Seattle Schools Community Forum

 In the "grrrr" edition of Open Thread: In Jurupa Valley (a small city near Irvine, California), s chool officials apologized to parents of high school Sped students because, as part of a "functional skills program," the schools had them dig through trash for items that could be recycled for money.  The Superintendent carefully phrased his apology: “I personally apologize to any students who may have been humiliated,” but also said: Duchon said Tuesday that “this is standard curriculum” for the program’s students, who routinely collected recyclables such as cans and bottles. “Up to last week, there has not been one complaint,” he said. Gee, I wonder why students didn't feel they could stand up to their teachers over this nonsense. (It was discovered after complaints appeared on Facebook.) Their Sped ex director said it was a common project to teach life skills. Next, remember that HUGE planned iPad buy for Los Angeles Unified School District...

An article in the Seattle Times today troubled me deeply. Tough Talk (from the left) on race and Seattle Schools  described a recent meeting in Columbia City called “Race, Class and Education”. The meeting acknowledged the wide difference in academic performance between affluent White and Asian students and minority students from low-income homes. That fact is troubling in itself. The school district's refusal to address the gap is also troubling, but most troubling were the number of people who think the solution is to discontinue honors classes. You're going to have to read this thing for yourself, but I would like everyone to keep in mind, what Wayne Au apparently has forgotten: that equity and equality are not the same thing. Ending service for students working beyond grade level will not help students working below grade level.

 Update: First, still nothing about the charter applicants and the upcoming Charter Commission meeting.  Still odd. Second, there was an article this morning. about public school funding throughout the country that may give some insight into why our state legislature drags its feet on fully-funding education.  To whit: nearly all states doubled or tripled the amount of money spent on public schools from 1970 to 2010; but the growth has been uneven But the biggest per student spending has been in nine states, with seven of those in the NE Seven of ten states with the least growth in spending are - you guessed - in the West and yes, Washington State is one of them. Despite what Washington Policy Center wants to tell you (they regularly say that the average WA State student spending is about $12k), according to Ed Week, Washington State spending is about $9,497 (adjusted for inflation from the 1969-70 rate of $4,794).    The top six states spend ab...

Over at the Times, they had an end-of-the year wrap-up for their "Education Lab" adventure with the Gates Foundation.  They ask the question, "What else would you like to see Education Lab tackle in the coming year?" How about truthfulness about your venture? You would think a joint venture with OSPI accessing and using SPS student data to write stories would be a major story for them.  And yet, there was not a single story about it.  Again, almost like it isn't happening. It's very hard to take them seriously (and so I don't). Did I mention that yet another data security breech happened in our country?  That would be Snapchat which is particularly popular with teens.  Hackers posted over four million of its users phone numbers.  From the Mercury News: But pilfered phone numbers can cause broader problems. By combining them and usernames with databases of commonly used passwords or other information, experts warn, hackers can sometimes stea...