Seattle Schools Community Forum

 I will be taking a hiatus this week to do other things.  Charlie may or may not be able to provide the Open Threads for this week. Monday, September 8th Curriculum & Instruction Committee meeting from 4:30pm - 6:30 pm.  Agenda

In the "wait, what?!" category comes this story from the Washington Post's Answer Sheet - School puts nearly 100 kindergartners in one class in a teaching experiment.   The first sentence in the article says "no, it's not a headline from The Onion."  This is being tried at the lowest-performing school in Detroit.  There are three teachers in the class. Incidentally, the lead teacher is 30 years old, another teacher is in her second year and the third is in her first year. It's from a story in the Detroit Free Press .  It sounds like it works (somewhat) but I honestly do not believe it is what is best for children. The AP is reporting that Washington state is the only state denied renewal of its NCLB waiver that seems unlikely to get their waiver back (the other three states seem to be doing what Arne Duncan wants).   Randy Dorn, the WA state superintendent said this:

No matter how many tweets that DFER or ReadyWashington or any other group that supports Common Core send out saying that it's here to stay, the evidence is mounting that it may survive but not in exactly the way its end game was pictured. Update on CC across the country: Indiana has already bowed out of Common Core but only to replace it with their "own" standards which appear to be a cut-and-paste of CC.  Minnesota adopted the LA standards but kept their own math standards saying they are "more rigorous" than CC.  The Oklahoma state legislature, both houses , approved a bill to exit their state from Common Core standards.  It is going to their governor's desk soon.  Rep. T.W. Shannon had this to say: The federal government sold Common Core with the promise of increased standards, but instead gave us an inflexible curriculum that does not equip our children for college,” said Shannon. “The federal government has disregarded parental rights, over-r...

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...

Monday, March 31st The final Strategic Plan Community Meeting from 6:30-8:30 pm in West Seattle at Roxhill Elementary. Tuesday, April 1st Special Education Advisory and Advocacy Council meeting at 6:30 p.m. , JSCEE, Room 2700 Wednesday, April 2nd School Board meeting starting at 4:15 p.m.  Agenda .

Monday, March 17th The wearing o' the Green.  Happy St. Patrick's Day. To note: signups for public testimony for the School Board meeting start at 8 am this morning. Tuesday, March 18th Audit&Finance Meeting from 4:30-6:30 p.m.  Agenda Wednesday, March 19th School Board meeting starting at 4:15 p.m.  Agenda . I see a LOT of audit update items here that I am unclear about -might be worth attending. Items of interest:   - the winning bid for the work for Lincoln comes in at $828k.  What's interesting is that the district decided it needed wainscoting in all the new toilet rooms.  What's more interesting is the variance in cost to do it with the company bidding highest for the overall cost bidding the wainscoting at the lowest cost ($972k for overall, $3500 for wainscoting) and the winning bid at $812k putting in the wainscoting at the highest additional price, $16k.  The average cost for the wainscoting was about $9500.  How...

Tuesday, Feb 4th Special Education Advisory and Advocacy Council Meeting starting at 6:30 p.m., JSCEE, room 2700 Wednesday, Feb. 5th Parade for the Super Bowl Champion Seahawks 11 am (I put this in because if you are going to the district headquarters that morning, you might be aware of this because of the traffic.  The parade is to end at Century Link Field which is only about a mile north of JSCEE.) School Board Meeting , starting at 4:15 p.m.  Agenda .  There are some major issues in this agenda and many of them have to do with what really irritates me - when staff leaves out information the Board should have (both informational and in order to take a vote).  I'm going to go over the Agenda at the bottom of the page for those who are interested (allowing anyone else to see the rest of this thread more easily.) Saturday, Feb. 8th Community Meeting with Director Carr at 8:30 am to 10:00 am at Bethany Community Church (enter off playground) SPS News ...

Monday, January 20th No School in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Wednesday, January 22nd School Board Meeting , starting at 4:15 pm.  Agenda.   Note: there is to be an Executive Session after the Board meeting for 30 minutes. 

I am urging you to speak out - either via e-mail or via public testimony - to the Board about two subjects. One, student data privacy.  We see from the agenda the RTTT item, some of which is about helping PreK-3rd grade students.  It's a fine idea but again, that's exactly the starting age that many entities want to start data tracking.  Will their parents be told this is happening (or asked if they consent)? Two, later start times for high school.  As I reported, staff is not saying no but basically, we have enough work and the Board didn't make it priority.  President Peaslee said that they could not include everything into the Strategic Plan but that the Board has been talking about this and asking for feasibility information for quite a few years.  Help the Board get there to that nuts and bolts discussion. Write to them at schoolboard@seattleschools.org.   Tell them you want a student data privacy policy with real teeth and protections and/o...

A bit of an exciting week as the district welcomes two new Board members. Also FYI, the district is looking for members for its School Wellness Task Force . Seattle Public Schools is seeking members for a Task Force to review, revise, monitor, communicate and evaluate policies and procedures governing school food, competitive foods, nutrition education, physical education and physical activity. The Task Force will operate for an 18-month period, December 2013 to June 2015. To be considered for the School Wellness Task Force students, parents, family and community members should complete and submit a nomination form by Friday, Dec. 13, 2013 . The invitation letter , nomination forms , and a complete description of the committee are available online .   Tuesday, Dec. 3rd Oath of Office from 5-6 pm in the JSCEE Auditorium.  It is open to the public.  Sue Peters, Stephan Blanford and returning Director Betty Patu will be taking the oath.  There are ope...

I'm not actually sure who wrote this letter but Senator Tom Harkin is being urged to ask Sec. of Education Arne Duncan these questions.  You can too by e-mailing the Secretary at arne . duncan @ed.gov "How many of your staffers have worked for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation? Who are they, and why did you hire them? "What role did these staffers and Bill Gates have on the formulation of the RTTT mandates? "How much classroom teaching experience do the principal authors of the RTTT mandates have, individually, and as a group? "Why are these individuals qualified to make decisions about education policy? "Were you, or anyone who works within the Department of Education in contact with any representative or lobbyist representing Pearson Education, McGraw-Hill, or InBloom before or during the writing of the RTTT mandates? "What is the Broad Foundation? What is your connection to the Broad Foundation? What education policies does the Broa...

Olympic Hills Capacity Mtg on Monday night Packed house, I was almost surprised they had it such a small school but it was cozy.  Attendees - SPS staff, Directors Peaslee and Carr (but oddly, not Martin-Morris as one of the central issues was Eckstein that sits in his district) and FACMAC co-chairs and other members of the Committee.  Rep. Gerry Pollet also was in attendance.  The room was packed full. I liked the way this meeting went.  There was just a brief presentation, then principal Zoe Jenkins did a roll call of sorts of what schools were there.  She listed them on a blackboard, plus a spot for community input.  She then handed out a card for each school to anyone who wanted to speak.  In that way, we had input from all schools plus a rotation of speakers.   There were about 12 schools represented. What I did hear firmly: - Pinehurst is to stay in place.  No mention of exactly what that would then mean for Jane Addams....

Okay, those kids over at The Stranger found many gullible people including me.  It was all faked (although the education thread did sound plausible.  What is below is wrong (except for Washington State's SAT scores - that is true). ## Over at The Stranger Slog, they gave over several threads to the McKenna campaign to discuss various issues.  (This is incredibly generous of The Stranger and I give them full credit.) Here's his education thread entitled " A New Direction for Washington's Public Schools " wherein he recites tired ed reform phrases and yet says absolutely nothing specific about what he would do. He says this: At the same time, we cannot spend more money on existing public school programs that are underperforming without first reforming them . Washington is regarded nationally as an education reform backwater, coming in near the bottom in the President's Race to the Top competition, and only one of handful that does not...

Seattle Public Schools is joining with six other local school districts in an application for a federal Race To The Top grant. This year, the competition for federal education grants has been expanded from just states to include school districts. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Seattle, has teamed up with the school districts in Auburn, Tukwila, Highline, Renton, Federal Way and Kent, to submit a shared application. Details are available in a press release here .

Secretary Arne Duncan and the Department of Education recently announced RTTT grants that allow districts, not just states , to apply for funds.  From the Ed Week article: The department anticipates giving out about 15 to 20 four-year grants, of up to $25 million each. Districts will be able to apply for the funds individually, or as part of consortia with other districts, even those in other states. And charter schools—as well as other organizations that are defined as a "local education agency" by their states—can compete, too. Yes, you can be a single charter school and apply.  That sure makes it a whole lot easier than it would for a full-fledged district like say, Detroit or LA.   Because, yes, charters get to be LEAs all by themselves.  The caveat here is that they have to serve at least 2500 students and there aren't as many single charters with that population but there's always KIPP, Green Dot, etc.  And, it goes on to note that even if your ...

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan just came out with a new idea for RTTT:  allowing districts to compete as stand-alones (as opposed to just entire states competing).   This is interesting because the most recent news on RTTT is that Hawaii was placed on a "high-risk" grant status and may have its award taken away.  This is also the case in New York.  From Education Week : "I think we'll use it for the districts," he said. "You can do different things. You can do early childhood as a piece of that, or STEM as a piece of that. ... I don't want to commit, but the bulk of the money will go through districts...what we'll be asking of districts is still very much up for consideration." It's clear that Duncan sees the potential of investing a half-billion dollars in districts, especially in states that are, as he calls them, "less functional" and haven't won any other competitive grants. "I love that we played...

 From the Times : Washington has won a major federal education competition and will receive up to $60 million during the next four years to improve private preschool programs across the state. In Washington, the money will go to support two initiatives: free training for preschool providers , and a standardized assessment that kindergarten teachers will use at the beginning of the school year to determine the skill level of the incoming class. About 175,000 children are served by 7,400 private child-care programs throughout the state, said Betty Hyde, director of the state's Department of Early Learning, an agency created five years ago by Gov. Chris Gregoire and the Legislature to improve early education. Another 8,000 children attend ECEAP, and about 14,000 are in the federally-funded Head Start program. The grant will pay for the providers in those programs to get the latest training in early learning. The other major initiative, the kindergarten assessm...

Score one for Obama.  He waited and waited for Congress to do some needed updating of NCLB.  Did they?  Nope and so he went ahead and is going to grant waivers to states that ask for them.   The concern was about the large numbers of schools (somewhere between 50-80%) were going to be labeled failing.  Today the President will give a speech outlining how states can get those waivers and what they will cover.  It seems clear, though, that only states that buy into the administration's vision of ed reform (see Race to the Top) will get the waivers. This includes charter schools and that's why you may see this push for charters here in Washington state. 

Well, it looks like it could if the Obama administration has its way on education funding in the 2012 budget. (Oh man, can it be I'm going to side with the Republicans on this one?) From a NY Times article in today's edition: The 2012 budget proposal includes $900 million for Race to the Top, which the administration says would be awarded this time not to states but to school districts. That would make it possible, for instance, to channel money to Houston or other districts in Texas, which wanted to compete in the Race to the Top initiative but could not because their states declined to participate. Some House Republicans are skeptical of the program, however, and — like other line items in the education budget — it could face trims or elimination as Congress works on its own and the administration’s budget proposals. What this could mean is that Seattle can submit a proposal on its own. Now, of course, we don't have charters and last time around, ...

Good editoria l on funding education from the Seattle Times. They pointed out what I said right after the election. The good: But the message statewide remains a clarion call for robust, consistent education funding by the state Legislature. It says so in the state constitution and voters do not want to be given that task. Legislators will need a strategic plan around prioritizing and paying for education. RTTT (not so good): Tight state budgets should make federal funding more appealing. The money comes attached to a workable reform agenda that includes many things this state wants to do anyway — for example, raising the level of academic rigor and emphasizing college readiness. Yes but that money is not going to help the day-to-day operations of the district nor is it sustainable. (Also, by the time the next round comes along, I have a hard time believing charters will be voted in and that seems to be the lodestone of RTTT.) Seattle passed their levy. Great but... R-52 ...