Seattle Schools Community Forum

I mentioned - weeks ago - that I had wanted to do a round-up of charter schools and their outcomes in this country.  I am always amused when people say there's just a "handful" of stories being blown up.  Just not true. Here's we go. I don't know how anyone missed this one - a 1st grader in a big-chain charter school in NYC getting bullied by her teacher.  Before the teacher says anything, you should look at the posture and body language of those students.  It's caught on video by another teacher who was very concerned for this class.  Horrific.  The mother of was beyond upset and yet felt marginalized and ignored by the head of the charter system.  She pulled her daughter out.

And I'm speaking of ed reform walls that are looking like mud caves in Seattle.  - ALEC (the shadow group American Legislative Exchange Council) is losing its pow.  Who would have thought that a group so powerful - both in money and in legislative power - could be falling so fast.  But according to The Guardian story: The Guardian has learned that the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), which shapes and promotes legislation at state level across the US, has identified more than 40 lapsed corporate members it wants to attract back into the fold under a scheme referred to in its documents as the "Prodigal Son Project". The target firms include commercial giants such as Amazon, Coca-Cola , General Electric , Kraft , McDonald's and Walmart , all of which cut ties with the group following the furor over the killing of the unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida in February 2012. The Guardian has learned that by Alec's own reckoning th...

From Ed Week , are lawmakers finally connecting the dots between the Gates Foundation and Common Core?   Do tell. In Michigan, here is what representative Tom McMillin had to say two days ago, in response to testimony from Chester Finn, of the Fordham Institute, which can be counted among the architects of test-driven reform. McMillin points out that Chester Finn's colleague at the Fordham Institute, Michael Petrilli, had stated that after Arne Duncan hired four Gates Foundation staffers to high level positions in the Department of Education, "the Gates Foundation's agenda has become the country's agenda in education."  Finn said he disagreed, however he acknowledged that " the Gates Foundation paid for the development of the Common Core standards. There's no disputing that."  McMillin responded: And they also paid $6 million to Fordham (Institute) and then you guys evaluate the Common Core standards and decide if they're a...

A couple of interesting contributors to Stephan Blanford' s campaign - former Board member Nancy Waldman (ousted from office in the wake of the Olechefske financial scandal) and former Board member (and Seattle mover and shaker) Don Nielsen.    One oddity, though, is a contribution out of Indianapolis from the Eli Lilly company.  Why Eli Lilly is interested in a Seattle School Board campaign is a mystery. Interesting in keeping up with national education trends ?  Here's a link t o the top ed Twitter feeds.  Who's at the top?  Why it's a tie between Arne Duncan and Diane Ravitch. Americorps gets into the school turnaround action and I think I trust them far more than I would any business. Officials announced in July that $15 million would go to 13 organizations nationwide during the next three years to put more than 650 AmeriCorps members in schools. One of the funded projects that will help rural schools exclusively was Berea College...

I know that many believe that the drumbeat, the concern, the outrage over corporate ed reform is a few voices in a canary mine.  Or exaggerating.  Or those voices are conspiracy therorists. And yet the evidence is stacking up as I have documented.  Against TFA, against charters, and now, in one of the biggest exposes - corporate ed reform.   The good news is that this house of cards is sagging and will fall.  From the eagle eye of Washington Post writer of The Answer Sheet, Valerie Strauss, comes a story about thousands of public disclosure e-mails, across six states, that show quite a lot of linkage between corporate ed reform and making money off of it. The non-profit that did the public disclosure request and released the information is In the Public Interest.   The correspondence is available at: • Rhode Island: http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/node/2746 • Oklahoma: http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/node/2745 • New Mexico: http://...

I bookmark many education stories but wait until I have a mass and/or time to post them. First, up worry over teachers labeled " highly qualified" teaching Special Ed students.  This story comes from the Special Ed section at Ed Week. Earlier this year, the Senate merely left the door open to extending a provision that allows teachers still working on their certification to be considered "highly qualified"—a designation created by 2001's No Child Left Behind law. The law says teachers must already be certified to qualify, but Education Department regulations created about the law allowed for teachers in alternative routes to be considered highly qualified, even if they were still working on their certification. For example, people in the classroom as part of the Teach for America training program would fall into this category. The department's regulations on these alternative routes were set to expire, but as my colleague Alyson Klein explains over at ...

Well, there are still things to wonder at - it was WalMart.  From the Center for Media and Democracy: Wal-Mart , a member of ALEC's corporate "Private Enterprise" board and of the Public Safety and Elections Task Force that adopted Florida's "Stand Your Ground" as a "model" bill, announced yesterday that it is "suspending" its ALEC membership. Wal-Mart , a member of ALEC's corporate "Private Enterprise" board and of the Public Safety and Elections Task Force that adopted Florida's "Stand Your Ground" as a "model" bill, announced yesterday that it is "suspending" its ALEC membership. Color of Change, along with CMD, Common Cause, People for the American Way, and others are focusing now on asking State Farm, AT&T, and Johnson & Johnson to cut ties with ALEC . If you have State Farm insurance, encourage them to get out.   I'm with AT&T so I'm going to le...

Breaking news from our friends at the Stranger Slog. Protesters invaded Amazon's shareholder meeting in large numbers.   One key issue was Amazon's association with ALEC, the secretive group that uses money and legislators to enact their agenda. Goldy from the Slog reports that he got a text message saying Amazon has announced they are not renewing their membership in ALEC. Good move, Amazon.

To note; there is a rally outside the Seattle Art Museum this Thursday at 8:30 am where Amazon is having its annual shareholders meeting.  I had mentioned this previously as a way to let Amazon know it should get out of ALEC.  I have learned that this will be a fairly large rally as the Occupy Seattle folks will also be there.  If you are planning to attend, know it is likely to be large and noisy (as it should be).  What's on your mind?

When Stand for Children came to town, I was contacted by a very nice woman who sat down with me to explain who they were and what they were doing.  I found it interesting but I also felt confused.  Were they working with parents or not?  I tried to get a bead on if they were trying to compete or compliment PTA.  It sounded good but vague.  One thing I do recall is her telling me they had a specific non-profit status so that they could lobby.  That should have told me something but I wished her luck and went on my way. Here's the thing; since 2009, Stand, both locally and nationally, changed their tune.  They suddenly morphed into a less-than-grassroots organization and into a lobbying behemoth.   Their motives, their tactics were on display when their founder, Jonah Edelman, went off in a videotape that was widely seen.  It was a huge embarrassment but that didn't slow Stand much. It is clear that Stand, StudentsFirst (Michelle Rhee...

These are people who want our country to be shaped the way THEY want it.  They are either so full of money that it doesn't occur to them that they live in a democracy or they just wish to control the system from within.  At lot of this in-fighting within parties might be ended if we didn't have a two-party system.  I wish we had several more parties so that coalitions could be made.  I think most of us would feel part of something we truly believe in rather than lukewarm support we sometimes feel (and could not fathom supporting the other side). But we don't.  We are allowing our country to devolve into one where someone like Romney can honestly say he will run a clean campaign (but he's fine if others can do the dirty work during it).   Meaning, we have some PACS, some groups that are just going to grind everyone else into the ground, either through death by a thousand paper cuts (see: the teachers unions) or by the might of their money (see: cand...