Seattle Schools Community Forum

I previously posted the long memo called Real Choice vs. False Choice: The Repercussions of Privatization Programs for Students, Parents, and Public Schools that Senator Patty Murray sent to her colleagues in late March about the privatization of public schools. She does credit in laying out real world examples of how privatization has not worked in the U.S. Her most basic point? Privatization efforts provide a false sense  of choice for many students and families.  From the Network for Public Education comes the NPE Toolkit: School Privatization Explained on Privatization .  There are a variety of topics covered about charter schools as well as tax credit and voucher programs.  They give Washington State a "C" for school privatization.  Here's some of what Senator Murray's memo says:

Watching the charter school movement in the U.S. has certainly been both intriguing and discouraging. I don't think anyone could have been against charters as they were originated - one or two classrooms in an existing school that were little hotbeds of innovation.  Successes would be sent out to other classrooms and schools and failures duly noted with lessons learned. But that is not how it has played out.  What is the honest truth about charter schools looks like this:

Update from Politico: Billionaire Betsy DeVos has been unabashed about using her wealth to advance her own agenda. “ We expect a return on our investment,” she once wrote about her family’s massive political contributions. After giving millions of dollars to politicians over the past two decades, she now heads into her Senate confirmation hearing for education secretary with a clear advantage: DeVos and her husband, Dick, have donated to the campaigns of 17 senators who will consider her nomination — four of whom sit on the Senate education committee that oversees the process. end of update Billionaire Betsy DeVos has been unabashed about using her wealth to advance her own agenda. “We expect a return on our investment,” she once wrote about her family’s massive political contributions. After giving millions of dollars to politicians over the past two decades, she now heads into her Senate confirmation hearing for ...

This n ew report , from the Network for Public Education, is sobering.  Overall, Washington state gets a "D" and no state earned more than a "C."  (Public disclosure; I belong to this network but had no input to this report.) This report really is a good counterbalance to other groups' report cards that cheer on unchecked charter growth or more testing. From their website:

As Diane Ravitch said, when starting the Network for Public Education (NPE) , We are many.  There is power in our numbers.  Together, we will save our schools. I felt very embraced at the 500-person conference.  We were parents, teachers, bloggers, public education writers and activists. We want a bigger and more diverse tent.  What was amazing was to heard many stories - from across the country - about what other states were experiencing.  I can tell you that Washington State is not half as bad off as other states (and the people in Louisiana, Florida and New York are really having to fight major battles.)  The conference was the #1 trending hashtag on that Saturday (and this was with the Oscars coming on Sunday and the issues in the Ukraine.)   One topic was blogging.  I learned that Diane's own blog , at one year old, had passed one million hits in April 2013.  In January 2014, her blog passed nine (9!) million page views....

Me and my hero, Diane Ravitch  I plan to go to the Board soon and ask that the district's contract with TFA be ended.   There are two reasons.  One, it seems like a lack of real support for the district's own fledgling Seattle Teacher Residency to support another teacher training program.  All SPS' attention and efforts should be towards STR. Second, TFA has just not been popular here in the least.  Our school-based hiring teams have found them lacking because if not, we would have seen far greater numbers hired.  And, as Charlie has pointed out, SPS can hire TFAers without the district having a contract.  Charters are coming in and they love TFA - let them hire TFA. At the Network for Public Education conference this weekend, I attended a packed workshop on TFA.  At first I was dismayed at the size of the panel but each one of them had something really great to say about this issue. What is interesting is that the panel offered the...