Seattle Schools Community Forum

From noted ed blogger, Jonathan Peltier  via the Hartford Courant: High school juniors in North Haven and Westbrook won’t be getting Smarter Balanced test scores. It turns out, they took the wrong test. School officials in both districts said the confusion resulted from a drop-down menu that listed several possible tests. Students were apparently told to click on an “interim” or practice test, instead of the comprehensive year’s-end test and the mistake wasn’t caught until after the test was completed. “It was very disappointing,” said Westbrook Principal Tara Winch. “ I asked the state, why would the interim assessment even be up there during the actual testing time? Those shouldn’t even have been part of the testing window.”

From Save Maine Schools' Emily Talmage , I'm reprinting this in its entirety because of its clarity and brilliance.  I highlighted what I believe are the most important lines.

Updates: - Forgot about the meeting about the naming of the schools at the Wilson-Pacific site on Monday, the 4th at Lincoln at 6:30 pm. -  I was mistaken about the issue of Coe Elementary's library naming. A reader let me know that 6115- Plaques, Name Plates, and Donor Walls, was pulled at the last Board meeting, not about 6970, Naming of School District Buildings. - The Bell Times meeting on Tuesday, the 5th at the New Holly Hall is 7pm, not 5 pm. End of updates Lots of activity in the district this week. Entire week - Teacher Appreciation Week (the district only has Tuesday as Teacher Appreciation Day but I looked it up - it's the whole week). Say thank you to a teacher.  FYI, remember your favorite teacher K-12? They are aging and if you want to let them know how much they meant to you, time's a'wastin'. Tuesday,  May 5th  Operations Committee Meeting of the Whole from 4:30-6:30 pm. Agenda?  What agenda? It's now 48 hours from...

Sent March 5 Dear Principal Hudson and the Nathan Hale Senate: We, the undersigned teachers of Schmitz Park, join with the Nathan Hale Senate in its concerns over the validity, reliability, and equity of SBAC (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium) including the questionable cut score strategy.  Like the Nathan Hale Senate, we are also concerned with the loss of instructional time devoted to this questionable test.  We stand with you in asserting a commitment to a judicious use of valid, reliable, and equitable assessments.  We urge parents to inform themselves about the tests their children are taking and the validity of those tests. Thank you for putting students first. Sincerely, (signed by the majority of teachers at Schmitz Park)

From the ever-clever, Arch Stanton:

A lot of this uproar is about technology, I'll admit that.  But it further confirms that schools and districts are - not - ready.  I have no idea is SPS is truly ready. It's funny because at last night's Board meeting, Director McLaren asked what kind of message it would send to kids to entertain discussion about SBAC.  (She also said kids would be "proud" to have taken the test.  Are kids supposed to feel proud of getting thru a slogfest of a test?) But if I were a kid, siting and waiting and sitting and waiting, I think my range of emotions probably would not add a lot to the actual taking of the test.  If I were a teacher, I would feel a lot of frustration and some despair for my students.  And, as a parent, I would just not take any test result seriously. Maybe SBAC will do better than PARCC.   So let's see what's happening around the nation.  (all bold mine)

 Update:  I heard from one staff person who challenges some of the statements by Nyland: Nyland:  This year, the state is replacing the MSP/HSPE assessments with a new assessment called Smarter Balanced, which is aligned to our new College and Career Readiness Standards (Common Core). Staffer: The Smarter Balanced Assessments are NOT replacements for the MSP/HSPE. The HSPE was only required once in High School, at the 10th grade, and only in literacy. The Smarter Balanced Assessments are for more subjects and in more grades. The claim that the Smarter Balanced Assessments are a replacement is ill-informed at best and an intentional deception at worst.  Nyland: A s a tool for educators, Smarter Balanced Assessments are an improvement.  They are designed to better measure student growth from year to year.  They are adaptive to students' skill level and will adjust questions (easier/harder) based upon previous answers, an approach that...

Directors Patu and Peters are offering a motion tomorrow night at their Board meeting to suspend Smarter Balanced testing. I support this motion if only for discussion purposes. I absolutely concur that on a technical level, I do not believe most third-graders are ready for this kind of testing on a computer.  I think it has a degree of motor skill AND computer skills that many third-graders are unlikely to have.  And, if your household does not have a computer, even more so. It's tentative because they have to get four votes to support it going forward to committee and then coming back to the full Board for a vote. * PLEASE, write to the Board and ask that they vote for this motion if ONLY to have a real discussion.  Please put SBAC in your subject line.

The district has quite a bit of information for parents on the new Smarter Balanced testing on this page . It's great that the district has put up this information (I'm not sure how long it has been up - I saw this on Facebook via a reader).  But, there's a lot of ed lingo in there and I really wonder many parents will truly understand it all.   There is also a lot of language that is somewhat but not totally true. For example:

A great short film  by filmmaker Michael Elliott with many diverse parents voices explaining about how their children are reacting, their own insights into researching the PARCC test and how they are saying no. Worth less than 5 minutes of your time to watch.

The Nathan Hale Senate (effectively their BLT) voted "nearly unanimously" to not give the SBAC to their juniors this year.  (They had also recently voted to not give the PSAT to 10th graders at all.) The Nathan Hale Senate–a body made up of the teachers, administrators, parents and students–voted nearly unanimously that this test was inappropriate. The vote was taken after careful consideration and much discussion and inquiry, including two school community forums — one of which included University of Washington professor of education and renowned scholar on high-stakes testing, Wayne Au.) Reasons for refusing the SBAC for 11th graders included (summary):

Many interesting meetings this week.

The Times has an article about Common Core and why it's no big deal in Washington State. (The article is not in their education blog and I truly get mixed up about the difference between their ed blog stories and their education section stories. But I digress.) They ask a bunch of the usual suspects about CC but they don't do two big things. 1) They don't really explain why there is so much pushback throughout the country.  2) They don't have a SINGLE person with a quote on why they don't like it.  Almost as if they don't exist in our state.  (You can Google - Washington State Common Core - and guess what you find?  Stop Common Core in Washington State . )

 Required Reading Did you know that there is a move among conservatives to suggest that public schools should not exist?   There is and MSNBC has a good article about this issue.  One place it came up is at FOX News in a discussion over Oklahoma wanting to get rid of AP History. The Fox host said , “There really shouldn’t be public schools, should there?  I mean we should really go to a system where parents of every stripe have a choice, have a say in the kind of education their kids get because, when we have centralized, bureaucratic education doctrines and dogmas like this, that’s exactly what happens.”

KOMO tv is reporting this: A disturbing trend has been identified in Seattle public schools, where marijuana now makes up most of the disciplinary actions involving students. Between the start of the school year and Jan. 7, marijuana made up 77 percent of all disciplinary actions taken against students, district officials said. That's a big number.  What seems to be the issue? Lately, school officials have faced a new threat: Marijuana edibles dressed up as sugary treats. Everything from pot-infused caramels to drug-laced lemonade has been confiscated. That's in addition to the pipes and joints collected. The article doesn't explain how/why KOMO came across this news.  I'll have to ask the district. Reader Mary G said this: If this is true, this is a stunning statistic, but how would one know? The district has been unable to produce any reliable statistics for the last two years, and certainly not any resembling real time statistics...

So what did you think happened?  He failed math and got in D in reading.  From The Answer Sheet : “It might be argued that I’ve been out of school too long, that if I’d actually been in the 10th grade prior to taking the test, the material would have been fresh. But doesn’t that miss the point? A test that can determine a student’s future life chances should surely relate in some practical way to the requirements of life. I can’t see how that could possibly be true of the test I took.” Here’s the clincher in what he wrote: “If I’d been required to take those two tests when I was a 10th grader, my life would almost certainly have been very different. I’d have been told I wasn’t ‘college material,’ would probably have believed it, and looked for work appropriate for the level of ability that the test said I had. 

 Monday, December 1st   Want to get on the Speakers list for the Wednesday Board meeting ?  They take e-mails/phone calls starting at 8 am (not before so don't bother).  Phone: 252-0040 or boardagenda@seattleschools.org.   Coffee Chat with Superintendent Nyland at Neighborhood House High Point from 6-7 pm.  The notice states: Dr. Nyland looks forward to listening to your feedback, concerns, and questions. So I think bring any and all input and questions. Community Meeting with Director McLaren at Neighborhood House High Point from 7-8 pm.

Garfield teacher (and activist) Jesse Hagopian has edited a new book on student testing called More Than a Score: the New Uprising Against High-Stakes Testing (with a foreword by Diane Ravitch).  The book is a call to action but more than that, a good book for those who want to action but wonder if they can really make a difference.  The answer is, you can.  Hagopian calls those willing to stand up for opting out, testdefyers.  More Than a Score brings together stories of the fight, poems and interviews with leaders about what testing does to students and how to fight for the right assessments and testing. What I really liked were the voices of students because like most of us when we are young, we don't know enough to be scared. 

Threads to come - what's the issue w/enrollment counts (and Garfield fights on) - testing opt-outs across the country - recess - not just a problem in Seattle I'll be seeing some legislators today and hope to get their take on the passage of 1351 plus McCleary in the upcoming legislative session. Great article from The Atlantic :  High School Graduation Rates Hit All Time High.   Last year, 86 percent of students took home high school diplomas, while only 7 percent dropped out — down from 13 percent two decades ago, according to Census Bureau data . The national average reflects improvements across all demographics but is boosted by significant gains among black and especially Latino high-schoolers.   Want to see what some of the Smarter Balanced testing for 3rd graders looks like?  This morning, parents and teachers in the Portland Public Schools district are buzzing about one detail of a third grade practice test  that's available ...

I plan on writing a thread this weekend that is an overview of how I see the Seattle School Board today.  There are certainly some interesting things being said by directors and frankly, I'm not sure I see them working as a unified body (but not the same people who usually get called out for having special interests).   I listened to the Board comments and more and more, I find them quite telling. - Update: forgot this one piece of info.  You may have heard that some school districts around the country have accepted various "items" from the Armed Forces.  One in San Diego accepted a tank.  Seriously.  I had a chance to ask Ass't Superintendent Pegi McEvoy this question yesterday.  She said the only things that SPS accepted from the military were blankets, cots and MREs.  Sounds good to me. - the district appears to have solved its website problems.  However, apparently the 46th Dems were to have an Endorsement meeting last night at ...