Seattle Schools Community Forum

To note, the press release references a "federal fee reduction program" so that is one discount available to F/RL students for AP testing. I'm still checking about the state and the district. Results released today by the College Board show that the number of students taking the SAT has remained steady but that PSAT and AP participation has increased.

Despite the lowest reported SAT scores nationally in 10 years, participation rates - across all groups in Washington State - continues to go up. The steady decline in SAT scores and generally stagnant results from high schools on federal tests and other measures reflect a troubling shortcoming of education-reform efforts. The test results show that gains in reading and math in elementary grades haven’t led to broad improvement in high schools, experts say. That means several hundred thousand teenagers, especially those who grew up poor, are leaving school every year unready for college. [ State-by-state SAT score results ] “ Why is education reform hitting a wall in high school?” asked Michael J. Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a think tank. “You see this in all kinds of evidence. Kids don’t make a whole lot of gains once they’re in high school. It certainly should raise an alarm. It is difficult to pinpoint a reason for the decline in SAT scores, but ...

Threads to come - are the school funding numbers a Brad Bernatek kind of issue (meaning, the district has them wrong) or deliberate subterfuge?  What do these midterm elections mean for the state of public education in the U.S.A? Next major drop of ballot counts for I-1351 is about 4:30 pm today. OSPI reports that more Washington students are taking the SAT, PSAT and AP tests , across all racial subgroups.  The state’s student performance remained relatively strong. SAT and PSAT saw a slight downturn in overall scores, but the number of AP scores of at least “3” — the score needed to earn college credit — increased 5.7 percent.  I haven't watched this but there's a "Conversation with the Superintendent" at the district's channel .  It appears this will be a regular feature and you can submit questions. Viewers are invited to submit questions for the Superintendent by emailing publicaffairs@seattleschools.org (please put “Conversation” in the s...

I mentioned yesterday that some groups were trying to gather student data via enrollment to take the PSAT.  This info was passed to me by another student data privacy activist in another state.

No, of course I don't have them. But finally attacking some backlogged e-mail, I wanted to update you on the PSAT results from last year. As you may recall, Boeing generously funded the district so that all the 9th, 10th and 11th graders could take the PSAT. This was about rigor we were told and to show the kids what they would need to do to get to college. The parents received their individual child's score but oddly, no data came out for the district, each school, grade level, etc. I first got the answer that there was no time or staff available for this work. Then I received this reply: "In response to your request below, as I mentioned before, the data is not in a format that can be incorporated into our database, so at this time I am unable to provide you with the statistical results you have requested without compromising student confidentiality." So I called the College Board (who gives the PSAT) and the woman there said she couldn't understand that ...

As you may recall I was wondering how come the district had no results (by grade or school or district) for the PSAT given last fall to 9th, 10th and 11th graders. Bob Vaughn in Advanced Learning told me they had too much on their plate to get it done. Joy Stevens, the Public Records officer said this: I am writing in response to your email below requesting PSAT test results. In doing so, I learned that the test results that we receive are in a format that cannot be easily incorporated into our information, which would allow us to release statistical information without violating individual student confidentiality. I am looking into whether it would be possible to redact or remove student identification from the results we get from the College Boards and/or extract statistical totals. I also placed a call to Boeing and got a very nice guy who was puzzled but said that they were expecting a report by Dec. 31. He got back to me on Friday and said he got a report and that the d...

It never hurts to ask. So I had sent a Public Disclosure request for the PSAT results by grade at each school, school, grade level across the district and district overall. I had spoken to the head of Advanced Learning, Bob Vaughn, briefly about this and he said they had not had time to break out any results. Then I called Boeing. (They paid for it.) Turns out they don't have those results either but are due a report by the end of the year from the district. The guy I spoke to said the results are public data. The response I received from the district's Public Records was this: "I am writing in response to your email below requesting PSAT test results. In doing so, I learned that the test results that we receive are in a format that cannot be easily incorporated into our information, which would allow us to release statistical information without violating individual student confidentiality. I am looking into whether it would be possible to redact or remove stud...

I realized that I never got around to talking about last Wednesday's SB meeting. These are just highlights and bits and pieces. one speaker pointed out that there was carry-over money from Title 1 that should have gone to Summit and Cooper (but now they are closed). Staff later tried to say that it couldn't have been used anyway but it seemed a lame excuse to me. a couple of speakers (one a teacher) about the need for teacher evaluation. The teacher said teachers themselves should be involved because "teachers know what makes a good teacher." A woman named Christine Chew from College Access Now spoke about their program which mentors high school students through the college application process. It was great to hear about this successful program in our schools (currently at Garfield and Franklin and hoping to expand to WSHS this year). Sixty students in the program applied for college; all got in. That's a 100% success rate. Director Chow mentioned the prog...