Seattle Schools Community Forum

Rainier Beach is one of three comprehensive high schools to not have a complete renovation. Chief Sealth has had major work done and got some of it via the fallout of them having to share a campus with Denny.  Ingraham is the other but Ingraham has also had major work done and has been on every single BEX and BTA.   Rainier Beach got a performing arts hall (but no performing arts curriculum or program so it sat, mostly unused for years) and had some building area upgrades but not much else. According to the Times, the Rainier Beach community isn't going to wait for the district to make their building better.  They would like to make it the greenest high school in the state.  The story in the Times . T he community’s aspirations were announced Tuesday at a news conference where Mayor Mike McGinn and Denis Hayes, president of the Bullitt Foundation, expressed their support, albeit not the financial kind.  The Bullitt Foundation doesn’t fund capita...

Grab a soothing drink (or set that VCR or DVR) because this is going to be good - Frontline is showing a special on Michelle Rhee.  It will be on KCTS 9 at 10 pm Tuesday night.  Rhee, the poster girl for all that is wrong in public education reform today, has had this discussion long coming.  Given Frontline's hard-hitting reporting, I'm sure they will be thorough and frank.  Coincidentally, Rhee just released a report card of sorts, through her "group" StudentsFirst on how states are doing.  Diane Ravitch calls her out on it here . This comes on the heels of a number of staffers at StudentsFirst, all Democrats, who abruptly left the organization recently.  From the Huffington Post: "There were known to be some significant differences on political strategy and policy matters, especially in StudentsFirst's approach toward unions and partisanship," said a source close to the education reform community who declined to be named in order to pre...