Seattle Schools Community Forum

I really enjoy reading Frederick Hess' writing on education issues.  On the face of it, I didn't that could be true as he works for the American Enterprise Institute, a right-wing think-tank.  He just happens to be someone who leans right for sure but is a rational, honest thinker and bravo to that.  He'll call everyone out if he thinks what they are doing in public education does not make sense. From the Daily News, his recent piece , "What to Make of the Testing Opt-Out Tsunami."   (I'll note that he is talking about New York state but the fact that it spread throughout the country - especially for first-year states like ours - says a lot as well.) His last two paragraphs are good examples of clear thinking about what it all means. In many ways, the anti-testing backlash is just more collateral damage brought by the headlong rush to adopt the Common Core standards across the nation. Frustrated parents have fought back in the ways they can, and...

Update: now it's SBAC.  Nevada, Montana and North Dakota have shut down testing because of a "computer glitch." From Diane Ravitch's blog: Yes, you read that right. The vendor of the Smarter Balanced Assessment was not prepared for the number of tests that the server had to deliver, and the system broke down in three states. According to the Nevada Department of Education, a spike in students taking the Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBAC) this morning in Nevada, Montana and North Dakota exceeded the data capacity of Measured Progress, a third-party vendor contracted by the states to provide the test. All testing in the three states has been stopped until Measured Progress can increase its data capacity, according to an email sent to state superintendents today by state deputy superintendent Steve Canavero. Think about it. The vendor didn’t know that so many students would be taking tests at the same time. What were they thinking? Seriously? Is an...

I'm behind on my threads about work sessions and meetings so in playing catch up, I'm going to combine two alike topics.  (The Families and Education Work Session, however, was a combo with two other disparate topics but I will circle back as there is definitely a feeling of a consolidation of power that may signal a speeding up of, well, someone's agenda for public education in Seattle.)

From the "there goes that idea" - Expedia is moving its corporate headquarters  to the Amgen campus .  Several readers had thought that might be an ideal spot to share space with a business and an SPS high school.  (This is considered a huge win for Seattle as Expedia is leaving Bellevue.)  Sen. Maralyn Chase (D) and Senate President Pro Tem Pam Roach (R) will lead a bipartisan press conference Thursday afternoon followed by an exposé of the Common Core educational standards adopted by the Legislature in 2011.

Update: totally related to this story - will SPS be able to give the SBAC as well as give Sped students the time they need to finish?  From Sped Special Ed listserv: Last night at the SPED PTSA meeting, the SPED Dept leadership said that SBACs cannot trump the law in regards to our students' SDI, that is, whatever the time crunch of SBACs, students' SDI still needs to be delivered per IEPs.   The SPED Dept leadership stated that they'd reached out to principals to ensure that master schedules are being created to ensure that no student's SDI lapses during the SBACs.  Teachers I've spoken with totally roll their eyes about this, that there is no way they can attend to SDI responsibilities fully while meeting students' needs on the SBACs. (Not to mention the kids who opt out. They need their SDI too.)  In any case, I think the bigger issue here is what is the info/comms plan for families on this matter -- did the SPED Dept indicate to buildings what the...

Too long AND very hard?  Tell your kid that the "average" kid won't be able to understand the test and do the whole thing in the time allotted?  (This is from the PARCC test but I wonder how different the SBAC is/) How does that really help a student and how do you think your child would feel?  I know my sons liked a challenge but I also know that they both would have rushed to finish, maybe even guessing answers because they would not have wanted to be thought of as "average." 

Join a discussion with southeast Seattle families and teachers Standardized Testing and “Opting Out”:  What are the impacts on our region’s diverse schools and students? Wednesday, March 25, 6:00-7:30 pm   Hillman City Collaboratory 5623 Rainier Avenue South Seattle, WA  Seattle 98118 Sponsored by parents from Dearborn Park, Hawthorne, Orca, Leschi, John Muir, Graham Hill, Concord and Beacon Hill Elementary Schools;  Families of Color Seattle ;  and  Seattle Opt Out Group

Vermont says no .  From the Vermont government website, an op-ed by a member of their Board of Education: On Tuesday, March 17, 2015, the Vermont State Board of Education unanimously voted to suspend the use of Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) scores for the 2014-2015 school year for the purpose of annual school evaluation determinations. These English Language Arts and Mathematics assessments were developed to measure student mastery of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), which were adopted in 2010. Until students' education has been guided by the new standards and schools have practiced administering and interpreting SBAC, the results will not support reliable and valid inferences about student performance and should not be used as the basis for any consequential purpose. Unless empirical studies confirm a sound relationship between performance on the SBAC and critical and valued life outcomes ("college and career-ready"), test res...

 Dear Staff, > Some of you have expressed concern about the administration of the Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBA). Concerns have included questions about the utility of the assessment, the instructional time lost due to testing and the likelihood of lower test scores. I encourage you to visit our newly developed Frequently Asked Questions< http://smarterbalanced.www.seattleschools.org/modules/cms/pages.phtml?pageid=324018& > on our district website.

The Superintendent - in his comments at last night's Board meeting - had very little to say about how it's going for SPS  and SBAC testing. But here's one man's dissection of the SBAC math from the GFBrandenburg's Blog (he's a retired math teacher).  The critique of SBAC math is from Steven Rasmussen from SR Education Associates.   Mr. Brandenburg breaks it down (as Mr. Rasmussen's writing is quite lengthy but very in-depth).  Here is the money quote: “…the Smarter Balanced tests are lemons. They fail to meet acceptable standards of quality and performance, especially with respect to their technology-enhanced items. They should be withdrawn from the market before they precipitate a national catastrophe.” As well as this one: Ironically, while poor results on the Common Core tests will be a blow to policy makers, parents, educators, and students, they will be a boon to those in education for a profit. 

It's hard to say what is going on but Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos appears to be taking a sharp turn to the ed reform side.  The newest evidence comes from the Seattle Education blog: Washington State Representative Santos was a primary sponsor for yet another nonsensical bill, House Bill 1121.  From the Washington State School Directors Association (WSSDA) Watch List ,  is the following description of the bill: Directs  the partnership to work with OSPI to  integrate financial ed into common core and career and college standards. Directs districts to offer a course students can take at school or home (meaning online) . Districts are encouraged to grant credit. Allows the partnership to seek federal and private funds (guess who from).

This just in - it's all about the Benjamins.  At least, it was to Governor Chris Christie about Common Core. In an interview at CPAC with conservative show host Laura Ingraham, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) acknowledged why many governors likely adopted the unproven Common Core standards were dangled before them by the Obama administration: He signed onto them because his state needed the federal funds that would come in exchange for adopting the unpopular education reform.

 Update:  I heard from one staff person who challenges some of the statements by Nyland: Nyland:  This year, the state is replacing the MSP/HSPE assessments with a new assessment called Smarter Balanced, which is aligned to our new College and Career Readiness Standards (Common Core). Staffer: The Smarter Balanced Assessments are NOT replacements for the MSP/HSPE. The HSPE was only required once in High School, at the 10th grade, and only in literacy. The Smarter Balanced Assessments are for more subjects and in more grades. The claim that the Smarter Balanced Assessments are a replacement is ill-informed at best and an intentional deception at worst.  Nyland: A s a tool for educators, Smarter Balanced Assessments are an improvement.  They are designed to better measure student growth from year to year.  They are adaptive to students' skill level and will adjust questions (easier/harder) based upon previous answers, an approach that...

From a school counselor in Oregon:

The Nathan Hale Senate (effectively their BLT) voted "nearly unanimously" to not give the SBAC to their juniors this year.  (They had also recently voted to not give the PSAT to 10th graders at all.) The Nathan Hale Senate–a body made up of the teachers, administrators, parents and students–voted nearly unanimously that this test was inappropriate. The vote was taken after careful consideration and much discussion and inquiry, including two school community forums — one of which included University of Washington professor of education and renowned scholar on high-stakes testing, Wayne Au.) Reasons for refusing the SBAC for 11th graders included (summary):

The Times has an article about Common Core and why it's no big deal in Washington State. (The article is not in their education blog and I truly get mixed up about the difference between their ed blog stories and their education section stories. But I digress.) They ask a bunch of the usual suspects about CC but they don't do two big things. 1) They don't really explain why there is so much pushback throughout the country.  2) They don't have a SINGLE person with a quote on why they don't like it.  Almost as if they don't exist in our state.  (You can Google - Washington State Common Core - and guess what you find?  Stop Common Core in Washington State . )

 Required Reading Did you know that there is a move among conservatives to suggest that public schools should not exist?   There is and MSNBC has a good article about this issue.  One place it came up is at FOX News in a discussion over Oklahoma wanting to get rid of AP History. The Fox host said , “There really shouldn’t be public schools, should there?  I mean we should really go to a system where parents of every stripe have a choice, have a say in the kind of education their kids get because, when we have centralized, bureaucratic education doctrines and dogmas like this, that’s exactly what happens.”

KOMO tv is reporting this: A disturbing trend has been identified in Seattle public schools, where marijuana now makes up most of the disciplinary actions involving students. Between the start of the school year and Jan. 7, marijuana made up 77 percent of all disciplinary actions taken against students, district officials said. That's a big number.  What seems to be the issue? Lately, school officials have faced a new threat: Marijuana edibles dressed up as sugary treats. Everything from pot-infused caramels to drug-laced lemonade has been confiscated. That's in addition to the pipes and joints collected. The article doesn't explain how/why KOMO came across this news.  I'll have to ask the district. Reader Mary G said this: If this is true, this is a stunning statistic, but how would one know? The district has been unable to produce any reliable statistics for the last two years, and certainly not any resembling real time statistics...

The Seattle Times, like Crosscut, has redesigned itself (well, not in editorial writing so don't get your hopes up).  Both redesigns - to my eye - are not good.  Busy and hard to follow the categories.  The Times does have a good overview article from the AP about the opt-out movement. — Thousands of Colorado high school seniors walked out on new state-mandated science and social studies tests last fall. — An Ohio middle school teacher published a letter calling state officials “bullies” for printing a pamphlet that warned of wide-ranging consequences if students sit out exams. — At least 93 students at a single Philadelphia middle school are declining upcoming tests in a city that saw only 20 students districtwide sit out the exams last year. The Washington Post's Answer Sheet also has a great article from a high profile principal, Carol Buris, on what is really happening in American public education. - Backlash against Common Core - Pain but no gain ...

Roosevelt and Garfield jazz bands both made it into the Essentially Ellington competition in NYC...again.  Congrats to both programs. And because I love high school newspapers - news from the Rainier Beac h student newspaper, Viking Shield. I received a press release today from the district announcing that  Kareem Abdul-Jabbar will visit Sanislo Elementary's  3 rd -5 th graders  tomorrow .   From the press release: