Seattle Schools Community Forum

Some irony in the story in the Times recently about teaching math in colleges/universities .  The story is about how a Central Washington professor, Dominic Klyve, has been given a grant (shared with six other higher ed institutions) to study using "primary sources" to help students grasp math concepts. What primary sources?  People like Euclid and Archimedes.  The idea is that students understand not just how to solve an equation but how the method to solve the problem was developed. I do like this "back to basics" idea (at least in trying to help students see math as a journey and not just a single endpoint of solving problems) but it's a bit of a clash with what K-12 students are learning via Common Core math.  My understanding of how Common Core math is taught does not match up with what this professor (and others) are trying to find out for how college students should be taught math.

I am absolutely amazed that people believe (a) there's nothing that can be done about privacy and (b) it's all for the good so why worry. We're adults and that's okay.  But kids?  How do they defend their privacy?  Right.  That's our job. I want to say in advance, people can take any kind of photo they want on their phone.  (But you might want to warn teenagers of the devastating outcomes if they do this. And trusting a friend/boyfriend/girlfriend is playing with fire in the teen years.) But understand, there are smart people who want data - of any kind - to use for their own purposes.  You are not wrong for taking a photo; you are wrong to believe there is security in any kind of devise that you have apps or data that uploads to any data cloud.   Here's the story of multiple celebs and their nude photos - taken on iPhones - and hacked out of the Apple"cloud."   Experts are looking at whether a flaw in Apple’s iPhone operating system...

Ramping up to the start of school, I hope to (finally) get several threads on student data privacy going.  I also hope to draft a template letter that I'm going to offer to parents to ask their school about any kind of signing up for online groups that a school asks students to do.   I don't know why the district would not think this important enough to even inform (no less ask permission from) parents about online services that their child signed up for and what information their child was asked to give away. Don't let anyone tell you that you do not have the right to ask - you do.   Education writer, Anthony Cody, has left Education Week and is writing his own blog, Living in Dialogue .  Anthony is a gifted thinker and his work is worthy reading.   He has guest bloggers on occasion and this piece by high school teacher, Mary Porter, is very good and very troubling.  Her thesis? Teachers must protect student agency and identity from the “templ...

Please go to this White House site and give the President your opinion on data privacy.  There is a message from John Podesta, who is aide and counselor to the President, in a short video where he states that he is the Chair of the "Big Data and Privacy Working Group" at the White House. Here are the two big questions that are being asked by the White House: 1) Which technologies or use of data is most transforming in your day-to-day life? 2) Which technologies or use of data gives you pause? (Oddly, Mr. Podesta asks both questions but the survey doesn't.  Let them know what gives you pause.)  I'll simply say - again - that I believe over the next 10 years, the new coin of the realm in our country, for both government and business, will be personal data.   (My other coin of the realm over the next 20+years? Water, not oil.) We , the people, should be directing where this line is, not Bill Gates or Arne Duncan (for public school children) and not ...

 I will be writing a thread about what I learned at the Work Session on data privacy yesterday.  Some is good, some not-so-good (with Director Carr asking the best questions).  But I can say that SPS has NOT done enough.  From Education Week : As part of a potentially explosive lawsuit making its way through federal court, giant online-services provider Google has acknowledged scanning the contents of millions of email messages sent and received by student users of the company’s Apps for Education tool suite for schools.  In the suit, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company also faces accusations from plaintiffs that it went further, crossing a “creepy line” by using information gleaned from the scans to build “surreptitious” profiles of Apps for Education users that could be used for such purposes as targeted advertising.  Gmail is a key feature of Google Apps for Education, which has 30 million users worldwide and is provided by the c...

My predictions for the new coin of the realm for the next 25 years for both business and government?  Data and lots of it .  And now, we have "digital data backpacks" so that your child's data can be "carried" around AND made use of anywhere your child goes.  From The Atlantic (with the what-should-be-troubling-to-you title, Your High School Transcript Could Haunt You Forever , the story of how what seems to be help - remedial classes in college - could follow you around.  What if the data collected by the software never disappeared and the fact that one had needed to take remedial classes became part of a student’s permanent record, accessible decades later?  What if the data collected by the software never disappeared and the fact that one had needed to take remedial classes became part of a student’s permanent record, accessible decades later?   Some educational reformers advocate for “digital backpacks” that would have students car...

I learned of this yesterday but was waiting.  KUOW has done a good job showing the issues around student data privacy. To note: - To be clear, SPS did NOT know this was happening and was not asked. - No data has been released as of today. - OSPI said the data it planned to give the Times is not available through a public records request. From the KUOW story: KUOW obtained a copy of the two-year agreement between the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction and The Seattle Times, signed last month, which authorizes eight Times journalists to work with, but not publish, confidential student and staff information, including names and Social Security numbers.   "Wow," said Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Jose Banda. "I wasn't aware of [this agreement], and I don’t think any of my staff was aware that this was being considered and approved." "This is really disconcerting for us, because we've been assuring families ...

The agenda for the Board's Operations Committee meeting was finally posted yesterday and now, updated today.  I'm hoping to see the new Board members there as this is the last committee meeting for the year and a good way to get up-to-speed.  What will they be talking about? a c ontract modification for a company called Brainbox Consulting .* 2014-2015 Transportation Service Standards .  This could be important as the Work Session yesterday on the budget had some wording on transportation and grandfathering in their presentation that I didn't understand.  (I was unable to attend the Work Session and am only working off what was in the presentation.)   Annual Capacity Management 2014-2015 - moved from being an update to an action report newly added - High School Target Enrollments from Tracy Libros and, as an update, the bell times survey *Their Linked-in page says:  Brainbox Consulting is a Seattle-based business intelligence consulting f...

Sorry to be blunt but NOW is the time to pay attention to what is coming. There's a front-page story in the NY Times today on this issue.  I, along with several other activists, have several irons in the fire on this issue. I tell you - as parents - this should be the SINGLE issue to most concern you.    Why? There is NO ONE but you to protect your child's data.   Truly. Your child cannot just be another data point (or a brick in the wall) for any number of "researchers" or data collectors.  Where is the proof that more data makes better academic outcomes?  If you have been a parent for longer than a minute, you know that children and learning is a complex issue.  You, as a parent, know your child better than anyone and yet can you say, with complete accuracy, what is the best way for your child to learn?  In 3rd grade?  7th grade?  10 grade? Well, having 100 data points and throwing it at the wall and seeing what sticks is...