Seattle Schools Community Forum

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.

Stories that have come across my computer over the last few weeks on a variety of issues. Arne Duncan - the things that Arne says. So first it was those "white suburban moms" thinking their children and their schools were really something.  He said opposition to Common Core came from "fringe" groups.  The Daily News says those against CC are "drunk with right-wing hysteria."  So moms are being hysterical and dramatic?  Almost sounds like a little sexism thrown in there to marginalize any female voice. Common Core   Pearson and Common Core The huge ed gorilla publisher in the room, Pearson, has a nonprofit wing, Pearson Charitable Foundation, which just agreed to pay over $7M to New York state after NY's attorney general determined they had created CC materials to generate money for the Pearson company.  And who figured into that determination?  The Gates Foundation.   (Pearson says it did nothing wrong but admits it could have been clearer ...

Second update:  a reply to inBloom's withdrawal from NY city parents who have been very in the thick of this fight. Yet the statement issued by inBloom’s CEO reeks of arrogance and condescension, and makes it clear that those in charge still have not learned any lessons from this debacle.   The fervent opposition to inBloom among parents throughout the country did not result from “misunderstandings”,   but inBloom‘s utter inability to provide a convincing rationale that would supercede the huge risks to student security and privacy involved. Contrary to the claims of Iwan Streichenberger and others,   InBloom was   not designed to protect student privacy but the opposite: to facilitate the sharing of children’s personal and very sensitive information with data-mining vendors,   with no attention paid to the need for parental notification or consent, and this is something that parents will not stand for.   In New York, the last state to pull ...

 Update: Finally! An thoughtful piece about why Common Core is failing (and likely will be weakened).  It's by Jay P. Greene at Education Next and he has it right.  Supporters of Common Core have made some of the same political mistakes that opponents of gay marriage did.  They figured if they could get the US Department of Education, DC-based organizations, and state school chiefs on board, they would have a direct and definitive victory.  And at first blush it looked like they had achieved it, with about 45 states committing to adopt the new set of standards and federally-sponsored standardized tests aligned to those standards.  Like opponents of gay marriage, the Common Core victory seemed so overwhelming that they hardly felt the need to engage in debates to defend it . But in the rush to a clear and total victory, supporters of Common Core failed to consider how the more than 10,000 school districts, more than 3 million teachers, ...

From Politico : "The American Federation of Teachers ended a five-year relationship with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation after rank-and-file union members expressed deep distrust of the foundation's approach to education reform. AFT President Randi Weingarten told Morning Education the union will no longer accept Gates money for its Innovation Fund, which was founded in 2009 and has received up to $1 million a year in Gates grants ever since. The Innovation Fund has sponsored AFT efforts to help teachers implement the Common Core standards - a Gates priority - among other initiatives. - Weingarten said she didn't believe Gates funding influenced the Innovation Fund's direction, but still had to sever the relationship. "I got convinced by the level of distrust I was seeing - not simply on Twitter, but in listening to members and local leaders - that it was important to find a way to replace Gates funding," she said. Weingarten plans to ask members t...

 Update:  I have received some new info - via the City - and either we have a case of Who's on First or SPS is not being forthcoming with all it knows about this student survey of teachers.  I have word that one school has been working on this - with Teachers United and possibly school staff as well as the Seattle Youth Commission - for almost two years.  I'll let you know all the details when I get them sorted out but I have to wonder whose survey it truly is going to be. End of update. I had a long conversation with Dr. Eric Anderson, head of Research, Evaluation and Assessment, who is in charge of the initiative for a separate student survey of teachers.  So let's get some basics out of the way: The survey has not been written but they will likely pivot off other student surveys out there (more on this below) Who will be part of this "work group" that will decide on the survey, which schools will pilot it and which students (grade level) will ta...

Surprise from a reader (and I agree) - a figure from a Danny Westneat column. Did this surprise anyone else? 2370 kids, about 5% of all of the students in Seattle Public Schools, are homeless ? I had no idea it was that many. From the Week in Geek :  The physics of the Winter Olympics.  Good piece to show to the kids as you watch some amazing athletes in action.   (Those kids on the snowboards give me a heart attack.)   Heads up on a coming trend in politics - more "school choice" meaning more charters and now the push for vouchers.  This from Non-Profit Quarterly . Most candidates for major local or state positions, particularly governor, scurry to charter schools to be seen as supportive of these vanguards of the school choice movement. Among Republican candidates for office, the message of charter school advocacy seems to be designed to resonate with voters frustrated with the purported inadequate performance of traditional public schools, even ...

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...

 From Stay Safe Online : Data Privacy Day is an international effort to empower and educate people to protect their privacy and control their digital footprint. Data Privacy Day began in the United States and Canada in January 2008 as an extension of the Data Protection Day celebration in Europe. Data Protection Day commemorates the January 28, 1981, signing of Convention 108, the first legally binding international treaty dealing with privacy and data protection. Data Privacy Day is now a celebration for everyone, observed annually on January 28.  Data flows freely in today's online world. Everyone - from home computer users to multinational corporations - needs to be aware of the personal data others have entrusted to them and remain vigilant and proactive about protecting it. Being a good online citizen means practicing conscientious data stewardship. Data Privacy Day is an effort to empower and educate people to protect their privacy, control t...

Items of interest: - the Charter Commission is going to have a phone-in meeting tomorrow, the 28th from 9 am to 10 am.  The agenda vaguely says " discussion of resolution process" and "bills currently under consideration."  Dial-in number is 800-245-9874, Access code 7784207. - the Charter Commission will have a regular meeting this Thursday the 29th, in Seattle, from 8:30 am to 5:50 pm at TAF Headquarters, Bethaday Community Learning Space, 605 SW 108th St.  Agenda This should be quite the meeting as the Commission will be announcing what charter applications have been approved (if any).  They seem to be expecting a crowded meeting as they will be putting in speaker spots by lottery (after sign-in).  (I'll have more to say about this public speaking process when I cover the charter applicant forums I attended.)

A reader asked a simple question - who are the ed reformers?  That's a more complicated question than it seems.  But let's break it down by who's who nationally, at the state level and in our city.  Let me just say that there are education bloggers out there who have done the lion's share of work to compile this information so credit goes to them.  The real top gun is, of course, the Gates Foundation .   Nearly every single ed reform flows from their money in one way or another.  They even help fund the also-wealthy Broad Foundation (another major player).  The third member of this trifecta would be Alice Walton of the Walton Foundation (but I think she gets her guidance from Gates).  (The Gates Foundation just got a brand-new CEO and most of her qualifications seem to be on the health-care end - at least that how the Times touted her - but she seems to have some background in education.  No matter - she's not going to be directing an...

I learned of this yesterday but was waiting.  KUOW has done a good job showing the issues around student data privacy. To note: - To be clear, SPS did NOT know this was happening and was not asked. - No data has been released as of today. - OSPI said the data it planned to give the Times is not available through a public records request. From the KUOW story: KUOW obtained a copy of the two-year agreement between the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction and The Seattle Times, signed last month, which authorizes eight Times journalists to work with, but not publish, confidential student and staff information, including names and Social Security numbers.   "Wow," said Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Jose Banda. "I wasn't aware of [this agreement], and I don’t think any of my staff was aware that this was being considered and approved." "This is really disconcerting for us, because we've been assuring families ...

The Times continues its march towards becoming less of a newspaper and more of an mouthpiece for ed reform. Folks, I have personally heard from a number of Times' editors/writers who continue to claim that there is a solid wall between editorial and reporting.  That may be true in some areas but that is not true for education reporting especially on ed reform.  What do they do? - they lean the reporting towards ed reform, doing things like only getting a comment from an ed reform person and not anyone directed associated with the opposition.  This has happened several times. - they mislead readers (see Lynne Varner saying that the Washington State Charter Schools Association will "review" the charter applications which would lead the average reader to believe the WSCSA will be the ones picking the winners.  They aren't - it's the Washington State Charter Commission (and the lone district authorizer, Spokane) who will decide but Varner doesn't mention t...

Whether it's ed reform or just plain old reform, there is praise to be given to anyone who speaks up for public education.  I have respect for even those with whom I disagree because public education matters. (I do have less respect for those in ed reform who do not want to have a dialog unless you agree to agree with them.  That's happened to me on charter schools.  I also have less respect for those who only want to tell one side of the story.  Tell me the WHOLE story and then we can agree to disagree but ed reformers, taking a cue from conservatives will never say, for example, that there are any significant concerns with charters.) The Times had a guest op-ed by Kimberly Lasher Mitchell last week entitled "There's no shame in being an education reformer."   It was better than most ed reform writing and that's to Ms. Mitchell's credit. I waited to write about this because I had submitted an op-ed that challenges some of her statements and was wai...

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...

It's true - when I want a smile or even a guffaw about Washington state public education, I go to the Times.  I can always be assured of some odd omission of facts, brevity of context or just a nudge to the ed reform side.  And that's just their reporting.  Better to say little to nothing about their editorial writing which is generally shallow and uninformed.  But now comes their Education Lab Blog (remember when they were advertising jobs for this)?  They are going to have no fewer than 5 reporters on this (so that's where Linda Shaw went) and an intern(?) manning their blog "to help foster constructive dialogue online and in-person."  Sounds a lot like what LEV used to do when they had blog (now gone) so you better be on your best behavior and play nice at the Times or they won't print your thoughts. (There's a Solutions Journalism Network they are to be affiliated with and their definitions about "reporting" are pretty funny.  So in ca...

From Ed Week , are lawmakers finally connecting the dots between the Gates Foundation and Common Core?   Do tell. In Michigan, here is what representative Tom McMillin had to say two days ago, in response to testimony from Chester Finn, of the Fordham Institute, which can be counted among the architects of test-driven reform. McMillin points out that Chester Finn's colleague at the Fordham Institute, Michael Petrilli, had stated that after Arne Duncan hired four Gates Foundation staffers to high level positions in the Department of Education, "the Gates Foundation's agenda has become the country's agenda in education."  Finn said he disagreed, however he acknowledged that " the Gates Foundation paid for the development of the Common Core standards. There's no disputing that."  McMillin responded: And they also paid $6 million to Fordham (Institute) and then you guys evaluate the Common Core standards and decide if they're a...

 We've heard from many parents who are unhappy about enrollment issues like waitlists.  My understanding is that the district was switching technology systems.  Reading the Queen Anne Elementary principal's blog, it would seem that the whole system has been down,  in one form or another. Principal Elliot's explains that on Back to School Night (an event they are having this week), parents would be able to learn their child's classroom assignment from the school secretary.  He then states that "our student information system is not functioning.   The old system was purchased by a new company and our district has had to transition to the new company, a formidable task.  Our tech department has been working very diligently and we hope to have the system up and running by early next week.  What this means is that we have not seen any new student changes at all for the summer and will not be able to make any necessary changes until the system is...

The fight is still on in many states over Common Core.  New wrinkles have emerged like all kinds of products "aligned" to Common Core and being pushed to states. First (and thanks to Dan Dempsy) is a YouTube video from Ben Swann on the issues around Common Core.   This is the best, most distilled down information on CC I have ever heard.  Recommended. Think CC isn't linked to DOE money?  I'll let Diane Ravitch tell you what happened to Georgia: A few days ago, Georgia announced that it was dropping out of PARCC, the Common Core testing consortium funded by the U.S. Department of Education. State officials said the state could not afford the technology or the cost. The U.S. Department of Education was swift to respond. It wrote Georgia to warn that it is withholding $10 million from the state’s Race to the Top funding . Maybe the timing was a coincidence. Maybe not.  The state says it needs more time to fix its educator evaluation system befo...

And you'd think he would know as he explains in this op-ed .  He doesn't just take on philanthropic giving and investing - he takes on capitalism.  (Bold mine) Early on in our philanthropic journey, my wife and I became aware of something I started to call Philanthropic Colonialism . I noticed that a donor had the urge to “save the day” in some fashion. People (including me) who had very little knowledge of a particular place would think that they could solve a local problem. Whether it involved farming methods, education practices, job training or business development, over and over I would hear people discuss transplanting what worked in one setting directly into another with little regard for culture, geography or societal norms.  Inside any important philanthropy meeting, you witness heads of state meeting with investment managers and corporate leaders. All are searching for answers with their right hand to problems that others in the room have created ...