Seattle Schools Community Forum

To repeat, Senator Rodney Tom, noted turncoat for the Dems, is not going to run again after all (citing health concerns for himself and his elderly father).  The Times ran a blathering editorial about how great he was but you really can't take them seriously when they start with, "But this time you might wonder, what will become of the Legislature without him?" Seriously?  Not, "how will the Legislature operate like without him?" but "what will become of it?"  Well, like most of life, the Legislature will carry on just fine without him.  He isolated himself with his choices and I think he realized it was going to backfire on him in the election.  The Washington State Charter School Commission released its 2014 request for proposals yesterday.  According to their press release , last year they received 19 completed proposals.  I'll be interested to see how many letters of intent (which was about 25ish last year) that they receive.  To under...

Now, for the second year in a row, the most objected to book in libraries is...Captain Underpants.   Do these boys "defy" authority and do silly things?  Yes.  Do I think it needs a warning label, "Kids, don't try this at school?"  Not really.  (I even have a tiny Captain Underpants toy in my car who serves as my parking diviner.  Works 95% of the time.) You've probably all heard but Senator Rodney Tom is NOT running for re-election, citing health concerns for himself and his elderly father.  Whatever the reason, he has been more of an obstructionist than a leadership (not to mention betraying his party).  As I mentioned elsewhere, Superintendent Dorn told me I would never get a student data privacy bill passed with the current Senate leadership. Well, that now becomes less of an issue. Here's an interesting feature by National Geographic on what the U.S. population will look like in 2050.  The U.S. Census Bureau let respondents...

It will soon be the start of a new legislative session in Olympia, which, of course, means that the Legislature will take another run at doing the absolute minimum they can do and still claim to be making progress towards their obligation under the McCleary decision. It also means that there will be a bunch of people - all of the usual suspects - claiming that the McCleary decision isn't just about money. Let's stop that nonsense right now. The McCleary decision was about money, not reform. Anyone who tells you different is lying. They will claim that McCleary is as much about reform as it is about money. That's simply not true. McCleary is about reform like Moby Dick is about the second mate, Stubb. Yes, he's in there, but he's not central to the narrative. The book would be the same without him. Don't let anyone deceive you: McCleary is about money, not reform. Yes, there was some mention of reform in the decision, but it wasn't central to the decisio...