Seattle Schools Community Forum

Via Mirmac 1, there is this public disclosure e-mail that is quite telling but of no surprise to anyone who reads this blog.  We asked these questions from the start.  From the e-mail (italics Dr. Ginsberg's, bold mine): 1) Whose interests are we serving and, related to this questions, how are we serving the interests of our most historically under-served K-12 students? 2) How are we serving the interests of TFA teachers? of our students and graduates who are working as instructors in the program? 3) How are we serving the effectiveness and morale of state-funded and fee-based funded full time CoE faculty when TFA instructors teach a class with as few as 2 students , while other CoE faculty are currently teaching unprecedented numbers of students.  (Some of our EDLPS colleagues are teaching 60 students in very complex disciplines .) 4) How are we serving the interests of the CoE when faculty have not had a chance to actively and collectively probe the implications an...

Once again the Seattle Times ventures an opinion on public education, Refocusing the Teacher-Quality Debate . Once again the Times acts as the mouthpiece for Education Reform in the least thoughtful way. The Times writes in support of changes in teacher education to replace much of the current regulation of those programs with, you guessed it, improvements in student test scores. The Department of Education proposes different measures focused on outcomes, including asking schools to report how many graduates of teacher-education programs fill shortage positions, such as teaching math in high-poverty schools; how satisfied school principals are with their preparation and how much the graduates, once in the classroom, improved student learning based on test scores. So now increased test scores will not only reflect on each teacher as an individual, but will also reflect on the school that awarded that teacher his or her degree in education. Student test scores are the only thing that m...

From the Grand Rapids, Michigan Press, comes a story about Arne Duncan and what he thinks should happen for teachers and teacher training: U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan says teachers should be paid between $60,000 to $150,000 – but should be held more accountable. Duncan also told the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards last week that it should be more difficult for prospective students to enter college teacher preparation programs. The latter sentence is part of a bigger discussion over whether colleges of education in this country do a good job of attracting good students and if they are training them properly.   Indeed, a big worry expressed among some UW COE faculty about bringing in TFA is that if the COE doesn't step up and do better they could be shut down.   Some of the UW COE faculty seem to think the TFA training may be the training of the future for teachers.  

There's a shortage of teachers at SPS , according to this report , that was attached to the UW's revised Form 2 A for their application for alternative certification for TFA. (Thanks to Stop TFA for this info.) Here's something else fun about it (from the Oompah's comment): I love the report, page 2 of Appendix B under the title "Teacher Vacancies". The opening sentence reads as follows: "In the 2009-10 school year, there were a total of 352 vacancies in Seattle Public Schools.(4)" And then footnote 4 reads as follows: 4. The 352 positions included 1.0 FTE as well as partial FTE positions; there were not 352 total FTE vacancies. So though "there were a total of 352 vacancies", in fact "there were not 352 total FTE vacancies." The way this report is set up looks as if it intends to show the reader that SPS needed 352 additional teachers to fill positions in the district. One must wonder who it was that r...

Crosscut published an article I wrote about the new partnership between the UW's College of Education and Teach for America.

I have to thank so many of you for your input.   You don't know how many times someone either reaches out to me at my Save Seattle Schools e-mail (sss.westbrook@gmail.com) or writes something here that sticks in my brain.  It's like a phantom itch; it doesn't matter how much you scratch, you can't make it go away. So I think I have figured out (and some of you probably as well) why TFA is so damn sure they'll be putting their recruits into SPS.   That Wendy Kopp doesn't even try to demur should tell you something.  (Janis Ortega, the regional TFA director, does the same thing in her e-mails to the Dean of the UW's College of Education.   Funny, he never asks her why she's so sure.) They are sure because I would bet money that the district has a quiet agreement (beyond the contract) about TFA.  Here's how it will work: As many of you have point out, there are many schools (not just a couple) that the district projects as under-enrolled....