She said knowing the questions would allow her to pass them along to staff.
End of update
Once again, I have to shake my head. (At this rate, Linda Blair will have nothing on me and many days, I do feel like my head is going to go around and around, trying to take in all that this district's dysfunction has to offer.)
(Yes, I just said the district is dysfunctional which is something I have denied for a long time. No more. And this thread is just the start.)
Updates on the ongoing Science adoptions:
Apparently at Ballard High, students are "piloting" this curriculum, Physics Thru Reasoning.
A teacher who retired had been asked to come back to Ballard to fill in for the new teacher who was unexpectedly yanked from the class under not-great-circumstances (I know no details but it was not because the teacher could not teach.)
The returning teacher, to get up to speed, asked the students about what they were being taught (nothing to do with the new teacher). Their answers are telling. The students were asked about what they did the first 100 days in class - take data, make graphs on Excel, test/engineer a device you made, using curve-fitting or slope analysis to analyze data and find patterns, etc. Thirty-eight students gave answers. Most of these students are in AP Calc.
Also to note is that there is this push to get aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and yet, if you read the students' comments, there's not much alignment with this physics curriculum.
- The material is easy and we don't do experiments.
- Over and over, "not challenging" "boring"
- I don't think this material adequately prepares me for a college-level class.
- The majority of the students said they finished the classwork with more than half of the class time left.
- "No math in this class." "The math in this class doesn't come close to what I know how to do."
- Are you still excited about physics? Not so much but I'm hopeful.
- Would you recommend this class to a sibling? "I wouldn't recommend it to my worst enemy." "Yes, because it would be an easy A."
- "It wasn't as hands-on as I thought it would be."
- "I learned this vocabulary in middle school."
The two statements that made me laugh (boy, I love high school kids so much):
- I'm a math god.
- I try not to pass out in class.
Note to Mary Margaret Welch on Physics Thru Reasoning - that would be a hard no.
- At community meeting on Saturday with Directors Burke and DeWolf, apparently there was a discussion about the Amplify curriculum. Somehow, thru many waivers, it has, become the de facto SPS science curriculum at middle schools (I believe Eckstein may be the only one NOT using it.) The Board voted NOT to endorse Amplify and yet somehow, it is being widely used.
- Former director Sue Peters had a white paper from Amplify used to support sales of Amplify, which, contained within it quotes from Mary Margaret Welch, head of Science for SPS, about how great Amplify is. Kind of odd given Amplify isn't an district-wide approved curriculum.
- As well, Peters reported SPS received a large donation from “ an anonymous billionaire” to purchase Amplify stuff. Amplify is now owned by the Steve Jobs' widow, Lauren Powell Jobs.
Update: members of the C&I Committee; Director Geary is now Chair.
jill.geary@seattleschools.org
rick.burke@seattleschools.org
scott.pinkham@seattleschools.org
Comments
My 8th grader at REMS is taking Biology. I didn't even know until a few weeks ago that they are piloting a curriculum. Hmmm, maybe it's called Carbon Time or something, but I am not completely sure. She has the exact same comments....It's SOOOOOO boring. We just watch people do experiments. We don't get to do anything. The tests have nothing to do with the unit we just learned (AKA watched).
One of my bigger issues is with kids having to pilot these curriculum. So, the kids at Ballard are forced to pilot this possibly crappy curriculum, have a possibly much worse science education and possibly fare much worse on SATs or AP exams because they were the unfortunate ones to be in a class piloting this curriculum? When my now 8th grader was in 2nd grade, she piloted 2 math curriculum in 1 year. She had different curriculum in K and 1st so 4 different curriculum in 3 years. I couldn't care less about standardized test scores, but her scores never waivered until that year when the math score dropped 10 points.
I remember a Bill Gates interview possibly on PBS about 10 years ago. He said class sizes could be 45 kids with one "facilitator" because the kids could all sit and watch videos going at their own pace. Sounds great in theory. However, both my kids love getting help and positive feedback from a human teacher. It makes them proud. A video making a little music because they were successful doesn't have any impact whatsoever. They also want hands-on experiments...not watching a video of someone doing the experiment.
https://envlit.educ.msu.edu/publicsite/files/General/ProjectPaper/2015/Gallagher%20Welch%20Anderson%20NARST%202015.pdf
So neither Amplify nor Carbon Time is an official SPS board-approved curriculum, but they are being used all over the district--with SPS professional development support--even though students don't seem to like them? Is this because MMW has something to gain, either financially or in terms of academic research experience when she leaves SPS for greener pastures? This seems like a conflict of interest. Any time an SPS official is promoting a particular curriculum, the board should have to approve it.
HF
Having experience with HIMS, REMS and Whitman, I am floored by the dramatically different offerings at the middle schools, but the high school situation is staggering (Lincoln, Ingraham and Ballard are our comparisons). I've written to the Board about this MANY times. While I have a kid at a school with little to no choice (Whitman), I don't want offerings taken away from other kids. I don't have any knowledge, but I can imagine how few options there must be in the lower income schools. Certainly, I'd advocate for offerings for higher needs schools before mine. I am just speaking of what I know.
Ingraham mom at 4:10pm, why would they make your daughter retake biology? I thought there was a next in sequence guarantee of sorts.
CarbonTime has already invested multiple years gathering data on students and teachers, including Seattle Schools, and Welch has co-presented that data at conferences and published in peer-reviewed journals.
Yes, CarbonTime offers free curriculum, but a greater expense may be potential learning opportunity lost if a superior Biology material was never given fair consideration.
nn
https://envlit.educ.msu.edu/publicsite/files/General/ProjectPaper/2015/Gallagher%20Welch%20Anderson%20NARST%202015.pdf
http://carbontime.bscs.org/sites/default/files/research/conference-presentations/417NewelletalNARSTStudentPoster.pdf
http://carbontime.bscs.org/sites/default/files/research/articles-book-chapters/51218JRSTRevisionsFINAL.pdf
(p. 132, CarbonTime costs) https://www.seattleschools.org/UserFiles/Servers/Server_543/File/District/Departments/School%20Board/16-17agendas/09_10_2016/20160910_Agenda_Retreat_Packet.pdf
snoozefest
The legislature has REMOVED the physics/science test that had driven this district to push chemistry and physics courses down from higher grades into into 9th and 10th grade BEFORE the majority of SPS high school students have had algebra 2, meaning, the kids were put into a position of having to take science subjects that they were not mathematically prepared for because those subjects can only be properly learned by those with sufficient math skills and therefore, there is a fundamental misalignment between student & course content. So, Welch’s solution was to drain the math out of the science, breaking it up into A/A and B/B chunks in order to try and buy time for the math courses to move through the kids. Thus, kids are now going to completely waste their time with ‘chemistry lite’ and ‘physics for dummies’. What unearthly purpose does any of this charade serve?!?
Just stop the madness. Science matters. STEM is the critical area for employment growth and future prosperity. To deny kids a proper education only further exacerbated inequity - the very thing education ought to solve.
Further alienating families from SPS, that won’t go well. Hello, Shoreline! Hey, Bellevue! Mercer Island, you are looking good!
Exasperated
It may be that he has also somehow spoken to current physics students as well, but I did want to clarify he is currently covering for a chemistry class. He is a super awesome teacher and we really hope he stays through the year.
Ballard Parent
As to the rest of the curriculum issues, I looked at what SPS has on the table and I'm aghast at what they've chosen for Physics and Biology (as a teacher of Earth space and Physical Science at a high school level). Both are generally too easy -- I wouldn't use the PEER stuff fro my conceptual physics class for students in Geometry. And there's no answer key for teachers, at least in my digging in the website.! The Bio one is weird, again way too easy but some lessons ask for super complex understanding of involved graph trends, and the final product is a cause-effect map of 4 boxes that kids could figure out with common sense, instead of a lesson in graph trends (it's in climate and the specifics escape me right now).
The STEMScopes program that is only on the table for Chemistry is actually pretty good--and covers biology, chemistry, physics, and earth/space (standards that aren't represented in the other two) reasonably well. There are math components to each unit, and it does a fair bit of writing. It's based on the 5E model which is time-tested and does a reasonable job of asking kid-accessible questions to get them involved in the units. No curriculum is perfect and applicable across all levels, but for one that could be handed off to a new teacher with no training (which lets face it, is how all new teachers get things), it's really pretty good. Every unit has ideas for remediation (usually vocabulary based, with games somewhat randomly chosen from ELL strategies; I'm not sure chromosphere is the best choice for a charades game, but it's a start), and some acceleration ideas (mostly books but again, a baseline to start from). If Seattle is really looking at any of these and wants an easy one-and-done, STEMScopes gets my vote.
I strongly encourage everyone to go to the seattle page (linked several posts back) and look at these for yourselves. The videos for magnets in PEER will pretty much sum up all of my feelings on it...
Outta Seattle
Ballard is currently offering 3 classes. The traditional full year chemistry, full Year physics, as well as the new chem/physics hybrid class.
Ballard parent
Ballard Parent
Science Parent
Dumbledore's Army
Couldn't tell you about biotech. Maybe a waiver?
Science Parent
HCC enters 6th grade doing Math 8; when they enter HS as freshmen, they already have 2 years of high school math under their belt. Actually, at JAMS, about 25% of them have completed *3 years* of high school math, and enter high school doing pre calculus course. Of course, math is NOT an HCC course: all entereing middle schoolers are placed into math at 6th grade according to teacher recommendations and math test results. So, to answer your question, it is not logic: it is readiness.
Pushing chem & physics down to freshmen who have not completed algebra means they are being ripped off and not getting real science. And there are those who will feign outrage and pretend the emperor is wearing great clothes, but pretending only goes so far: when kids have to write SATs or ACTs, they won’t be able to do well if they have not been afforded a real education.
math counts
Would someone be willing to post a link that explains the SPS process for pursuing an academic waiver? I'm coming up empty handed.
Dumbledore's Army
I agree. I should have asked, if the math prerequisites are met, and the class is being offered, why not have the option to choose?
Dumbledore's Army
Science Parent
Dumbledore's Army
There is well-documented indications that students and teachers don't like this new curriculum and are not learning from it (just read the multiple threads on this blog about Amplify).
There are new explosive charges that there is a significant conflict of interest from within the SPS science dept that is promoting this new curriculum. It is a bit like learning about global warming from scientist paid using petroleum money.
The adoption-through-piloting approach taken with these curriculums is an example of the lawlessness within SPS at its worse. If teachers, parents and the school board all have serious concerns about Amplify, yet SPS finds a way to push it through, we all need to be concerned about what this means for SPS as a whole. And if SPS is accepting outside funding to push through this unwanted curriculum without declaring it, it appears SPS is operating similar to corrupt countries that operate using the bribe economy.
It is too expensive. A curriculum that is entirely on a computer will require a vast influx of laptops for every science class that will be using it. And laptops are not a onetime cost. They will require maintenance (what happens when a student accidently loads a virus on the computer - or when the computer for some unexplained reason refuses to connect to the internet?) and replacement (the average lifespan of a computer is 3-5 years). Additionally the software and curriculum will no doubt require periodic updates, which will cost additional money beyond the advertised cost of the curriculum. In an era when we are telling our schools we can no longer afford full-time librarians, how can we afford Amplify??
It will further inequity. Contrary to the advertised push to use Amplify, a curriculum that relies so heavily on technology is actually more likely to increase inequity. If the curriculum is entirely on a computer and often online, then any problem that arises with the technology will effectively stop the learning. Schools with more monetary resources and parent volunteers, especially parent volunteers with a technology background will have more resources to fix the technology problems as they arise. Unless every school receives a dedicated IT department with this new science curriculum, schools lacking in resources will just fall even further behind.
It will not prepare our children for jobs in a tech-heavy world. Feedback from almost every student and teacher I have heard about Amplify is that it is boring, repetitive, and unable to be tailored to any student's or classroom's needs or interests. Students come out of the science classroom hating science. There is almost no hands-on experiments (and as a working scientist, I can tell you we still do hands-on experiments!) Any student with a hate of science and a lack of experience with hands on work will not be prepared for college-level science class and unlikely to pursue a science degree. This is unacceptable in today's tech-heavy economy!
-NW
The idea of considering an online-only science program is laughable if the district can't afford to buy and maintain laptops. The few laptops we have are often gone for months at a time as they await SPS maintenance, which operates on a hefty backlog.
We have teachers. Let's let them teach, please, with a flexible, rigorous curriculum. While this is science, it isn't rocket science.
Concerned parent
How many times in the first 100 days of physics did you use Excel to make a graph?
0, 0, 0, never, zero, 1, 1, 0, none, 00, 0, 2, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0-1, 5, 3, 2, 5, none, once, 0, 0, 0, 0, once, 0
Was the level of the material appropriate for you personally?
“No, it was low key insulting. Like it ask (sic) me questions as if I was an idiot. So easy.”
“No. I learned the vocab terms in middle school.”
“No, it felt too easy/not very challenging.”
“No, it felt like middle school.”
“No I feel like I could have done it in second grade”
“too easy”
“No, it was so basic it killed my interest”
“No it was made for an early middle schooler.”
“The level of the material was too easy for me.”
“It was lower then I would have liked.”
“No. Waste of time. I feel like I'm being treated like a freshman.”
“No, was super easy.”
“No, it is too easy and there were a lot of tedious worksheets.”
“No, it was easy and simple to the point of tedium.”
“No, I think a 6th grader could've done this class.”
“No”
“No. It was not thought provoking at all.”
“no”
“No. Math wa easy and everything was repetitive.”
“It was very simple and easy.”
“No, way too easy.”
“Absolutely Not.”
“No. Too easy.”
“No. Too easy.”
“The level felt lower than I would've wanted.”
“No. It was not very challenging.”
“No. Way too easy.”
“It was pretty boring and extremely basic, as it was combined with the slow pace which was not ideal.”
“I felt like too many worksheets and too little experiments.”
From the mouths of students
“The math I know is so far beyond this class.”
“I'm doing middle school math in this class (how it feels)”
“I didn't learn any new math in physics”
“My math capabilities are much higher than what was needed for physics.”
“I'm in AP Calculus BC, so the math used in physics class was significantly easier than the math I know.”
“The math we did felt like busy work.”
“I definitely am not using my full capability w/ the experiments and classwork, I could probably do it in my sleep.”
“Math in physics class was much easier.”
“When we did use math in physics, which was rarely, it was extremely simle algebra. While I am very interested in the stuff we are doing in Pre-Calc, I am bored at the math done in physics.”
“It was about 4 years behind or more.”
“I would be able to do these things in middle school.”
“Super simple algebra.”
“This math would be appropriate for 7th grade.”
“The math in physics was significantly simpler.”
“I used NO math in physics.”
“It was a whole other level of easy”
“I know way more than I used in class.”
“The math in this class doesn't even come close to what I know.”
“Know a little and used none.”
'basic”
“We didn't use much math.”
“The math in physics is lower than I know.”
“No real math in physics.”
“I would go back to 7th grade for the math we used in physics.”
“I am learning much more difficult math in AP Calc than in physics. I learned the math we use in physics in 8th grade.”
“probably over half the class”
“20-30 minutes”
“50 minutes”
“All the time”
“30-40 minutes”
“30-40 minutes.”
“25 minutes usually”
“20 minutes”
“~20 minutes”
“Lots of time.”
“30 minutes, sometimes more.”
“~30 minutes”
“20-30 minutes”
“20-30 minutes”
“40 to 55 minutes”
“30 minutes”
“30-20 minutes”
“Around 25 minutes”
“25 minutes”
“40-45 minutes”
“20-30 minutes”
“30 minutes”
“30+ minutes”
“30 minutes”
“20-25 minutes”
“15 minutes at least”
“20 minutes → used for talking with friends + phone time”
“25-30 minutes”
“20-30 minutes”
“15-20 minutes”
“every day we had like 25-30 minutes”
“20 minutes”
“20 minutes, sometimes 30”
“like 25 minutes daily”
(This is a major emphasis in the Next Generation Science Standards, a major rationale for this new physics curriculum)
3, 2, never, zero, no, not for a grade, never, 00, 0, 0, 3-5, 4, 4, 1, 3-5, 0, 1, 0, 1, none, never, 0, 0, 0, 1, twice, 1 (barely tho, was a very simple contraption), 0, 0, 0, no, 0,0
Let's use "From the mouths of students", since all those posts are student comments.
Thanks,
From the mouths of students
“No, it wasn't challenging and iot didn't make physics an exciting class”
“I would absolutely not”
“No”
“If you want a boring and easy class”
“I would recommend it to my 12-year old sister”
“No”
“Nope”
“I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy”
“no”
“If they want an easy science class, without too much critical thinking.”
“no”
“NO!!!”
“Absolutely Not.”
“I would recommend it as an easy A”
“No, except to have the class on your transcript.”
“Absolutely Not.”
“No. Super Boring.”
“Yes, because it would be an easy A”
“For an easy class, easy A: Yes. To Learn: No”
“No I would not.”
“No”
“No, the curriculum is very boring. I spent about half of each class working on homework for other classes.”
“No, I would send them to a more advanced version”
“Not at my age, maybe in middle school, probably not”
“No”
“If you want an easy A, or want to be babysat for an hour a day, with 30 minutes of 5th grade physics”
“If they wanted an easy A, yes”
“Nope”
“No”
“No”
“Not with the same curriculum”
“No. I have suggested to friends after taking this curriculum not to take physics”
This, dear friends is "birth control for science". Straight up.
Sincerely,
From the mouth of students
(note to poster above - sign FtMoS, or something that is two words or less, less your post gets deleted)
big fail
-South End Teacher
Is there some supplemental piece to PEER that ups the difficulty that was only available to pilots or had to be viewed in person? I teach a high school physical science class in another district and went through all the online curriculum; what I saw would have been remediation when I was teaching 7th grade in Seattle. Certainly not something I'd present to my 10/11 class.
Outta Seattle
a) So, a large number of teachers and students in the South End like the curriculum? Sounds like it's already undergoing the same stealth de facto adoption - through - waiver maneuvers that got Amplify into all or nearly all SPS middle schools, in spite of the Board voting very specifically NOT to adopt it. And, are they doing something different or additional that makes it work? How is that not being communicated to other schools and teachers? The kids who wrote these responses have had a crap of an experience. Or is it a problem of "One size does not fit all ?"
b) Prior to this admittedly unscientific survey whose results appear above, Board directors DeWolfe and Burke (who's heading the Curriculum & Instruction committee) admitted they had seen NO student evaluations of the curriculum. None. And this whole business has become so incredibly clique-ish, with hostile camps of adults with unflinching opinions, that it perhaps is no longer very worthwhile for the camps to restate their positions. Let's hear what the students have to say. How do you actually respond to what these students have to say?
c) The urgent rationale for this curriculum was to align with NGSS standards. NGSS standards are not hugely different than the previous 5 sets of standards that have been rolled out over the last 2 decades. Physics, for example, is physics. Newton's Laws is going to be in there. One new emphasis in NGSS is on engineering: designing, building, testing, evaluating, modifying. Note student-reported results below. This piece is obviously missing from student experiences. Is this really the new holy grail?
How many times in the first 100 days did you build or engineer or test or measure a device you'd made ?
(This is a major emphasis in the Next Generation Science Standards, a major rationale for this new physics curriculum)
3, 2, never, zero, no, not for a grade, never, 00, 0, 0, 3-5, 4, 4, 1, 3-5, 0, 1, 0, 1, none, never, 0, 0, 0, 1, twice, 1 (barely tho, was a very simple contraption), 0, 0, 0, no, 0,0
As a person who pays my ever-increasing property taxes, I am
Very Disappointed,
FtmoS
Just a couple of clarifications:
The Curriculum & Instruction Policy Committee is currently comprised of Jill Geary, Rick Burke and Scott Pinkham. Geary is the current chair. https://www.seattleschools.org/district/school_board/committees/
jill.geary@seattleschools.org
rick.burke@seattleschools.org
scott.pinkham@seattleschools.org
From the district Web site:
The C&I Policy Committee develops and reviews academic policies and make recommendations on Teaching & Learning Board Action Reports. They meet every once a month on Tuesdays from 4:30-6:30 pm.
Also, the Board has never (yet) voted on the Amplify Science curriculum. Amplify Science was introduced into about 19 SPS middle and K-8 schools via (arguably a misuse of) the waiver process, which does not require Board approval. (Though I would posit that a mass use of the same middle school curricular product by nearly all the district's middle schools amounts to a de facto curriculum adoption and an end run around Board policy and public scrutiny.)
However, when I was still on the Board, we did vote against the proposed expansion of the Amplify MClass Beacon test. There were many problems with it, that teachers, principals and families brought up.
Like the current Amplify Science curriculum situation, the MClass Beacon test was introduced into the District without Board approval. That's because the contract to purchase it fell under the $250,000 cost threshold that requires Board approval. (It was about $244,000.)
The Board will have the opportunity to vote for or against Amplify Science if that becomes the recommendation of staff and the adoption committee. But there are two other options as well -- TCI and HHM.
And once again it seems the Amplify product is problematic.
No need to strive--we're there!
@suep, thank you for the clarifications. This part really struck me:
"Also, the Board has never (yet) voted on the Amplify Science curriculum. Amplify Science was introduced into about 19 SPS middle and K-8 schools via (arguably a misuse of) the waiver process, which does not require Board approval. (Though I would posit that a mass use of the same middle school curricular product by nearly all the district's middle schools amounts to a de facto curriculum adoption and an end run around Board policy and public scrutiny.)"
That should not be tolerated. The apparent conflict of interest makes it even that much more unacceptable. Supt Juneau needs to be held accountable for this continued culture of lawlessness, and the board should step in and require her to do an investigation of the whole unofficial adoption process. JSCEE does not seem to be acting in good faith.
downward spiral
-NW
Science Teacher
https://www.nsela.org/news
(Scroll down)
-South End Teacher
Another Title One Teacher
Just one perspective ... :)
I assume for my specific school and community, any 'dumbed down' or math-lacking science curriculum needs to always be added to and ramped up. Our jobs are never done, and for those who know how to adapt to their students and love this job, we keep going.
To south end - BS. You are not an actual Science Teacher. 1. Try spell check before you post next to improve your credibility as an actual educator. 2. Watching videos of science (if the computers and network are functioning) followed by watching a movie or doing homework for other classes is not science. Your trolling is subpar.
Pfft
In any case, focusing on my typos and grammar is only a way to distract from the point of my comment: that the curriculum adoption is moving science education forward in many SPS schools AND that this is being led by a person who has just been recognized as a national leader in science education.
South End Teacher
Worth noting that the offensive quote about teachers is from the School District's Science Program Manager Mary Margaret Welch.
“We need to help teachers understand the importance of this shift in practice and what it looks and feels like every day. For that, you need consistent professional learning—opportunities for teachers to have meaningful conversations with colleagues, under the direction of people who know what the shift looks like. I do have teachers come together to do sense-making themselves, but often it’s the blind leading the blind. We need resources provided by people who have a lot more time than classroom teachers. You can’t pull this off, or keep it up, without giving teachers a learning space.”—MaryMargaret Welch, science program manager for Seattle Public Schools
From this Amplify marketing whitepaper
http://s3.amazonaws.com/amplify-assets/pdf/science/AmplifyScience_NGSSLessonsLearnedGuide.pdf?
submissionGuid=8e79f025-cf7b-40fe-b153-b1bbfabb4e35
@South End Science Teacher
I followed the link you provided. That bogus award is from an organization which is sponsored by - guess who? - Amplify.
Looks like alot of backscratching going on.
The award description of Welch is pure puffery and fiction. It doesn't come close to matching the reality of her record in SPS and how she has treated teachers ("the blind leading the blind"!), parents, Board Directors and the SPS community.
"Ms. Welch’s clear explanations and advocacy to parents, Board members and the community is improving K-12 science education in all Seattle Schools. One example of her outstanding work is at the middle school level where Ms. Welch provided a 3-year professional development program for all middle school science teachers on implementation of NGSS with a lens on model-based instruction, embedding discourse strategies for sense-making, and 3D formative assessments funded by a Math-Science Partnership Grant."
Since when is it okay for a district employee who is overseeing a curriculum adoption to help market one of the contenders and accept awards from them?
Is that what "national leaders" do?
- Reject Amplify
These responses reveal an utter failure of leadership. If all curriculums need to grown and supplemented by teachers (and I agree with that), where were the mechanisms to support this during a so-called "pilot", when the holes in the curriculum would be most obvious, and most urgent to repair before next year's roll-out ?
This new physics "curriculum" at Ballard deliberately pushed aside a curriculum that I'd developed, over a 30 year career (and it pushed me out, too - I resigned in June after 32 years teaching, and walked away rather than teach under this regime). I worked on a neutrino detector at the South Pole. My students & I built experiments that flew aboard the Space Shuttle, a NASA high-altitude balloon, and NASA's zero-gravity airplane. All of these things found their way into my classroom. It was already a thematic, project-based approach . My students engineered clocks, rockets, trebuchets, musical instruments and cameras. During the 9 years I was at Ballard, physics enrollment grew from 2 and a half classes to 6.
So, that, pushed aside... for THIS?
Anybody in SPS who thinks there's a reasonable excuse for these student responses maybe ought to read them out loud, while imagining that's YOUR kid whose educational opportunity was pissed away.
Eric Muhs (ret)
National Board Certified Teacher
AAPT Washington State Physics Teacher of the Year 2013
@ South End Teacher, your clarification sounds carefully written... You said" the curriculum adoption is moving science education forward in many SPS schools." Would you acknowledge, then, that it may have moved science education BACKWARDS in many other SPS schools? If so, do you think that is ok? Does equity mean stifling the educational growth of some--intentionally limiting their learning in the name of "equity"? Is it ok for students to sit in classes with nothing to do, or working on things they could have done--or did do!--years ago?
If the official new SPS approach is going to be "we teach to the bottom; everyone else can just sit there and tune out for years until the others catch up," then parents and students need to be told--so they can shop around. There are plenty of schools and districts that are focused on helping students actually learn.
downward spiral
Silence of leadership denotes approval.
We’ve “heard” you loud and clear, and we’ll vote with our feet.
nn
many sizes
Thank you for service and for daylighting the real world consequences of this science adoption. The science adoption is actually the primary reason, why I was uncertain about whether next year's high school projections were accurate or not.
The district is projecting a greater than 15% decrease in high school enrollment. While in general the number should be ludicrous on its face, the science adoption has been so disruptive, that it makes such a severe enrollment drop, plausible.
If the science adoption is driving veteran and senior teachers, such as yourself, out of the district, it is also likely driving families to other options.
-Cynic
Without Public knowledge, or Board approval.
b. Ignoring numerous complaints about Amplify Science Curriculum from Middle School parents, students, and teachers.
c. Exporting student and teacher data from the District.
d. Insulting SPS Teachers ("blind leading the blind") while making positive marketing statements for Amplify Science.
This is Mary Margaret Welch, Science Director of the Seattle Public Schools.
Whose actions are facilitated by a School Board, which has failed in its basic oversight, and due diligence, duties.
Seattle School Board, what is the name of the "Anonymous Donor" who paid for Amplify Science, to be imposed in our Schools??!
Seattle Parent