Seattle Schools Community Forum

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

The Department of Education has a message for Nevada, Montana and North Dakota over Common Core assessments - get it done.  Even though, all three of those states experienced - thru no apparent fault of their own - massive vendor problems that led to a shutdown of testing last month and this week. From the AP :

WA State Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn has sent a letter to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan asking that Washington be waived from the NCLB requirement that public schools send out letters about how they are all failing under NCLB (about 96% of schools would have to send out these letters).   Naturally, 96% of Washington schools are not failing; it's just the failure of Congress to act on this (dying) law.   Sending these letters would cause undue confusion to parents and be a cost to districts.  (Over at Washington Policy Center, they bemoan that parents won't get their choice, under NCLB, to move their kids to another school and/or access tutoring if their child is at a failing school.  What they fail to understand is that most parents, currently at "failing" schools neither access the movement of their child nor tutoring even when they are notified of this option.) Speaking of Arne Duncan, apparently he made a speech at the rec...

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 ...

 UPDATE: There's a 5 p.m. deadline today for all non-budget-related bills to be voted off the floor.  So we will know by the end of the day the outcome for the teacher evaluation bill. end of update. That's the chatter from Twitter mostly via Times' reporter, Brian Rosenthal.   Hmmm. Inslee deflecting larger Qs on testing. Says this is all about $: "I don't have the luxury...to opine about situations that do not exist. Hearing from several ppl, including finance chair Reuven Carlyle, that the teacher eval bill is having a very hard time in the state House. Wonder why the eval bill is in trouble? Here's the top D on Senate ed panel surrounded by about 2 dozen teachers pic.twitter.com/dVmVr35O6d Inslee in presser: Teacher-eval bill "has met some resistance, but there's still plenty of time to get this job done" pic.twitter.com/v6sZVkWYKj Update: Texas has lost its bid for a waiver under NCLB.  Theirs was over hav...

After Inslee caved to Duncan's demand that Washington State law reflect a "must" use test scores for teacher evaluation, rather than "can" as it currently does, the Legislature is moving a bill around. I'm going on the record - I don't have a problem with using test scores for teacher evaluation (even though there is virtually no proof they really show anything about how well a teacher teaches) but I know there is no way that their use will be reasonable.  The powers that be want them at 50% or more and that is unacceptable to me.  I also note that hey! guess what's embedded in the House bill - that the use of "student input may also be used."  Well now, that's interesting.  SPS is "piloting" a student survey that is being pushed by Teachers United and student input just happens to show up in the bill.  Go figure. I urge you to weigh in on this issue to your legislator (see bill numbers below). Here's what the WEA...

Education Week is reporting that Senator Patty Murray will be meeting this weekend with Education Secretary Arne Duncan about Washington State waiver request for NCLB.  Really good insights from Education Week : Washington State is in the unfortunate position of being just one of four that had its NCLB waiver put on "high risk" status by the U.S. Department of Education. The Evergreen State has run into trouble with the teacher-evaluation component of the waivers , which has been the trickiest part for those states seeking the flexilibility under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. But Washington is in the fortunate position of having a very powerful advocate on its team: Sen. Patty Murray. She chairs the Senate Budget Committee, is trusted by Senate leadership, and is a senior member of the panels that oversee education policy and spending. What's more, she could be in line to chair one or both of those committees in the next Congress, after Sen....

Major news on two important education bills in the Legislature. First, the State Senate REJECTED a teacher-evaluation bill that would have changed using student test scores in teacher evaluations from "can" to "must" because the feds wanted that change.  The feds were using - as a carrot or stick, take your pick - federal funds.  Superintendent Randy Dorn has been moaning about the possible loss of these funds, about $38M (Seattle stands to lose about $2.4M). What got left out is that Washington State has applied for a NCLB waiver and may still get the federal dollars.  So far, Arne Duncan has given 37 states waivers. What is amazing is that conservative GOP members joined with minority Dems to defeat this measure and it is the first time the new Senate "coalition" majority has lost.  According to the Times , it is probably dead as 5pm today was the cutoff for non-budget legislation to get out of at least one chamber.  (This coalition is showing o...

Some interesting legal rulings have come across my desk. One is from Ed Week that 529 Plan Savings can be used to pay for college courses taken in high school.  As long as students are getting college-level credit and are enrolled as students at a college, there is no age requirement about when families can start using savings from their 529 plans, according to Joseph Hurley, founder of Savingforcollege.com in Pittsfield, N.Y.  "This is an expanding area as parents look for ways to deal with higher college costs," says Hurley. Dual- or concurrent-enrollment courses are now offered in nearly 48 states (with Maryland and Vermont recently coming on board), and the majority have students pay a portion of the tuition, says Adam Lowe, executive director of the National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships in Chapel Hill, N.C. Using 529 plan money for dual enrollment can be helpful, as federal financial aid, including Pell Grants and Stafford loans,...

A couple of NW education stories of interest. First up, look who is leaving after one whole year as head of Oregon's public education system - Rudy Crew.  No real surprise there.  From Ed Week : So, how have things turned out? There are a few answers to that, and good variety among them. First, there's Rudy Crew. He's no longer on the job, having resigned July 1 to take over as president of Medgar Evers College in New York City. One of his biggest legacies seems to be a sour one : the expenses he racked up while serving as the state's K-12 czar, including a $1,118 taxpayer-funded trip to California to honor a former colleague, and a four-hour course he taught at the University of Southern California that resulted in a $552 bill to the Oregon public. On the policy front, Crew sought $150 million for four key initiatives, including preschool reading and regional centers for teacher professional development, Betsy Hammond at The Oregonian notes, but lawma...