Seattle Schools Community Forum

Someone at OSPI has a sense of humor.  Their press release is called, "State Test Scores in a Waiverless World."  Seattle's Test scores   I have to say that those 10th grade scores are looking pretty good for reading and writing: Reading: 81.2%, Writing 84.5% Math and Science EOC - looks they are holding steady at about 61-64%, not great. From the press release:

From Ed Week and the NY Times comes word that Washington State, along with Wisconsin, have been granted waivers from some of the most "onerous conditions" of NCLB.  That brings the total number of states with waivers up to 26.   That's more than half the states and Andy Porter, the dean of U of Penn Graduate School of Education asks, " The more waivers there are, the less there really is a law, right?" From the Times: In exchange for the education waivers, schools and districts must promise to set new targets aimed at preparing students for colleges and careers. They must also tether evaluations of teachers and schools in part to student achievement on standardized tests. The administration said all schools would be required to show yearly improvement.  Instead of labeling all struggling schools as failing, the waivers direct states to focus most attention on the bottom 5 percent of low-performing schools. “With the waiver we can focus on thos...

I do want to write up a thread on No Child Left Behind.  The poor program is now in a bit of a netherworld limbo as Congress decides what the heck to do with it (they haven't reauthorized it since 2007).   In the meantime, Arne Duncan is preparing to allow states waivers from AYP (annual yearly progress) as many states would have whole districts that are completely failing under it.  According to Duncan, the law has encouraged states to lower their standards. For example, he said, congressional inaction allowed a state like Tennessee to delude itself into deeming 91 percent of its students as proficient in math. By applying higher standards, Duncan said, the state "raised the bar," and coped with the reality that only 34 percent of students were actually proficient by "college ready" standards. "In the meantime, states and districts will still have the opportunity to move forward," Duncan said. In the meantime, I'm having a contest.  What wo...

Been doing research and while I keep diving, the water is still murky. What have I learned? Yes, Ingraham is at Level 5 under NCLB.   Yes, Ingraham has not met AYP for 6 straight years.  BUT, Franklin and Ingraham have the exact same record for the past 6 years.   Three years at Level 5, then 4, 3, 2 after that.  Both have failed to make AYP for the last six years. (To note, the steadiest school in the district is The Center School which has only missed AYP once in the last six years and has never been higher than Level 1.) What is equally troubling is that there has been a steady decline, across the board at nearly every high school.  We have six high schools at Level 5. We had just one school in the last three years meeting AYP.  Just one in three years.  The decline starts around 2004-2005 and I have to wonder what happened that so many schools just started a downward trend. Back to Ingraham.  Thanks to several commenters (in...

Anyone who has ever read Oprah's O Magazine knows she has a column where she talks about an "ah ha" moment. So I have been pondering the Martin Floe issue and thinking that Ms. Dussault certainly isn't all powerful and Susan Enfield probably thought long and hard about this.  So I went back and looked through some other data (and talked to some trusted sources).  I believe I now understand the reasoning behind this firing but I think the district has a fight on its hands, nonetheless. Simply put, Ingraham is in Level 5 of AYP.