Seattle Schools Community Forum

Fortune Magazine Fortune magazine has a special report that came out this week on Common Core - Business Gets Schooled. It provides a window into the thinking of big business and public education and folks, it is, by turns, sad and horrific.  This being Fortune, they kind of "tsk tsk" but more over the naviete of some (see Bill Gates) than what these titans of industry say about children and learning. Please - if you don't read the article, don't read my entire thread - scroll down to read what Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil has to say to you as parents about your children. (I'll highlight it in red.) What's equally fascinating is that any dissent mentioned in the article by ordinary folks gets the "blogger moms" attitude with a complete brush-off of what noted education experts have said about CC.  It's like all the dissenters are just the anonymous, ignorant and unwashed masses.  You know, the little people. They also chose to l...

Now what if there were NO Common Core standards being enacted?  Would he be quite so calm?  He was quite happy in 2013 when the scores went up and he crowed about how all eight states using CCSS showed improvement in at least one score with none declining.  Today? “Big change never happens overnight,” Duncan said. “I’m confident that over the next decade, if we stay committed to this change, we will see historic improvements.”

Update: just missed my e-mail letting me know that SPS has just released its "Facility Condition Assessment Report for 2014."   This should make for interesting reading.   The district will engage the community over the next 13 months and ask for input and feedback with regard to projects to be included in the BTA IV capital levy. I know something - don't use it like BEX to build/renovate (like $100M downtown high school and $53M to renovate the Federal Reserve building.)  If those are on there, I'm voting no. Is there no end to the number of people in government who suddenly want to invest in early childhood programs?  It's almost as if they all got a memo.  Or something. The latest one is KC Executive Dow Constantine who plans to ask voters for a new levy for early childhood programs by next fall.  The Times reports that he calls it "Best Starts for Kids."  In yet another curious item, the PI's Joel Connelly, in reviewing the Mayor...

Polling.  Our country loves this stuff.  Naturally, for anyone who has taken a decent high school civics class (or sociology/poly sci course in college), we all know to take polling with a grain of salt.  Depends on who does it, who paid for it (not always the same) and, most of all, the shaping of the questions.  Nowhere is this more visible than in polling around Common Core.  The most hilarious part?  To this day, nearly half the country doesn't have a clue.  Still. 

NPR has been getting dollars (a la the Seattle Times) for education reporting from the Gates Foundation.  And boy, does it show in their Common Core reporting. First, their FAQs on Common Core read a lot like what comes from Gates.  Two, they even have one FAQ "fact" wrong which is that Oklahoma has a bill going thru its Legislature to walk away from CC.   The fact is that the bill passed both houses of their Legislature and has been sitting on their Governor's desk for about a week.  (She has the choice to sign it into law, wait until the time period to sign runs out and it automatically becomes law or veto it.)  This morning they had a piece on how most states are nowhere near ready for CC because the curriculum (books and teaching materials) are not ready.  (This is true but that's certainly not the only implementation problem.  What I find troubling is the subtle insertion of editorializing in these pieces.  I'm not sure I even min...

Such a question.   I looked into this question when I was asked to speak about public education before a group of young early-leader Dems.  If you go back to the start of our country's history (even before we were a nation), it was about intellectual thought.  Being able to read was the key factor.  (The other key factor in public education?  Local control but that's a subject for another day.) But, in the early days, it was for the landed gentry and their offspring.  But naturally, as we became a nation, we grew but public education still wasn't for everyone.  (Watch 12 Years a Slave and see the real and present danger of being enslaved and knowing how to read and write.  That said, I wish this film had been more like the book which had a much fuller picture of the hero and what he did AFTER he was able to get away.)  But business - ever wanting trained workers and that that meant those who could read and write - did want more "educ...

I will confess; I am NOT fully up-to-speed on this issue.  But I was reading over the minutes from the Board Work Session on CCSS that was held on October 19, 2011 and wanted to point out several issues around CCSS as well as what parents know or don't know. To note, some of the confusion is that we have Washington State Standards, SPS graduation requirements and CCSS and while there is overlap, I believe they all have differences.  What they are and what they mean to your child remains to be seen.   The following is straight from the minutes.