Seattle Schools Community Forum

From OSPI:

I've been saving up articles on ESSA (Every Child Succeeds Act, the next No Child Left Behind).   Congress may have given more power back to the states but there appear to be some truly troubling issues around increased data collection, opting out, and what "indicators" they will be collecting on each and every child.

Monday, May 24th Special Education PTSA meeting from 5:30-7:30  7:00 pm , JSCEE Room 2765  (When this meeting was first announced, I gave it a thread by itself and had the correct day/time.  Unfortunately, I checked the district's calendar page when I made up the list for this thread and it was wrong.  I apologize for the confusion.) Board Work Session on governance priorities and Superintendent's SMART goals from 5:30-7:30, JSCEE Room 2750.  No agenda yet available Wednesday, May 25th State Auditor's Office Exit Conference , 4:30-5:30pm Board Work Session on the 2016-2017 Budget from 5:30-8:00 pm.  No agenda yet available. Both in JSCEE auditorium   Thursday, May 26th Washington's Paramount Duty campaign kick-off, Sarajevo Lounge, 2332 1st Ave from 5:30-7:30 pm. Saturday, May 28th Community meeting with Director Burke at the Greenwood Library from 10 am-noon.  Also to put on your calendar: Join the Office of Superinten...

Some irony in the story in the Times recently about teaching math in colleges/universities .  The story is about how a Central Washington professor, Dominic Klyve, has been given a grant (shared with six other higher ed institutions) to study using "primary sources" to help students grasp math concepts. What primary sources?  People like Euclid and Archimedes.  The idea is that students understand not just how to solve an equation but how the method to solve the problem was developed. I do like this "back to basics" idea (at least in trying to help students see math as a journey and not just a single endpoint of solving problems) but it's a bit of a clash with what K-12 students are learning via Common Core math.  My understanding of how Common Core math is taught does not match up with what this professor (and others) are trying to find out for how college students should be taught math.

 Update: well, this is interesting. I wrote to the DOE on this question of what they said publicly.  Here's their statement(note my highlights): Here is what we’ve said publicly on this issue, which would apply to any state where districts or schools fall below 95% participation rate: “It is the responsibility of states to ensure that all students are assessed annually because it gives educators and parents an idea of how the student is doing and ensures that schools are paying attention to traditionally underserved populations like low-income students, students of color, students with disabilities and English language learners. The Department has not had to withhold money - yet - over this requirement because states have either complied or have appropriately addressed the issue with schools or districts that assessed less than 95 percent of students." I wrote to OSPI, asking them whether they had this information about the feds tossing the ball on...

From Diane Ravitch: Rick Hess directs education studies at the conservative, free-market American Enterprise Institute. We often disagree but I am often impressed that he doesn’t follow “the party line” of free-marketeers. This article is a good example of Hess demonstrating his sharp intellect and his willingness to stray from the right-wing corral. I absolutely echo Ravtich's comments.  Hess may be a right-wing thinker but he's an honest one.  He is willing to call out BS on BOTH sides.  He is also willing to say it like it is which probably makes a lot of people on the right wring their hands. His piece is long but worthy reading.  In a nutshell:

Clarification: the forum on the school to prison pipeline (this Wednesday, the 29th at the New Holly Hall at 6pm) is NOT sponsored by either the King County Council or City Council.  It was organized by a few members from each group.  They have invited members of the Seattle School Board but it is unclear who may be going from that group.  The featured speaker is Professor Wayne Au from UW Bothell. This is a good opportunity to point out how valuable that Middle College is to preventing more kids from entering the pipeline.  (I also suspect a fair number of candidates from City Council races as well as School Board races will be in attendance.)

Update:  there was also a measure that would simply allow parents to opt-out of testing (as opposed to the amendment that did pass that notifies parents whether their state allows opt-outs).  It was defeated, seemingly on the premise that local control over opting out should be left to states.  Both Senators Murray and Cantwell voted no on the measure.  It is legal in Washington State to opt out. End of update. From the Atlanta Journal Constitution about the revamped NCLB/ECAA: The U.S. Senate passed an amendment by Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., to the “Every Child Achieves Act” that aims to inform parents about opting out of standardized testing. Isakson’s amendment, which was passed by a unanimous vote Tuesday, would require any local educational agency that receives federal Title I funds to notify parents of each student attending school that they may request information regarding any state or local policy, procedure, or parental right regarding p...

One of the big complaints about NCLB was that it gave the federal government a much larger role in public education beyond mere oversight and reporting.  It gave them a very big stick to use on districts and states.  (Bringing in RTtT was more the carrot but I'll bet it felt very much like a stick sometimes to states who got those funds.) This federal Big Brother idea made people on the right AND on the left unhappy. That's quite the trick for one law. The one usefulness of NCLB was that it forced districts to account for every - single - student.  As they should.  But trying to fit all these students - ELL, Sped, homeless - into the same testing box with everyone else was never going to work.

From Senator Patty Murray's office: TOMORROW - Floor Debate Begins on Sen. Murray’s  Bill to Fix “No Child Left Behind”

Not on the district's homepage but of note: The Enrollment Service Center will be closed to the public from July 13 through Aug. 7, 2015, allowing for necessary new school year system transitions. During this time, students and families will be unable to access or submit online choice or admission forms. Additionally, the Enrollment front counter, Enrollment Service and Customer Service mailboxes, faxes, and Enrollment phone lines will be closed. These services are closed during the transition to reduce significant backlog, including incomplete documents received during this shutdown period, which would delay the timely enrollment of new students once the updated system is online. The Customer Service phone lines and receptionist desk will remain open to the public to serve those who need to contact other JSCEE internal personnel or departments. Enrollment will re-open its doors again on Aug. 10 at 8:30 a.m.​ I'm a bit perplexed as to why Enrollment phone lines...

1)  Ask the School Board to write a letter like this one from the Palm Beach County School Board and tell them to send it to Governor Inslee and State Superintendent Dorn.  Write to them at : schoolboard@seattleschools.org. Partial (full letter in link):

From the Network for Public Education (NPE): No Child Left Behind should have been reauthorized in 2007, yet here we are 5 months into 2015 and Congress has failed to act. The  Every Child Achieves Act of 2015 is the latest reauthorization effort. While the bill passed the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee unanimously, it has not yet been brought to the Senate Floor for a full discussion and vote. The proposed legislation does away with some of the most destructive aspects of NCLB, such as AYP, and as NPE President Diane Ravitch commented, it " defangs the U.S. Department of Education " by taking away the Secretary of Education's ability to coerce states into adopting specific standards, tests, or accountability schemes. One major flaw with the legislation however is that the Every Child Achieves Act maintains the federal mandate for annual testing .  Act now to let your Senator know you ...

David Spring has written a lengthy explanation of what may or may not be coming with state testing.   It's called Comparing Three Graduation Requirement Options for Washington State. It is a lot of heavy reading (and it would require you to go read all these bills which I have not done yet) but I think it worthy.   In this article, we will compare three sets of high school graduation requirements currently being considered by the Washington state legislature. These three options are the current law which was enacted in 2013, House Bill 2214 and Senate Bill 6122. All of these three options are complex. We will therefore provide a comparison table at the end of this article to better help citizens understand the provisions and consequences of each option. Understanding the current Washington state law is important because if no bill is passed in the state legislature in 2015 to replace it, then the current Washington state law will continue to be in effect....

Anyone go to the SPS Sped meeting last night? This Friday is the deadline to file for elected races for November.  Still no one from Director Peaslee's district has filed.  I'm sure someone will and that one person will just walk onto the Board.  That's a terrible thing for democracy, no matter who the person is. Speaking of school board races, there is a candidate forum at the Fightin' 46th this Thursday at the George Center for Community, 2212 NE 125th St.  It opens at 7 pm with the program starting at 7:30 pm.  It's a great opportunity to meet the candidates.  (Note: I'll have a candidate wrap-up thread, probably on Sat morning of all the candidates, their websites/Facebook pages, etc.) SPS' request for a waiver from NCLB was denied by the U.S. Department of Ed.  Seattle had applied on its own because its teacher contract DID include use of test scores in triggering a look at teaching in any given classroom but did not include using test sc...

State Superintendent Randy Dorn appears to be quite upset about the opting out of the SBAC in Seattle high schools.  So much so that the Times granted him an op-ed to write about SBAC where he says "few 11th graders are grappling with refusal to take the test..."   That would be almost a thousand juniors opting out of testing in the largest school district in the state.  That's not "a few" student "grappling" with anything. Then the Times has a new story updating how many more SPS juniors have opted out.

From Chalkbeat New York :   U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Tuesday that the federal government is obligated to intervene if states fail to address the rising number of students who are boycotting mandated annual exams .   “We think most states will do that,” Duncan said during a discussion at the Education Writers Association conference in Chicago. “If states don’t do that, then we have an obligation to step in.” Federal law requires all students in grades three to eight to take annual tests, and officials have said districts could face sanctions if fewer than 95 percent of students participate.  And yet he also said this: Duncan also said that students in some states are tested too much, and acknowledged that the exams are challenging for many students. But he argued that annual standardized exams are essential for tracking student progress and monitoring the score gap between different student groups.  He seemed to also forget that for...

Time magazine has this new article : Thousands of kids opt out of standardized Common Core tests across the U.S. This “opt-out” movement remains scattered but is growing fast in some parts of the country. Some superintendents in New York are reporting that 60 percent or even 70 percent of their students are refusing to sit for the exams. Some lawmakers, sensing a tipping point, are backing the parents and teachers who complain about standardized testing. Considerable resistance also has been reported in Maine, New Mexico, Oregon and Pennsylvania, and more is likely as many states administer the tests in public schools for the first time this spring. In California, home to the nation’s largest public school system and Democratic political leaders who strongly endorse Common Core standards, there have been no reports of widespread protests to the exams — perhaps because state officials have decided not to hold schools accountable for the first year’s results.  Downsid...

State Superintendent Randy Dorn is having a press conference this morning to talk about his funding plan for McCleary    He says: “I want to make sure that every student, from Cape Flattery to Clover Park to Clarkston, has an equal opportunity to a basic education,” Dorn said. “That isn’t happening today. My plan will ensure that.” Also from OSPI, the announcement of math and science partnership grants to seven districts including Seattle. The grants will be used to help increase student achievement in math and science. Specifically, the grants allow for partnerships between schools and science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) faculty at institutes of higher education. State funding for the projects totals $1.9 million, to be split among the grantees. Awards, which have yet to be determined, range from $500,000 to $1.5 million and will be distributed during the course of the three-year grants. The MSP grant program is part of the federal Title II, Part B sect...

From the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (bold mine): WASHINGTON, D.C., April 7  – Senate education committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-Wash.) today announced a bipartisan agreement on fixing “No Child Left Behind.” They scheduled committee action on their agreement and any amendments to begin at 10 a.m. Tuesday, April 14 . Alexander said: “Senator Murray and I have worked together to produce bipartisan legislation to fix ‘No Child Left Behind.’ Basically, our agreement continues important measurements of the academic progress of students but restores to states, local school districts, teachers, and parents the responsibility for deciding what to do about improving student achievement. This should produce fewer and more appropriate tests. It is the most effective way to advance higher standards and better teaching in our 100,000 public schools. We have found remarkable consensus about the ur...