Seattle Schools Community Forum

The big news is that the City of Seattle announced three new homeless encampments to be established in early 2017 and one of them is right by the Wilson-Pacific complex that will be home to Robert Eagle Staff Middle School, Licton Springs K-8 and Cascadia Elementary.  The location is 8620 Nesbit Avenue North and it will have up to 50 tiny homes, serving 60-70 people (Nesbit is one block east of Aurora.) The other new encampments are down in Georgetown and White Center.  (The one in White Center will also be near an elementary school but with enough distance that it's not the issue that Wilson-Pacific campus is.) I think we can all agree that the homeless crisis in Seattle is a major issue.  But I am shocked the City would choose a location in an area that is already problematic AND has so many school children nearby. As I previously reported, RESMS planning principal Marni Campbell announced at a community meeting this week that the City is giving the district $1M gr...

Update 2: it appears someone has either tried to hide the Holland donation to Jones or sent it back (AFTER this thread was posted) because it's no longer posted at the PDC.  Hmm. As well, look who else joined the party...Vulcan just kicked in $2,000. End of update  Update: A few interesting developments. 1) Remember those donors to Jones' campaign, Clyde and Rena Holland,who also gave money to Tim Eyman? Know who else they gave money to? Donald J. Trump for president (via the Puget Sound Business Journal.)  Now, Chris Reykdal got rounded criticized for mentioned Trump in a donor letter but apparently, he wasn't too far off the mark. 2) Once again, I am getting heat for reporting what a candidate said.  There are even a couple of people who think Senator Carlyle is not telling the truth.  You have to ask yourself, "Why would he lie?"  That Jones remains silent on this issue should tell you something.  I also note that I would have to wonder...

It's not entirely surprising to see this slippage happening in the ed reform world; indeed, with the deep and moneyed pockets they have, it's almost a surprise. But my theory is that they tend to believe that they 1) know all the answers and so 2) they exist in an echo chamber.  As I read my Twitter feed daily, I'm astonished at the same 10 subjects, rehashed and repackaged over and over. All of what I want to discuss in this thread will be leading to another thread on what the new "story" is for ed reform and it comes around "equity." Here's the latest news on this front.

Let's start with charters. You may recall the "yet another faux ed reform group" called Act Now for Washington Students .  This group is organized by the usual suspects - LEV, Stand for Children, DFER and the Washington State Charter Schools Association.  All these get money from the Gates Foundation. They have formed a PAC that hopes to raise (and presumably spend) $500,000 just for this legislative session to influence legislators on charter schools.  They have already spent $20K on 13 House members (each got $1,000) including Seattle's charter cheerleader, Eric Pettigrew.  This is in addition to the number of print and tv ads running.  It is not cheap to run a local ad during football Sunday. 

I may have mentioned it but to clarify, this "new" group, Act Now for Washington Students, is an astro-turf, Gates-funded group made up of DFER, League of Education Voters and Stand for Children.  You don't get more ed-form and Gates-guided than those three.

The Washington State chapter of Democrats for Education Reform has created a PAC and registered it with the Public Disclosure Commission.   Oh, and they dropped $100,000 into it. Will be interesting what (and who) they spend it on.

I was checking in at the DFER website to see if there was any statement walking back the one from the NY state director, bemoaning opt-outs and real estate values and I found none. But I did find this scathing commentary on opting out and it's from Nicole Brisbane, the director of the NY state DFER.  Apparently she can't help herself. Highlights: - they start with their title, by immediately drawing a line in the between them and teachers unions/"affluent parents" - The Opt-Out Movement; whose kids are really at stake? - What's interesting is they do say several nice things about teachers unions but then: In this case, they are trying to maintain a status quo that has been inherently unfair to low income and minority students. Yes, we are still using that tired old line of "status quo."  And again, I don't read/hear from virtually any teachers or parents who don't think some testing is necessary. -But the reason why this opt-out mo...

You can read the whole article at USA Today about the huge number of opt-outs in New York State.  But this gem of a quote from the state director of Democrats for Education Reform - one Nicole Brisbane - reveals the REAL issue about opt-outs: "Schools are one of the biggest differentiators of value in the suburbs," she said. "How valuable will a house be in Scarsdale when it isn't clear that Scarsdale schools are doing any better than the rest of Westchester or even the state? Opting out of tests only robs parents of that crucial data." You can't make this stuff up. For those of you who may not know, Scarsdale is a fairly upper-crust town in north of NYC.  The median income for a family there is about $290K. Interestingly, here's what one superintendent in Cold Spring, NU had to say: "Parents want to have a say in their child's education and this is one way they feel they can be heard," she said.

 A bit of dark place I find myself in.  Robin Williams , a giant talent who I saw twice live in San Francisco (and once in a little bookstore), killed himself.  Very sad. Then there's the essay by Joe Williams of DFER who says that "Suburbs Hold Key to Resolving Democratic Party's Tensions over School Choice." It's hard to know which is worse - the idea that the "school choice" is the REAL issue among Dems (hint: it's not).  Cue violins and wringing of hands - if only we could get the "huge swaths of black and Hispanic families" on the same page as " as the nation's soccer moms" where"no cul-de-sac left behind," why we'd all be singing Kumbaya, no? (Note to Mr. Williams, you may have missed the World Cup but those of us who watched and who know soccer as the world sport, know there are MILLIONS of black and Hispanic soccer moms.)   According to Bazaar magazine, we have "the Savior in Seattle....

You may recall I, along with other Dems, were not so happy to see what appeared to be a stripped-down public education plank in the Washington State Democrats platform. I heard from one of the members of the Platform Committee members, Andrew Villeneuve, on this topic recently. I wanted to let you know that this past weekend, the Washington State Democratic 2014 Convention was held in Spokane. The final Education language adopted by the Convention is here: http://www.wa-democrats.org/issues/education As you can see, it's quite substantive. The Platform Committee agreed that the original draft (which was produced by a subcommittee) was insufficient and worked hard to ensure we had a set of Education planks that we could be proud of. I wasn't present when the subcommittee responsible for Education came up with the original draft, so I can't speak to how we ended up with that language, but several of us were resolved that we needed to go back to the drawing board and write...

 Update: From KPLU comes news that the City Council has delayed their vote on the Pre-K plan, apparently because a separate referendum (I-107) will likely be on the ballot in November.  The Mayor had wanted his proposal to go on the ballot in 2015.  Councilman Burgess says it might loosen the city's control over the qualifications for teachers.  But the I-107 side says that with their initiative more of the existing teachers would get professional development while with the City's proposal there would be many fewer current preschool teachers eligible.  end of update. Again, like mom, apple pie and the flag, we can all like the idea of providing enriching activities to stimulate the brains of our Seattle toddlers.  Research has shown that kids with good preschool do better when they enter kindergarten. Over at the Seattle Education blog , Dora Taylor does an incredibly heavy lift over the question of what exactly is being promoted (and by who) for t...

One the benefits of being able to hang in there for a long time is watching - however long it takes - for what you believe to be false and unworthy to slowly loosen (or lose) its grip. I mean, we now have the Gates Foundation ((apparently) throwing about $100M away on inBloom.  I'm sure they are resourceful and have learned something so all is not lost but it's a good thing they have deep pockets. (Plus the $500k they just blew on ConnectEdu that just folded last Friday.) So here are the troubling items: DFER, charter school mismanagement and charter school waitlists.

United Opt-Out , a website that has state-by-state resources for parents on how to opt their children out of tests got hacked recently.  They say it was " maliciously hacked and destroyed in an act of political sabotage." Odd, no? I mean, it's not Target or any money-making entity where you could get credit card info.  It's information for public school parents.  And yet it didn't just get temporarily interrupted - it got destroyed. From Reclaim Reform : How much money is involved for investors in the highly lucrative fields of testing, online programming, training, publishing, vendor contracts, etc.? The latest estimates from a Bill Moyers interview with Diane Ravitch is about $500 billion annually. View/read HERE .  And, of course, there is the power in directing the course of public education.  I'm sure some ed reformers could not have that taken away from them.  On Common Core and popular support (which supporters insist is huge). ...

From the Gates Foundation website: LEV Foundation Date: October 2013 Purpose: to build capacity for a state-wide public charter school support organization in Washington State Amount: $4,200,000 Term: 24 Topic: College-Ready Regions Served: GLOBAL|NORTH AMERICA Program: United States Grantee Location: Seattle, Washington So let's review. Lisa Macfarlane co-founded the League of Education Voters.  She now works as the Washington State Director of DFER (Democrats for Education Reform).   (Their advisory committee membership is telling:  Chris Eide, Dan Grimm, Erin Kahn, Robin Lake, Steve Sundquist and Megan Wyatt.  It's kind of funny how these people all serve on each others' boards.) Chris Korsmo is CEO of LEV but also a Board member of the Washington State Charter Schools Association.  Mary Beth Lambert who is the press person for LEV is also the press person for the Washington State Charter Schools Assn....

You remember DFER, right? Democrats for Education Reform, a small outlier of Dems who love ed reform. Well, they valiantly trudge on, trying to seem relevant. I'm on their Twitter feed and I noticed an op-ed at their website authored by a young "progressive" Dem, a student at Harvard named Colin Diersing. He was decrying the education view of the winner of the Democrat race for mayor of NYC, Bill de Baliso, who has pretty much said he would roll back a lot of what Mayor Bloomberg has done for/against public education in NYC. With all the full-blown (and overblown) rhetoric that defines ed reformers, he goes on the attack: One Blogger's Progressive Case Against Bill de Blasio September 16, 2013 This piece was originally posted by the Harvard Political Review By Colin Diersing* I’m a progressive Democrat. I care about widening inequality, would like my government to more actively redistribute money from the very wealthy to the very poor, and find the racia...

Remember that column I linked to at the Washington Post written by the Dean of Education, Leslie T. Fenwick at Howard University?  She said: "Mayoral control, Teach for America, education management organizations and venture capital-funded charter schools have not garnered much grassroots support or enthusiasm among lower- and middle-income black parents whose children attend urban schools because these parents often view these schemes as uninformed by their community and disconnected from the best interest of their children. Indeed, mayoral control has been linked to an emerging pattern of closing and disinvesting in schools that serve black poor students and reopening them as charters operated by education management organizations and backed by venture capitalists. W hile mayoral control proposes to expand educational opportunities for black and poor students, more-often-than-not new schools are placed in upper-income, gentrifying white areas of town, while more ...

I am working on a series on Common Core (which is coming at you like a Japanese bullet train.)  But there are some pretty funny things happening so I just couldn't wait. Conservatives and Dem ed reformers and corporate ed reformers have been able to join hands and sing Kumbaya over charters, TFA, teacher evaluation, etc. But here comes Common Core and it all falls apart.  The conservatives loathe Common Core and have succeeded in spreading the word.  The GOP passed a resolution against it and conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation have lined up against it.  At least 10 of the 45 states that signed on to Common Core have introduced backpedalling legislation.  A few, like Virginia, are still holding out. It is absolutely fascinating to watch this thing unfold.  I knew that at some point conservatives would turn on ed reform and indeed they have (with a vengenance).  Their buddies, the Dem ed reformers, have, in turn, unleashed the dogs...

Man, did they ever.  From the LA Times : The clash over education had been building throughout the three-day convention, underscoring a larger debate taking place in education circles.  California Democrats on Sunday condemned efforts led by members of their own party to overhaul the nation's schools, arguing that groups such as StudentsFirst and Democrats for Education Reform are fronts for Republicans and corporate interests. Before delegates overwhelmingly passed a resolution excoriating the groups on the final day of the party's annual convention here, speakers urged them to focus on protecting students and teachers. "People can call themselves Democrats for Education Reform — it's a free country — but if your agenda is to shut teachers and school employees out of the political process and not lift a finger to prevent cuts in education, in my book you're not a reformer, you're not helping education, and you're sure not much of a Dem...

When Stand for Children came to town, I was contacted by a very nice woman who sat down with me to explain who they were and what they were doing.  I found it interesting but I also felt confused.  Were they working with parents or not?  I tried to get a bead on if they were trying to compete or compliment PTA.  It sounded good but vague.  One thing I do recall is her telling me they had a specific non-profit status so that they could lobby.  That should have told me something but I wished her luck and went on my way. Here's the thing; since 2009, Stand, both locally and nationally, changed their tune.  They suddenly morphed into a less-than-grassroots organization and into a lobbying behemoth.   Their motives, their tactics were on display when their founder, Jonah Edelman, went off in a videotape that was widely seen.  It was a huge embarrassment but that didn't slow Stand much. It is clear that Stand, StudentsFirst (Michelle Rhee...

Over at Publicola, they report that WEA president, Mary Lindquist, wrote an open letter based on what Nick Hanauer had to say about public education in the state of Washington. You can read the whole thing there but she says several things I find I can agree with her on: And yet, in a single email, he has managed to align himself with a politician who is antithetical to all of those progressive values. First, it must be clearly understood that it is the voters of Washington – not the WEA – that have rejected charter schools on three separate occasions in recent years.  Voters know that for charter schools to be imposed, advocates like Hanauer would need to poach funding from local neighborhood schools and districts. In the 2010 legislative session, WEA pushed the adoption of SB 6696. Now we are engaged in a collaborative process with districts across the state to pilot new evaluation systems. We see signs this system will make a real difference for students. We look f...