Seattle Schools Community Forum

First up, from The Columbian (via Associated Press) which is reporting that the lead attorney for the McCleary case , Thomas Ahearne, told the Washington State Supreme Court that they should hold the Legislature in contempt for not complying with their orders. “We’re asking the court to at least hold the Legislature in contempt, to prohibit any more unfunded or underfunded mandates on our schools, and to impose even more serious sanctions if the Legislature does not reconvene and obey the court’s orders by Dec. 31 of this year,” Ahearne wrote. In his written response to the Legislature’s report to the Supreme Court, Ahearne said lawmakers do not seem to understand that the Supreme Court was issuing an order, not making a suggestion.  “The State did what it had been ordered to not do. It offered promises about trying to submit a plan and take significant action next year — along with excuses for why the State’s ongoing violation of kids’ constitutional rights and c...

A fairly amazing week in national ed reform news.  Common Core. - the Chicago Teachers Union issued a resolution against Common Core that was brilliant. - in NY state, a former Regent spoke out against Common Core, mostly because of the work that had gone into developing NY State standards (only to see them tossed aside).   - from the right, came Peggy Noonan (formerly President Reagan's speechwriter) with a piece in the Wall Street Journal .  It's a good piece that didn't come from Tea Party people but true conservatives.  That law exists because the people who pushed for it fell in love with an abstract notion and gave not a thought to what the law would actually do and how it would work. - yet another prominent, non-Tea Party conservative, George Will , broke down CC in under two minutes.   From Diane Ravitch: Pearson , the British publisher, plans to launch a new PR offensive to push back against the anti-testing and anti-Common Core grou...

From Sec'y Duncan : As you know, Washington’s request for ESEA flexibility was approved based on Washington’s commitments to carry out certain actions in support of key education reforms. In return for those commitments, we granted your State and your local school districts significant flexibility. However, Washington has not been able to keep all of its commitments. Thus, although Washington has benefitted from ESEA flexibility, I regret that Washington’s flexibility will end with the 2013–2014 school year. I love the last line here: However, because those efforts were unsuccessful, and your legislature is not scheduled to reconvene until January 2015, I cannot extend Washington’s authority to implement ESEA flexibility, and Washington and its LEAs must resume implementing the requirements of Title I of the ESEA, as amended by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), as well as all other ESEA requirements that were waived under ESEA flexibility, for the 2...

According to an article in the Seattle Times, Superintendent Randy Dorn thinks the DOE will lose its waiver from NCLB.  Washington State would be the first state to lose a waiver.  (Other states may also lose their waivers as well by the end of their school years.) (As usual, the Times makes the link between the teachers union and the Legislature.  Is that really the entire story of why the Legislature said no?  Probably not but it fits the Times' on-going ed reform narrative.) I spoke with a DOE spokesperson yesterday about when this decision would come and she said that they are still "working" with the State and no decision has been made.  The DOE has said they know they need to let states know soon because of budgeting but they certainly seem to be taking their time. Is the district "losing" money?  In one way, yes, as they will have to set aside funds to meet NCLB obligations.  Under NCLB,  at schools named as "failing", parents are all...

It appears that the Washington State legislature NOT voting to change the teacher evaluation law doesn't entirely mean the issue is done.  Apparently Duncan is still mulling options and talking to Washington State officials.  Superintendent Randy Dorn is still willing to talk but apparently doesn't think the waiver will be granted.  We'll probably hear something by next week. I received an odd press release this week from the Association of Washington School Principals announcing that South Shore PK-8 principal, Keisha Scarlett , has been named Washington State 2014 Middle Level Principal of the Year.   This is great; Principal Scarlett is a good, effective principal who works very hard. What's odd is that a couple of things were left out/mis-written in the press release. First is that the school is in partnership with SPS, the New School Foundation and the City of Seattle.  Uh, the New School Foundation merged with League of Education Voters and took t...

 Update from another Rosenthal tweet today at 9:25 am: House ldr Sullivan on TVW seems to deem teacher evals dead: "In the end, you have to do the right thing regardless of the (feds') threat" The Washington State Legislature will adjourn their session tomorrow (unless a special session is called by the Governor). Among the last lame duck bills is the one that would change the wording of the state teacher evaluation bill for the use of test scores in the evaluation from "can" to "must." The latest from Times' reporter Brian Rosenthal via Twitter: House ed chair Santos thinks most Dems oppose even Inslee-drafted version of teacher eval bill, never mind Senate version. Not good for bill. WA House ed chair Sharon Tomiko Santos says she has not heard the teacher-evaluation bill will be brought to the floor for a vote. I tweeted him to ask if he meant "when" or "if" it will come to floor. It's do or die time. ...

 Update:   good POV from a teacher on this issue.  One interesting statement: Last week I attended a function at the University of Puget Sound where Bellevue Elementary Teacher Linda Myrick made an excellent point. She noted that some (certainly not all) of her students who fare well on tests have told her that they think some of their performance can be attributed to the extra tutoring their parents paid for them to attend over the weekend. Superintendent Banda sent a letter to the Legislature last week, urging them to pass the teacher evaluation bill that would require test scores to be used for teacher evaluations.  (Currently, they can be but don't have to be used.) What makes this also important is that the Seattle teacher evaluation  in the CBA already mandates using the data but the rest of the state in their local CBAs do not.  The feds want everybody in the pool. At times Banda uses the word "lost" versus "redirected" about the mo...

 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...

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...

You may recall my update on Common Core?   I left out the biggest news which is the looming showdown between California Governor Jerry Brown and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.  The fight is over - what else? - testing .  From EdSource : Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday defended the state’s decision to suspend state standardized tests this year and instead offer students a practice test in the Common Core standards that’s now being developed. And he gave no sign of steering away from a collision with the federal government over this issue. The governor wants to pilot CC assessments for schools that have the necessary equipment.  The issue is that a new California law says this: By requiring that every district capable of administering a computer-based test give students a Common Core field or practice test next spring, the bill will put California out of compliance with the federal No Child Left Behind law.  And that's because California - like m...

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,...

From Huffington Post, news that Secretary Duncan wants this to be the last year for alternative tests for special ed students.  He wants them ALL to take the general assessments.  This, of course, is all around the NCLB legislation (which is practically on life-support anyway). 

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...

The fight is on.  Some in Congress are trying to rewrite NCLB (as this work has been put off/ignored for years).  Some of this push is about the use of Common Core which several states are now dragging their feet on.  This rewrite by Rep. John Kline (R-MN) and Rep. Todd Rokita (R-IN) is called the Student Success Act and passed the House on Friday.  Rep. Tom Harkin (D-IA) has released his own bill called Strengthening America's Schools Act of 2013 .  Via Diane Ravitch comes this great editorial from the LA Times on this issue.  From the editorial: After Congress dragged its heels for six years on the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act, House Republicans suddenly passed a jumbled bill Friday that could best be described as the No Accountability Act, eliminating virtually all the school improvement mandates that were in the original law. President Obama has rightly vowed to veto it in the unlikely scenario that it reaches his desk, ...

Ed Week has a great chart showing the different ideas in Congress around NCLB.  I'll have to sit down, read it and ponder it but it would be something of a game changer.  I look forward to more dissection from the experts.   I'd love to hear what teachers think.  (One peeve: so once again, Director Martin-Morris, after seeing a packed house during the School Board testimony and listening to impassioned speakers on Special Ed, the Center School issue, etc., completely ignored all that and went on his own way during his director comments.  That might be okay except that he is always talking about something that seems out-of-context to everyone but him.  He seems to exist, as a director, in some other non-SPS sphere.  The latest was saying something to the effect that "Congress is finally going to overhaul the Elementary and Secondary Education Act."  Great but for probably 95% of the people out there, it's NCLB. I have a feeling virtually ...

There has been many, many news stories out this last month that all lead me to believe that ed reform is starting to collapse.  Is it anywhere near full-collapse?  Nope and that's because there is a lot of money to be made so it will not go without a fight.  But the signs are all there.  Let's start with assessments and the posterchild that is Atlanta .  (But close on its heels is Rhee's D.C., Texas and Florida.)  What is this all about?  It's about a superintendent who wanted to make money for herself and for the administrators and teachers in her district, make a "name" for herself and the kids be damned. Today the first suspects in the Atlanta cheating scandal turned themselves in.  There are 35 educators who were indicted in a 65-count indictment last week including former superintendent Beverly Hall.  The indictments claim there was a pattern among the educators to cheat or conceal cheating or retaliate against any whistleblowers i...

First up, there are community townhalls tomorrow for legislative districts.  Go weigh in and talk to your legislators about education issues in our state.  I'm going to mine in the 43rd. What education bills are still alive in the Legislature (from the Times): Grading schools: The Senate has advanced a measure to assign A-F grades to schools based on factors including improvement of student test scores. Supporters say parents could get a clear sign of how a school is doing. Opponents insist it would be punitive and often unfair. (SB 5328) Third-grade reading: The Senate has advanced a measure to require third-graders with inadequate reading skills to repeat a grade, attend summer school or otherwise improve their reading before enrolling in fourth grade. The measure also would authorize K-3 teacher training to help improve students’ reading. (SB 5237) Dream Act: House Democrats and Republicans approved a measure that makes young illegal immigrants eligibl...

I'm finally catching up on some backreading on education issues. Arne Duncan.   According to this article in Ed Week on the first speech Secretary Duncan has made since the re-election of President Obama, it appears he will stay on if asked.  His priorities? In his first major postelection remarks, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said that he will use his second term to continue to leverage education improvement at the state and local levels, with a new emphasis on principal preparation and evaluation.  And, he made clear that if Congress isn't serious about reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, of which the No Child Left Behind Act is the current version, then his department won't devote a lot of energy to it. Duncan said, repeatedly, that he did not want reauthorization to happen through a bad bill. "We will lead, we will help, we will push, but Congress has to want to do it," said Duncan, who says he plans on staying in th...

From the House Appropriations Committee work of last week, comes these results (via Ed Week ): Winners: Extension of allowing teachers in alternative certification programs to count as "highly qualified" through the 2014-2015 school year.  This would include those "higly qualified" TFA 5-week trained teachers.  Losers :  organizations, many of whom support disabled/Special Ed students, like the council for Exceptional Children, National Center for Learning Disabilities and the NAACP who do not want the provision extended.  Here's what they said: Absent expiration of the problematic provision ... low-income students, students with disabilities and English-learners will continue to be disproportionately taught by teachers-in-training and that fact will be masked from parents and local communities. Yes, because while TFA thinks the world of their teachers, they don't feel districts have any obligation to tell their parents where their teacher cam...