Seattle Schools Community Forum

KUOW has a story on the spending in the state superintendent race and spending for Erin Jones' campaign is ahead of Chris Reykdal. One of the largest independent expenditures in Washington state elections this year has come in the race for schools chief: the education reform organization Stand for Children's PAC has bought $164,887 worth of mailers for the Erin Jones campaign for Superintendent of Public Instruction. The PAC spent another $12,809 yesterday on last-minute robocalls for Jones's campaign.

Great National Education Policy Center (NEPC) paper called "Wait, wait. Don't Mislead Me!  Nine Reasons to be skeptical about charter waitlist numbers. " So the next time you hear some huge number of kids are on charter school waitlists, remember these. In brief: Students apply to multiple charter schools Waitlist numbers cannot be confirmed Waitlist record-keeping is slipshot and unreliable Many charter applications are for non-admissible greades It's likely that most charters aren't very oversubscribed NAPCS's (National Association of Public Charter Schools)Methods aren't available for independent verification NAPCS numbers are inexplicably precise What are we comparing charter waitlist numbers to? charter waitlists can be trimmed by requiring "backfill" From the Seattle Education blog , a good explanation of the bills in Congress to give a big boost to charters (seemingly in the name of accountability). To note, over in Spo...