Seattle Schools Community Forum

Tacoma School District's Nate Bowling was recently selected as Washington State's Teacher of the Year.  Mr. Bowling teaches at Tacoma's Lincoln High (which is a success story unto itself.)  He teaches AP Government & Politics and AP Human Geography.  He is one of four finalists for the National Teacher of the Year.  That award will be announced in April. 

I believe that this year is to be a pivotal one in public education - for our district, our state and nationally. I'll go in reverse order.

Want to understand where we are on McCleary?  Here's a good wrap-up from the Coalition to Protect our Public Schools.  Will the Supreme Court order the Legislature back into session?  I doubt it given there were so many extra sessions already.  I think the Supreme Court has seen what "action" looks like from the Legislature. No, I think the Court will probably act on one of the McCleary-requested actions (see below).   That will get the Legislature's attention.

First Place Scholars, Washington's first charter school, has gotten a one week reprieve for its need to show the Charter Commission that they are stable and on-track.  Multiple issues had been found by the Commission including services for Sped and ELL students. Interestingly, former WA state legislator Dawn Mason, who now heads FPS' Board, has taken a tough stance against the Charter Commission, saying that the fault lies with the Commission, not FPS.  Her thought pattern is that the CC allowed FPS to open too soon when they were not ready.  (This, of course, is somewhat puzzling considering FS had been open for two decades as a school.)  She says FPS was concerned and the CC is a late-comer to the issues at the school.  On April 5th she said this about the work to be done by FPS: That will of course mean they have to give us time to raise funds, test the new systems, stress test the structures, train our teachers to the measurement systems. That do...

From Publicola , the most recent Elway poll:  "Voters "aren't having" the fact that both the Democratic and Republican proposals don't fully fund I-1351, last year's $1.4 billion (when you account for the overlap with the McCleary mandate) smaller class size initiative . The poll also found that 48 percent of voters (versus 43 percent) would take a second vote on the initiative with a funding source—and 60 percent of those people would vote yes. No specific tax proposal got polled, though."

The Senate GOP put out its budget and it's not good.  As if to not only sneer at 1351 (they have been saying all along they had no money to enact this voter-approved measure to lower class sizes), they actually increase class size.

From Class Size Counts WA:

The Times starts off the year with their "headlines we'd like to see" contest.  Funny thing, their editorial doesn't even give the top reader winners' headlines but only the ones the Times wants to see.  (None of were about public education except for "No U.S. school shootings in 2015 " which won first place.) The Times calls their own headlines "wishful thinking" and they certainly are. Hey, look at that - four of them are about public education. 

The Taliban stormed a school in Pakistan today and killed about 140 people, the majority children.  Is there really a special place in heaven for "martyrs?"  Then the corollary must also be true - there's a special place in hell for those who kill children.  We learn the fate of First Place charter school today since the Charter Commission rejected their corrective plan.  Apparently, there will now be negotiations over what needs to be done to keep it open.  It would seem that if this is happening this early on, that perhaps the school was opened too quickly.  Governor Inslee announced his plan for K-12 public education funding during the next legislative session.  He gave the "what" - $2.3B - but not the "where" as in, where to get the money (that comes on Thursday).  He wants: paying for full-day K (by 2016-2017) smaller class size in K-3 (by 2016-2017) increase basic education funding to cover school operations raises for teacher...

Yes, I will have a separate thread on the data breach that apparently happened at a law firm that was handling a Special Education case for the district.   Community meetings tomorrow: Director Blanford, 10am-11:30 am at Douglass Truth Branch Library Director Martin-Morris, 10 am-noon at NE Library branch News about SPS:

Update : West Seattle meeting with Senator Sharon Nelson West Seattle Blog ‏ @ westseattleblog 15m 15 minutes ago Nelson says she expects the Republicans to ask that i-1351 be suspended. # waleg @ 34dems end of update Passage of ballot outcomes according to Seattle Schools: 1B for Preschool: Yay! Great! Thanks Seattle voters. 1351 for Lower Class Sizes : Not so much. From Interim Superintendent Larry Nyland: It is too soon to know exactly how I-1351 will impact Seattle Public Schools in the wake of the Supreme Court McCleary ruling and actions anticipated during this Legislative session. Class size is one of the top four priorities of the McCleary ruling and long overdue since Washington’s class sizes rank among the highest in the nation. If fully funded by the legislature, the initiative would have a significant impact on staffing and building facilities. That will put pressure on Seattle...

Threads to come - what's the issue w/enrollment counts (and Garfield fights on) - testing opt-outs across the country - recess - not just a problem in Seattle I'll be seeing some legislators today and hope to get their take on the passage of 1351 plus McCleary in the upcoming legislative session. Great article from The Atlantic :  High School Graduation Rates Hit All Time High.   Last year, 86 percent of students took home high school diplomas, while only 7 percent dropped out — down from 13 percent two decades ago, according to Census Bureau data . The national average reflects improvements across all demographics but is boosted by significant gains among black and especially Latino high-schoolers.   Want to see what some of the Smarter Balanced testing for 3rd graders looks like?  This morning, parents and teachers in the Portland Public Schools district are buzzing about one detail of a third grade practice test  that's available ...

I'm going to call it a winner as well (the 1351 campaign already did). Yes - 989,754 No  - 962,794             26,960 Yes - 50.69% No  - 49.31% The gap is only widening (No has never caught up again since Election night).  The last drop of ballots at 6:02 pm was King County which is at nearly 55% in favor with 88K left.  No other county has near the ballots although, oddly, Spokane was supposed to have a new count at 5 pm and did not (they have 13,500 ballots).

Update :  the I-1351 campaign has declared victory. My latest tweet:   Yes to lower class sizes in WA continues its winning ways, up 18K votes. Biggest counties trend Yes; should be able to call by Monday eve. After today's ballot drops, Yes on 1351 is up by 18,205 votes (nearly 1%).   Pierce County had 9,000 ballots - they are down to 1500 (at 51.65% Yes) King had 121,000 ballots - they are down to 88,000 (at 54% Yes) Snohomish had 58,000 ballots - they are down to 27,000 (at 50.5% Yes) Spokane has 13,500 ballots outstanding (at 50.23% Yes) So while some counties are just hanging in there, King has, by far, the largest number of ballots and they continue to trend Yes. Biggest approval?  Jefferson County with 60%. Lowest approval?  Colombia County with nearly 65%. I readily admit that, like other measures, voters may have been confused by this measure.  But again, if we all agree to vote Yes to everything for kids, then we will have a ver...

I've been tracking I-1351 for most of the day.  At 2 pm, they were neck and neck with Yes- 50.07% and No-49.93%.  But as the vote totals go up - Yes had about 7500 more votes at 4 pm, then up 9,000 votes by 5:30 pm and at the last vote count, Yes had over 11,000 votes and has its biggest percentage lead at ....64%.  King County still has 121,000 votes left to count, Snohomish has 58,000, Spokane has 13,000 and Pierce has 9,000. King is solidly yes but Snohomish and Spokane are barely yes. But the trend is to the Yes side.  For me, this is very reminiscent of watching the vote counts for 1240, the charter school initiative.*  Except that, day after day, the trend never changed.  This one is changing.  As I mentioned elsewhere, the Times had not one but two whiny editorials today (and truly, there is no other way to describe them).

Update 8:25 am The Times is whining that Governor Inslee didn't "lead" by revealing his own vote against 1351. As governor, he should have expressed his concerns with the initiative and let voters know where he stood so they could follow his example. Now, the initiative might require a recount and, if it does pass, it could suck up lawmakers’ time and resources from other matters, and it might not ever be fully implemented. Inslee might have wanted to let voters make up their own minds, but that’s no excuse for sitting back and not doing what voters expect him to do: lead. Since when is ANYONE supposed to reveal their vote (even a Governor)?  I have to wonder if maybe he does support it but worried about the money so he voted no.  Whatever the reason, it's his vote. Next big ballot drop is 4:30 pm. Update 8:05 pm Yes continues upward climb over 4500 votes up with more votes to count. Update 7:40 pm Yes takes the lead...with about 125 votes.  However, K...

The Yes votes still trail as the gap goes from between .90% to .75%.  It's that close. Snohomish county had been barely Yes and now is barely No. Here's where we stand: - there are just over 501K ballots left to count - the three biggest counties have these number of ballots left: King, 130,742; Snohomish 99,000; Spokane 42,000 - Snohomish and Spokane have been extremely close in the votes with the No vote just edging Yes.  In King County, there has been a comfortable 53% lead. So certainly, it is possible 1351 could pull it out. But the trending, like in the charter school vote, is not going towards Yes so I suspect it may be just a very close No. This is another WEA loss (despite those poll numbers just weeks ago).  I was asked about why I thought this measure is as close as it is with those poll numbers showing a comfortable lead.  I didn't see how the questions were phrased in the poll but I suspect that people "like" the idea of lower class size...

Election Update : 1351 is still failing but has closed the gap by about 3,000 votes, 49.58% to No, 50.42% end of update 1B passed handily.  I was surprised at the "handily" part but Seattle folks are a generous bunch. I am going to be speaking at the Board meeting tonight and I may include a bit about what the passage of 1B will mean to SPS.  (I'd lay money a draft partnership agreement is coming very soon.)  But will agreement of that partnership come with a carrot or a stick?  I wonder if the money for the Federal Reserve building might materialize (via a group of businesses, maybe)?