Seattle Schools Community Forum

Update: forgot to include this fascinating piece of news. Sarah Morningstar , the late Cheryl Chow's partner, applied for Sally Clark's soon to be vacant City Council seat.  Morningstar mentions her work as a school administrator in Seattle Schools in her application.  Morningstar is currently assistant principal at TOPS . The City Council will announce the finalists on Monday at 2 pm.  There will be 3-minute presentations from the finalists on Friday, the 24th with an announcement of the winner on Monday, April 27th.  Good luck, Ms. Morningstar. end of update In news about First Place Scholars , it's good news.  Apparently, they have shown enough progress for their turnaround for the Charter Commission's Executive Director, Joshua Halsey, to say that things are looking good.  They just need to turn in their documentation on Special Education to meet what the CC asked for in changes at FPS. Did you get a robo-call from Ready Washington (brought t...

Polling.  Our country loves this stuff.  Naturally, for anyone who has taken a decent high school civics class (or sociology/poly sci course in college), we all know to take polling with a grain of salt.  Depends on who does it, who paid for it (not always the same) and, most of all, the shaping of the questions.  Nowhere is this more visible than in polling around Common Core.  The most hilarious part?  To this day, nearly half the country doesn't have a clue.  Still. 

Update 2:  Arne strikes back.  Today Sec'y Duncan, in an apparent effort to shore up support (and that's putting it nicely), pretty much threatened the state of Oklahoma for backing out of Common Core. Word to the wise, Secretary Duncan, want to make even MORE people suspicious of Common Core? Try the federal government strong-arm. You're only giving them more to work with. From Yahoo News: Duncan had ominous words for states that buck the Common Core trend. “We partner with states whether they’re in Common Core or have their own high standards. But where we will challenge status quo is when states dummy down standards,” he warned. End of update. Update:   the NY Times is reporting the Gates Foundation has "called" for a two-year moratorium on states making any "high-stakes decisions based on tests aligned to the new standards."  Well, that's big of them considering THEY have caused this rush to new standards and testing.  The letter ...

When Common Core supporters call Common Core opponents "enemies", I think, hmmm. This appeared in a NY Times op-ed (that I thought was fairly pedantic) and Ready Washington, a mystery public/private WA state cheerleading group for Common Core, retweeted the link as though it's a good thing to divide people who want a transparent discussion about Common Core.  And really, the op-ed isn't even really about Common Core. Speaking of Ready Washington, they say at their Facebook page that the discussion has to be "fact-based."  Okay, but who decides what is factual?  Because at their webpage, they have a big whopper in their FAQs on Common Core: Who developed the Common Core ? The Common Core was created by states, for states. Uh, no, that's not true.  Here's what true (and this comes from numerous sources including U.S News&World Report and Wikipedia). Common Core standards were created by the National Governors Association and the Counci...