Seattle Schools Community Forum

 Update:  it seems I'm not the only one who thinks that I-1351 + McCleary = the push needed to force the Legislature to make real change in revenue sources.  The somewhat to the left left, Budget & Policy Center, says this: Without an identified revenue source, I-1351 leaves it up to the legislature to determine how it will be funded. The sheer enormity of the gap between our resources and funding needs means that there is no escaping the need for new revenue. Funding I-1351 and meeting McCleary without additional revenues would be impractical. A cuts-only approach would decimate health care, child care, community colleges and universities, and other investments kids need in order to succeed in the classroom.  end of update. I hope that it has not missed anyone's attention that there is again an initiative to lower class sizes in Washington State. Our state's class size?  We are 47th out of 50th in the nation.  (Sadly, just like with McCleary, p...

Two good political reads today. First, from Publicola , the explanation of how we don't have enough money for McCleary but boy, do our legislators have enough money to continue tax breaks.  It's just ridiculous and wrong.  From their story(bold mine): Following up on a legislative session in which lawmakers fell $420 million short on funding specific line items to meet the Washington State Supreme Court's McCleary mandate to fund basic K-12 education, the Joint Legislative Audit Review Committee (JLARC), a bipartisan task force of legislators that evaluates the worthiness of tax breaks, signed off on more than $500 million in expenses that are vague and unclear. Why spend the full court-mandated $141.6 million on school buses, $597.1 million on materials, supplies, and operating costs, and $219.2 million on reduced class sizes, I guess, when you can give money away for ambiguous policy goals? (The most recent budget spends about $1 billion on K-12 rath...

In light of the on-going discussions about the teachers' contract, a request was made for a thread on class size. A couple of questions: - my experience, from this blog and time with children in school, is that class size matters.  I tell every politician that crosses my path that it matters to parents (no matter what Bill Gates or the research says).  I don't think there is anything selfish in that belief but anyone who parents realizes how difficult it is with 1,2,3, kids in your own home - how do teachers do it?  - Would you be okay with a larger class size if there was an aide in the classroom for extra helping during reading/math instruction?  It would still be a cost but less than having a full-time aide in every class.  (I note that a couple of the dual language schools, in asking for money for the IAs, touting the additional benefits of another adult in the classroom.) - Do you support the union view that if you give teachers over the maximum (in ...

Well, I did call it.  I knew Senator Tom wasn't the chicken crossing the road just to get to the other side. From Publicola : The big news: The budget takes back the $73 million in cuts to education that Republicans originally proposed and adds a charter schools amendment, authorizing 10 charters in chronically underperforming school districts. And maybe this was the thought all along.  Give back money to education in return for charters.  Keep in mind, the charters WILL cost money both to districts and to the state so it's not like all the money gets put back. It also repeals I-728 and I-732.  Wonder if LEV will say anything about that. Update:What I found is this section of the budget: $780,000 of the general fund--state appropriation for fiscal year 2013 is provided solely to implement Senate Bill No. 6202(establishing alternative forms of governance for certain public schools). The superintendent of public instruction will make funds available...

The LEV blog had an excellent article by Hannah Lidman about what I-0198 will do for education. She answers these questions: “What exactly does ‘education’ mean within the context of I-1098? Where would the money go exactly? Does it only go to K-12 and higher ed or does it cover early learning too? I learned that I-728 is known to Washington state government as the "student achievement fund." And she has a put a listing of what I-728 money can be used for (it seems like a lot of things and that's probably why so little seems to have gone to actually reducing class size).

In the latest Accountability Audit Report from the State Auditor, we find that yet AGAIN the district AND the Board are out of compliance. (I know some of you might think that could be the case with many districts but my understanding is that the district is far and away the number one district with these issues.) I didn't do a count but there were many instances where the audit states "in 2006", "2008", etc. that the district was told of compliance issues. So when and where does this big deal accountability come in for our district? Here is the opening of the audit which is sobering: Overarching Conclusion Our audit found the School Board and executive management must improve oversight of District operations. We noted several instances in which public assets were misappropriated or susceptible to misappropriation due to lack of effective policies, management’s failure to enforce existing policies and/or inadequately trained staff. The Board and District m...

This article about the teachers' strike in Kent was in this morning's Times. There are, as of 11:17 am about 357 comments after the online article. That is a huge number of comments and most are that the teachers are greedy and the teachers' union is the problem for every problem in education. The district did offer a raise over a couple of years but the teachers are also asking for smaller class sizes. Eighty-six percent of the teachers voted to strike. Classes in Kent are supposed to start on Monday. Kent is the 4th largest district in the state and their teachers have never gone on strike before. From the article: "Michael Imbruglio, a chemistry teacher at Kentlake High, said he saw 150 students each day this past school year, compared with about 90 the previous year, when he taught in the Federal Way School District." So I'd have to check but Federal Way is likely the same size as Kent; that is a lot more students to be handling in a day (although I ...