Another Puff Piece from the Seattle Times

 And yes, this article comes via the so-called "Education Lab" funded by the Gates Foundation.

Ostensibly the article is about how the targeted universalism program in SPS - known as the African American Male Achievement initiative - is doing. What does the Times do? Mostly focus on one SPS student who graduated from Cleveland High School and is interning at a construction company. 

 If you go to the SPS link above, you'll see there are three phases. The article doesn't say where SPS is in this effort which might have been a basic question to ask since this initiative started in 2019. If I had to guess, I'd say they are Phase 3 - Strategy Development.

What does the article say?

The district is also trying a new way of measuring progress, something SPS has never done before. 

However, measuring test scores remains a core indicator of success for the initiative. 

Since 2019, students have not met the district’s targets. (There is no data from 2020 and 2021 because standardized tests were canceled during the beginning of the pandemic.) 

Recently released test scores for the spring of 2022 show Black male students and students of color are still far off from where district officials hoped. But third grade reading scores did stay stable compared to 2019, SPS officials said, which shows there wasn’t a loss during online learning. 

Third grade reading levels stayed the same for Black boys or all students of color? It's unclear. And what IS that level? Not stated.

The Times gets kind of fuzzy:

The new scores show Black male seventh grade math scores are edging close to district goals, but students of color were dramatically below SPS targets. Black males who scored proficient or higher in spring 2022 were about 4 percentage points lower than the district’s projected goals. Students of color — who include Hispanic/Latino, American Indian/Alaskan Native, Southeast Asian, Middle Eastern and North African, Native Hawaiian/other Pacific Islander, Black/African American, and multiracial students — were about 25 percentage points below the target. 

Wait, what? Black male students were 4% lower than the district's projected goals? Is that goal just for black male students? It's unclear. Then you get this whopper of a statement that all other students of color were 25% below "the target?" And is that boys and girls? 

I find it hard to believe - without these answers - that an editor actually participated in the shaping of this story.

Again, wait, what?

To help bring up these scores, Seattle Public Schools has implemented new math and reading curricula at 13 schools that have students of color as majorities. Before the change, the district didn’t have a standard reading or math curriculum — educators decided how to teach these courses, usually drawing on what they learned in teacher prep classes and how they were taught in school. 

That is nuts. Of course SPS has had new curriculum, including math. This makes it sound like there are no standards (there are at a state and district level) and, that teachers are just creating curriculum themselves.  This is NOT true.

The story also includes info on climate surveys of these studies which seem to indicate that Black boys like what they are learning and believe in their abilities. That's great news but has it translated to better outcomes?

Some comments were interesting:

Every variable in education matters, but demographics are the driver. Parents are the demographics- focus on them and work with them. They are natural allies.

The more affluent a district is, the more likely its students will be successful academically. Within districts, the more affluent the school's service area is, the more likely its students will be academically successful. It's not a coincidence, and it's not the product of conspiracy.

One point made by several commenters was that it appears SPS is now splitting out types of Asian students with SE Asian students part of the students of color groups but not students of other Asian backgrounds (China, Taiwan, HK, Japan, India, etc.).