Seattle Schools Community Forum

It used to be that you could give CPRE a little credit for caring about other education issues than just charters schools.  It would appear that time has passed.  I'm on their listserv and if you go just by that, it's all charters, all the time.  What is worrying is that if they feel this way about charter schools in other states, I can't wait to see what they think should happen in Washington State. For example, you may have heard that newly-elected NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio came into office with a willingness to stop giving favors to charters in NYC and quit forced co-locations.  This has turned in to quite the epic battle with one charter operator (and quite a big mover and shaker in NYC), closing her schools and requiring parents and students to march in a rally.  (Try closing a real public school for this kind of thing - not going to happen.) The issue really was that the former mayor was not charging state-mandated rents to charters and the new mayor ...

After the flurry of activity around charter approval/denial last week by the Charter Commission, let's take a step back. First, a great piece of work by Professor Wayne Au, at UW's education program in Bothell, and Joseph J. Ferrare, a researcher at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research at UWisconsin/Madison.  Valerie Strauss covered it at her blog at the Washington Post, The Answer Sheet.  The PDC chart about who funded Yes on 1240 pretty much says it all. From The Answer Sheet: Washington state voters who had  rejected  the opening of  public charter schools   in 1996, 2000 and 2004,  passed the ballot initiative in November 2012 by about 1 percentage point after some billionaires and their foundations donated a total of more than $10 million to support it. Gates donated more than $3 million. The researchers found that of the  $10.9 million raised for the Yes On 1240 campaign, $10.65 million  of it, or almost 98 p...

Fascinating reading provided via the Center on Reinventing Public Education (our local ed reform think tank).  They are recommending the list "top eight books that schools reformers should read" from Dropout Nation.  Boy, are there some interesting picks. One is I Got Schooled by none other than "I see dead people" director, M. Night Shymalan.  Here's what Dropout Nation says: Written as a travelogue of sorts about his six-year exploration of education policy issues, the director of The Sixth Sense manages to do in a mere 249 pages what most think tankers fail to do after thousands of pages: Quickly explain flaws in traditionalist thinking — including class-size reduction efforts — and outline five key steps (including giving power to principals to make hiring and firing decisions, and embracing the use of data) to transform education.  Really?  Just 249 pages and he has all the answers (and watch out CRPE because he apparently does that thinkin...

Los Angeles Superintendent John Deasy told his district's top leadership that he would be leaving in a few months.  He came from the Gates Foundation and is yet another Broad superintendent to get exited or who left a job.  He has been on the job since 2011.  Into this issue wades Robin Lake of the Center on Reinventing Public Education (basically a local think-tank for ed reform).  She lauds Deasy for leaving "a comfortable job at the Bill&Melinda Gates Foundation."  Then she goes all in: In nearly any other sector, a man like Deasy—who is able to articulate a strong vision of change and pursue it relentlessly—would be able to get people to follow him and accomplish most anything. But this was LAUSD, where for decades strong leaders were eaten alive by the politics of race and unions and poverty and rampant district dysfunction.  Note that ed reform jargon: dysfunction (again), politics of race and unions and poverty.  Then she expla...