Seattle Schools Community Forum

The president-elect is now considering Michelle Rhee for Secretary of Education .  (I find it interesting his actually going to keep it open because hard-core conservatives want it gone but then again, public education was of little interest on the campaign trail.)  Ed reformers love this because Rhee is all things ed reform (TFA, charters, etc.)  But still I smile.  Conservatives had plenty to say about Hillary's baggage from her husband.  Well, Rhee has even worse baggage with her husband, Sacramento mayor, Kevin Johnson. One of the most moving first-person narratives I have ever read, Academia, Love Me Back , by grad student, Tiffany Martinez.

There have been a number of hugely important ed reform stories from around the country in the last couple of weeks.  But naturally, my focus was on the strike and the charter law ruling. Update: some good national stories about the Seattle strike: Washington Post The surprising things Seattle teachers won for students by striking   NY Educator   What Seattle had that we don't end of update Here's what has been happening in Florida and California. Two big stories out of Florida; one is about the Gates Foundation leaving one district holding the financial bag on a huge project, the other is about Florida superintendents' letter of no confidence in their state testing.

  Update:   Washington Post's guest post refuting claims Brown made to Stephen Colbert on his show.  Pretty interesting stuff. Move over, Michelle Rhee - here comes Campbell Brown. Did you hear about this? Rhee's star is waning. Her StudentsFirst group has closed up shop in about five states and the billion dollars she was hoping to raise didn't materialize. Well, nature abhors a vacuum and so we have former CNN anchor, Campbell Brown. This newest ed reformer on the block is going after the teachers union and, in specific, teacher tenure.  (But like the star-crossed coupling of Wendy Kopp of TFA married to Richard Barth of KIPP, Brown is married to Dan Senor who is on the board of the NY state StudentsFirst.) Let's pause here for a moment and all say together: Tenure for public school teachers is NOT the tenure of university professors. Teacher tenure basically guarantees due process for teachers so that they cannot be stripped of their jobs for things l...

First up, the most hilarious thing I have read in a long time is this innocent recipe for a rainbow cake with a number baked inside (see pictures).  Why is it great?  The comments.  Goes from an innocent question (with a somewhat snarky answer) to a troll to an all-out fight.  I laughed out loud and it reminded of how commenting can go off the rails. Next, a sobering piece on reform from the Huffington Post - Education Reform: a National Delusion by Steve Nelson. In the cacophony of reform chatter -- online programs, charter schools, vouchers, testing, more testing, accountability, Common Core, value-added assessments, blaming teachers, blaming tenure, blaming unions, blaming parents -- one can barely hear the children crying out: "Pay attention to us!" None of the things on the partial list above will have the slightest effect on the so-called achievement gap or the supposed decline in America's international education rankings. Every bit of educatio...

Michelle Rhee's group, Students First, has been trying to get more "likes" at Facebook.  Or rather, buying more "likes."  From Big Education Ape blog :  The most popular country for her Students First group is in Bangladesh?  Well, yes because... Search on Facebook for " We Sell Likes in Bangladesh ." You'll see that anyone can buy 1000 likes for about $15 bucks. (Click HERE to go buy likes or fake friends for yourself.) Click HERE to read an article that tells about the dishonest business of buying popularity on social media sites.  The most popular city for the Alabama Students First?  Istanbul, Turkey. 

Or, what does the fox say?  Bill Gates June 13th, 2012 A relatively tiny donation from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has created quite a stir over the past several days. News broke that Clemson U. had late last year obtained a nearly half million dollar grant from the foundation to conduct a pilot study with Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) bracelets, wireless sensors that track physiological reactions, in schools. The idea supposedly was that children would wear these biometric bracelets in classrooms to measure their engagement. What made this grant even more polarizing was the notion that the bracelets were in fact tools that would evaluate teachers’ effectiveness. So what are these bracelets for? According to the foundation, they are intended to “help students and teachers gain a better understanding of how and when students are most engaged in the classroom.”  Here's what the writer at Forbes had to say (and beware of wealthy people who will e...

From the New York Review of Books comes a comparison review of Diane Ravitch's new book, Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools and Michelle Rhee's book, Radical: Fighting to Put Students First .  (Ravitch's book just came out and is now #1 in sales at Amazon.  Ravitch will be speaking this week, Thursday the 26th, at UW's Kane Hall  from 7-8:30 p.m.)                             What is striking about this review comes almost at the end when the reviewer, Andrew Delbanco, gives them each a fair pro/con assessment. You would think it possible to take ideas from both sides and put them to work together. In order to agree that America’s schools ought to be better (Ravitch), we don’t have to believe that they are worse than ever (Rhee). We don’t have to think, as Rhee does, that “great” teaching is a magic bullet in ...

 Update:  And so he did resign, saying an old ed reform canard,  Florida "doesn't have time to waste." He also said (and again, another old tactic):  “The most important thing we have to do is educate children,” Bennett said. “Maybe what we ought to do is debate how the best way to do that is without being personal and assigning motives to it.” From Indiana Public Media: Bennett’s successor will be the sixth person to fill the position as Education Commissioner under Florida Governor Rick Scott. Pam Stewart, current Florida DOE Chancellor, has been names as a possible choice for interim commissioner in Bennett’s absence. End of update Frederick M. Hess, a more moderate righty who writes for Ed Week, thinks so.  As he puts it for poor Florida: If Florida Supe Bennett resigns today, will be tough to recruit strong replacement.  Three chiefs in three years?  Yikes.  It's like drumming for Spinal Tap. He also tweeted: If Fl Supe Ben...

I'm not actually sure who wrote this letter but Senator Tom Harkin is being urged to ask Sec. of Education Arne Duncan these questions.  You can too by e-mailing the Secretary at arne . duncan @ed.gov "How many of your staffers have worked for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation? Who are they, and why did you hire them? "What role did these staffers and Bill Gates have on the formulation of the RTTT mandates? "How much classroom teaching experience do the principal authors of the RTTT mandates have, individually, and as a group? "Why are these individuals qualified to make decisions about education policy? "Were you, or anyone who works within the Department of Education in contact with any representative or lobbyist representing Pearson Education, McGraw-Hill, or InBloom before or during the writing of the RTTT mandates? "What is the Broad Foundation? What is your connection to the Broad Foundation? What education policies does the Broa...

 Update:  on Assessments, exhibit one , from CBS in Albany.  A teacher came to the hospital where a student is undergoing pre-brain surgery screening.  He has epilepsy and they have to withdraw his meds in order to cause a seizure to see what is happening in his brain.  Did she come to give him her best?  Nope. She was from the district there to administer the 4th grade NY State test to the boy.  The parents say they had made arrangements for him to make it up.  The district claims it didn't share any info about the student's absence with NYS Ed Department or the hospital.   Enough. End of update. “Thursday morning a woman walked into his room with a piece of paper that had his name on it and told my husband that she was a teacher from the New York City School District and that she was there to administer the 4th grade New York State test to my son,” Furlong tells CBS6. The family was shocked. They had already made arrangements ...

I had heard of this but never checked it out before - the online Visual Dictionary .   It could be helpful (and fun) for kids who are visual learners.  If only we had known this sooner about Michelle Rhee .  Interesting article from John Merrow- Who Created Michelle Rhee?  Turns out, all of us.  From Ed Week , School Board Transparency in the Digital Age. As online and digital interactions increase, so too does public concern that officials have more opportunities to violate state open-meetings and open-records laws meant to prevent them from communicating secretly. Maryland is among several states that are taking other steps to bring such laws into the 21st century. The legislature set up a joint committee on transparency and open government in 2011 to examine how Maryland can promote government transparency—in the state capital, Annapolis, and locally. Committee members evaluate current policies and practices on meetings and records and make recommendat...