Seattle Schools Community Forum

This week marks the 20th anniversary for TAF (Technology Access Foundation) and the 8th for TAF Academy.  They are holding a big celebration party this weekend.  TAF was started by Trish Millines Dziko, a former Microsoftie. (Editor's note: Dziko is also a Washington State Charter Commissioner and one the best voices in that group.)

 Update: this post from retired teacher/blogger Fred Klonsky puts it all in perspective. end of update And I'm talking about public education. There was much discussion about the platform's stand on public ed issues early on.  With Hillary Clinton waffling about charter schools (only "high-quality" ones), it was hard to say what would happen. But now wording has been tightened and it looks like the Democratic party has somewhat split the baby (but landed to the side of ed reform not controlled by corporate/philanthropic groups.) From the Washington Post's The Answer Sheet (blue is platform language):

 Here's coverage of this story from GeekWire: Five teams from the school — including seven girls and one boy — are competing in a science showdown that will draw about 150 teams from across the 52,000-student district.

This is great news from Senator Murray's office. (On the downside, she voted yes to John B. King, Jr. to replace Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education.  The upside to that is that Mr. King will probably not be in that position long enough to do more damage. ) From Senator Murray's office: Legislation would jumpstart NSF grants, K-12 outreach programs that increase interest & retention in STEM fields More than 9% of all jobs in Washington state are STEM-related—the highest in the nation             (Washington, D.C.) – Today, Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), the top Democrat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, introduced the Women and Minorities in STEM Booster Act, legislation that would provide support to increase the number of women and minorities entering STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields. This bill would authorize the National Science Foundation...

From the Public Insight Network: How would you make science fun for kids?

The UW Computer Science and Engineering Department has several items of note for parents of students interested in STEM.

And apparently school officials in Texas overreacted.  Just a little bit.   From the Washington Post: Ahmed Mohamed just wanted to impress his teachers with a homemade invention. The story of what happened next has made the 14-year-old from Irving, Tex., the object of national outrage and attention. Eager to show off to his engineering teacher, Mohamed walked into MacArthur High School on Monday morning with his hastily assembled invention: A digital clock. Hours later, the ninth-grader was escorted out of the school in police custody after teachers mistook the device for a bomb. Note; he showed it to his engineering teacher who thought it was cool but warned him not to show any other teachers.  But it beeped in English class, he showed it to the teacher who said it looked like a bomb. They took him out wearing a NASA t-shirt and handcuffs. Twitter and social media is exploding with this story - #IStandWithAhmed. President Obama tweeted:

Nearly, finally here. From the NY Times , a cool look at first day of school throughout the decades. A great article from Longreads about writing from Mary Karr who has put forth two memoirs.  Ms. Karr teaches her grad students using a technique that I tried years ago at Whittier Elementary with a class of 5th graders.  You pretend you are going to talk about writing, have a co-conspirator burst in the room and argue with you and then... tell the kids to write exactly what they heard and saw.  (I hit the button on a CD player and played the theme from "Mission Impossible" to set the mood after my compatriot left the room.)  The kids thought it funny and it did get them thinking about writing and memory .   From Ms Karr's piece: So a single image can split open the hard seed of the past, and soon memory pours forth from every direction, sprouting its vines and flowers up around you till the old garden’s taken shape in all its fragrant glory The Nation...

Well first, it's hot (but I'm from Arizona so you can't scare me) and dry so please have a safe and fun 4th and let the experts handle the fireworks AND be careful if you go out into the water (not in a pool).  The waters here in the Puget Sound region are very cold.   Kind of a fun survey on "How Creative Are You?"   if you draw (and I don't).  We like to talk about family engagement here and boy, did Arne Duncan fall flat in his latest Twitter chat.  From Conversation Ed: The topic of Arne Duncan’s July Twitter chat was “Parental engagement”. And that’s ironic for two reasons: He received a lot of parental engagement on the chat he probably wasn’t expecting. He didn’t “engage” much with the parents who were asking him the tough questions regarding his education policy that affect their kids. In fact, Duncan didn’t say much, but parents and educators certainly did. On the Seattle Craigslist, they are advertisin...

Happy Birthday, to space hero Sally Ride.  Today would have been her 64th birthday. I sent this story - via t he Washington Post ,  along to the Board - Six of the nation's largest school districts dump polystyrene trays .   These districts are banding together for volume savings to do better for their districts.  Great new area at the Fordham Institute for Advancing Educational Excellence - Eduwatch 2016 - with quotes from presidential candidates on education (which I believe they will be keeping updated). Rand Paul has an interesting idea about student loans for higher ed: Let’s let college students deduct the entire cost of their educations over their working careers. Let’s make college tuition entirely deductible.  Bernie Sanders: Promote creative learning by doing away with 'fill-in-the-bubble' standardized tests, and instead evaluate students based their understanding of the curriculum and their ability to use it creativel y. It's 2015 but ap...

State Superintendent Randy Dorn is having a press conference this morning to talk about his funding plan for McCleary    He says: “I want to make sure that every student, from Cape Flattery to Clover Park to Clarkston, has an equal opportunity to a basic education,” Dorn said. “That isn’t happening today. My plan will ensure that.” Also from OSPI, the announcement of math and science partnership grants to seven districts including Seattle. The grants will be used to help increase student achievement in math and science. Specifically, the grants allow for partnerships between schools and science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) faculty at institutes of higher education. State funding for the projects totals $1.9 million, to be split among the grantees. Awards, which have yet to be determined, range from $500,000 to $1.5 million and will be distributed during the course of the three-year grants. The MSP grant program is part of the federal Title II, Part B sect...

From the Seattle PI : Teacher convicted of raping student wants to teach again Mary Kay Letourneau, a former Washington State teacher, said she is trying to get her name removed from the sex-offender registry and wants to return to teaching . All together now - no and no. From Seattle Education blog: Census Bureau Reports Majority of STEM College Graduates Do Not Work in STEM Occupations

Good News 3-D Lego making at Cleveland High's STEM program. Chief Sealth wins gold in the Youth Division for their video, Riffing on a Dream at the Social Justice Film Festival. In the film, inspired by a project called  Question Bridge , 13 students sat down in front of a camera and gave their unscripted answers to questions from classmates to prompt racial dialogue within their school. The SPS story does not name the young filmmakers but you know their names, please let me know.  Monday, Nov. 24th No school for elementary and K-8 for parent/teacher conferences. Work Session two-parter from 4:30pm-8:30 pm Part One - Evaluation of the Superintendent (open session) - 1 hour Part Two - Evaluation of a public employee (closed session) - 3 hours  I would urge you to write to the the Board at schoolboard@seattleschools.org with the subject line "Superintendent review" and let the Board know what you think.  I think Nyland is an experienced administrator ...

I received a tweet on Monday from SPS, saying that Dr. Nyland was visiting with the City Council as part of their regular Monday morning briefing.  Here's the link .  It was worth listening to as I heard Dr. Nyland say, with some candor, various interesting things. Summary

There are so many truly "must-read" stories I'm going to group them into different threads. This one?  The "everything but the kitchen sink one." First up, in New London, Connecticut , the school board has postpone the hiring of one Terrence P. Carter as superintendent.  Why?  Because apparently the search firm they hired managed to miss that he had been using "PhD" and "Dr." for at least five years with no accredited degree.  (He lied about going to Stanford and getting his degree when he never even attended it.  What's weird is that he is completing a Ph.D. from a university and will be awarded it in August.  So why lie?)

That leader is Trish Millines Dziko who started Technology Access Foundation and is truly a great thinker on how to push the needle forward for students of color using STEM-based curriculum with project-based learning. Trish has written a series on her thoughts about ed reform (she's frustrated) and we think - intentionally - about the work of educating children on a school level. Time to Transform Public Schools: Part 1- Brown v Board, An Incomplete Journey Time to Transform Public Schools:Part 2 - A Vision for a Great School Time to Transform Public Schools: Part 3 - Don't Drink the Milk (complete with a charming Little Rascals video to prove her point) I believe in what Dziko is doing (and saying) for several reasons.

UW's department of Computer Science & Engineering has DawgBytes: A Taste of CSE which is their K-12 outreach program.  They have lots of fun events as well as offering a UW CSE student to come out to your school to talk to students.  They have an e-mail list so you can get regular updates of events. Remember the story, There Was an Old Woman Who Swallowed a fly and The House that Jack Built?  Here's a mash-up ed reform version of them featuring Bill Gates from the blog, Russ on Reading. What's on your mind?

In yet another "look how backwards Washington State is and how terrible public education is here" op-eds at the Seattle Times, their newest one features Robin Lake of the Center on Reinventing Public Education.  Basically, our state is not doing enough to train more STEM graduates.  I use that word "train" deliberately because she seems to think you can just churn out these grads and that is not the case. First, it would help to understand that it is a societal problem.  Girls are encouraged to think "math is hard."  Every single profile about Bill Gates and his life is guaranteed to use the words "nerd" or "geek."  Something has to change for it to be okay to be a smart kid in the U.S.  (And NOT supporting all the kids who are doing well also kills the chances for more STEM grads.) Second, the Center on Reinventing Public Education is a mostly charter school think tank. Remember that when you read this op-ed. Ms. Lake says...

Two Special Education stories of note. First, the Times reports that the State will accept SPS's Special Ed plan with a few extra conditions.  The concern seems to be that the staffing plan seems more worried about teachers's needs than meeting student needs.  The State also wants the district to spend more federal dollars on consultants to help to shape/improve services.  Also, the AP is reporting that Bainbridge School District has to pay the family of a student with Asperger's who was bullied $300,000 in damages .  The lawsuit started in 2010 when the student was then 14 and at Bainbridge High School.  The parents had gone so far as to get a restraining order against four male students as well as contacting the Bainbridge Island police.   The students were found guilty of criminal conduct relating to their actions towards the victim. Another STEM school with an aviation twist has opened in south Seattle.  The school, Raisbeck Aviation High Sch...

You may recall my update on Common Core?   I left out the biggest news which is the looming showdown between California Governor Jerry Brown and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.  The fight is over - what else? - testing .  From EdSource : Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday defended the state’s decision to suspend state standardized tests this year and instead offer students a practice test in the Common Core standards that’s now being developed. And he gave no sign of steering away from a collision with the federal government over this issue. The governor wants to pilot CC assessments for schools that have the necessary equipment.  The issue is that a new California law says this: By requiring that every district capable of administering a computer-based test give students a Common Core field or practice test next spring, the bill will put California out of compliance with the federal No Child Left Behind law.  And that's because California - like m...