Seattle Schools Community Forum

Common Core and assessments and a new group, Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium . More on assessments from The New Yorker; its story covers the Garfield assessment boycott. As the author and relapsed educator Garret Keizer observed in his return to teaching, of which he writes in the September 2011 issue of Harper’s, “No student I meet seems to believe that the universe formed in six days but a disturbing number insist that an essay is always formed in five paragraphs.” Charter Schools The group that 1240 is following for authorizing guideline, The National Association of Charter School Authorizers, released a 12-step "Index of Essential Practices" for charter school authorizers. Looking over them, it does not appear that 1240 meets them but then :   The report found that only a small percentage of those who responded have all 12 practices in place, but the majority are using at least nine. Also from Ed Week , a study about the early years of new charter schools:...

Is this homework a kindergartener should be able to do?  I heard that at one Seattle elementary (it slips my mind which one but I think it is Roxhill) that they have ended homework and require only reading every night.    Should kindergartners have homework ? An upcoming event that may be of interest to you and your student - the unveiling of Mirror, a permanent art installation at SAM.   From their website : MIRROR is an urban earthwork that changes in real time in response to the movements and life around it. At the unveiling, guests will experience an unprecedented performance with synchronized choreography of MIRROR in relation to compositions by minimalist composers Steve Reich and Terry Riley. Mr. Riley will be in Seattle for the performance of his monumental work In C, featuring musicians from the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. The event is free as are SAM galleries that day but you have to print out tickets for the Mirror event as well as pick up ti...

A very nifty flowchart from our friends at the Seattle Education blog (Sue Peters and Dora Taylor) showing the "lines of influence" both nationally and locally.  They created this awhile back and admit it needs updating like the line between Gates and the Alliance, that Goodloe-Johnson is gone, and there are even more connections than ever in 2013.

This fall the citizens of Seattle will be voting for mayor.  As of now, I believe there are seven candidates.  I have interviewed one of them - Peter Steinbrueck - and have Kate Martin on tap.  I will reach out to Mayor McGinn but from working with him over the last several years, I have a good idea of his views.  One of the candidates is Councilman Tim Burgess.  The Councilman has been deeply involved in Seattle public education and was a big supporter of the Families & Education levy.  He also has shown a propensity for behind-the-scenes con-fabs with high-level SPS leaders and it is unclear to me whether he ever shared any of this information with other councilmembers.  (We have public disclosure e-mails to thank for this info.)  Now I see that Councilman Burgess is being thrown a fundraiser this week by the following people: Michael and Marie DeBell, Sherry Carr, Clover Codd, Bree Dusseault , Chris Eide, David Elliot, Christina Gonzal...

A great, great op-ed in the NY Times by UC Berkeley professor, David L. Kirp, called T he Secret to Fixing Bad Schools. He just spent the last year researching a book on public education in Union City, N. J.  I'll let him tell you what he found out: The striking achievement of Union City, N.J. — bringing poor, mostly immigrant kids into the educational mainstream — argues for reinventing the public schools we have.  Union City makes an unlikely poster child for education reform. It’s a poor community with an unemployment rate 60 percent higher than the national average. Three-quarters of the students live in homes where only Spanish is spoken. Public schools in such communities have often operated as factories for failure. This used to be true in Union City, where the schools were once so wretched that state officials almost seized control of them. How things have changed. From third grade through high school, students’ achievement scores now approximate the...

By the numbers:   In an interview on the Huffington Post in December 2012, TFA founder and CEO Wendy Kopp said the following: "On average, our corps members stay in the classroom for eight years." Anthony Cody of the Living in Dialogue blog at Ed Week asked for substantiation of this claim because the generally previously accepted number was more that only 10-15% of TFAers stay past their third year. Others doing the math f ound that one study found that about 40% of TFAers leave after two years and another 25% after four years.  So if Kopp's claim is true, then 40% would have to be there for 14 years and another 25% for 12 years.  That's the only way you get an "average" of eight years. So Cody asked a TFA spokesperson who said:   "stat is a best estimate"  "data involved is national and based on our alumni survey"  Kopp finally answered saying her comment "created confusion. We can't definitively say what the ave...

You may well have heard or seen Michelle Rhee on tv in the last week.  She has a new book, Radical, that's she pushing.   I have read a few excerpts and they don't fail to startle.  As I had previously mentioned, the PBS series, Frontline , had Ms. Rhee as a focus of one show.  It was quite the show as this was during the time period when she was DC Chancellor of schools.  The reporter did a brilliant job of just letting her talk and allowing her actions and her words to speak for themselves. Highlights from the Frontline show:

It appears that Executive Director of Schools for the SE Region, Bree Dusseault, will be leaving SPS.   You may recall that Ms. Dusseault was the Executive Director pushing for Ingraham principal Martin Floe's dismissal.   Principal Floe kept his job and she was moved to the SE Region.  I was told she is taking a position with a charter group.  Honestly, not one surprise here and it's one fewer TFA person in this district. 

I'm finally catching up on some backreading on education issues. Arne Duncan.   According to this article in Ed Week on the first speech Secretary Duncan has made since the re-election of President Obama, it appears he will stay on if asked.  His priorities? In his first major postelection remarks, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said that he will use his second term to continue to leverage education improvement at the state and local levels, with a new emphasis on principal preparation and evaluation.  And, he made clear that if Congress isn't serious about reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, of which the No Child Left Behind Act is the current version, then his department won't devote a lot of energy to it. Duncan said, repeatedly, that he did not want reauthorization to happen through a bad bill. "We will lead, we will help, we will push, but Congress has to want to do it," said Duncan, who says he plans on staying in th...

Monday, October 15th Superintendent Banda will be busy as he bounces from the Seattle Special Education PTA meeting and the Seattle Council PTA meeting .  Both are from 7-9 p.m. The Seattle Council meeting is in the auditorium but it is unclear where the Special Ed PTA is meeting.  I'll find out and post it. The Seattle Council PTA meeting includes Q&A on I -1240.  It also includes a presentation of the BEX IV levy. Tuesday, October 16th Operation Committee Meeting from 4-6 p.m.  Agenda .  To note, Pegi McEvoy will give an update on the BEX IV levy to the group.  Other items include the Student Assignment plan for 2013-2014. Wednesday, October 17th School Board meeting.  Agenda . A rather important one as this will introduce the BEX IV levy list AND the Board will vote on a resolution of a NO against I-1240.  I suspect quite a run for the speakers list especially from those supporting charters and the downtown folks. To get ...

Monday Another of Superintendent Banda's Community meetings , this time at Bryant Elementary 3311 NE 60th Street from 6-7:30 p.m. Director Peaslee Community meeting from 6:30-8:00 p.m. at Lake City Library, 12501 128th Ave NE Tuesday Superintendent Banda Community meeting , this time at Concord International,  723 South Concord Street from 6-7:30 p.m. Wednesday School Board meeting at 4:15 p.m.  Could I put in a plug here?  Please write to the Board and tell them that this time is not conducive to real public engagement - schoolboard@seattleschools.org.  Agenda. One key item here is the Creative Approach Amendment that is supposed to put in School Board oversight to this process.   I need to read it line for line but my quick read is...not so much.   I feel the Board should have some kind of final input on any change.  The issue to me is that this Amendment only says the Board has to approve a waiver request and not the overall change to a...

I just listened to the KUOW report (not yet available) on the vote of the TFA member to teach Special Ed at Franklin High.   What a mess and yet, interesting.  Here's what I understand happened. They had six members in attendance (I believe Director Smith-Blum was missing). Apparently the vote was 3 yeses (Martin-Morris, DeBell and Carr) and 3 abstained votes.  So the Board Manager said it did not pass. DeBell corrected her and said abstaining votes don't count, they have a quorum and the majority of the quorum said yes. THEN, Ron English, district counsel stepped up and said he wasn't sure. Now, as a former PTA president who is supposed to know Robert's Rules of Order (but I don't know them well), I do know there are two issues. One is what abstaining votes mean and the other is what constitutes a majority vote. "...Abstentions do not count in tallying the vote; when members abstain, they are in effect only attending the meeting to aid in consti...

Remember that Teach for America corps member who was maybe hired to teach a special ed class at Aki Kurose but then wasn't because she wouldn't return the District's calls? Turns out that she's just fine. She got a teaching job in Renton. Think about that. When fully trained, experienced teachers can't find a job, this Teach for America corps member found two! Ann Dornfeld tells the story on KUOW .

Interesting (and lengthly) essay from a student teacher that carefully outlines her concerns with TFA .  The ones about the link between TFA and charter schools is especially timely for Washington State.  (Also a good story here on that link from the National Journal.) From Education Week, a very good comparison of what Romney and Obama have in mind for public education. From Education Week, a review of a new book about the most selective public high schools in the country. For each of the 11 schools that Finn or Hockett personally visited, the book describes the climate for learning. Here's how they summed it up: By and large, all the schools we visited were serious, purposeful places: competitive but supportive, energized yet calm. Behavior problems (save for cheating and plagiarism) were minimal, and students attended regularly. The kids wanted to be there, and were motivated to succeed. Most classrooms they observed were "alive, engaged places,...

I bookmark many education stories but wait until I have a mass and/or time to post them. First, up worry over teachers labeled " highly qualified" teaching Special Ed students.  This story comes from the Special Ed section at Ed Week. Earlier this year, the Senate merely left the door open to extending a provision that allows teachers still working on their certification to be considered "highly qualified"—a designation created by 2001's No Child Left Behind law. The law says teachers must already be certified to qualify, but Education Department regulations created about the law allowed for teachers in alternative routes to be considered highly qualified, even if they were still working on their certification. For example, people in the classroom as part of the Teach for America training program would fall into this category. The department's regulations on these alternative routes were set to expire, but as my colleague Alyson Klein explains over at ...

Scholastic is launching a new Harry Potter Reading Club for the start of the school year.  There will be a live webcast with J.K. Rowling and she will answer questions from kids. Teachers can sign up now (it's on October 11 at 9 am our time).   As well there are welcome kits to the first 10,000 registrants (but you can download it as well). Hilariousness with an sober side.  It seems that there is this new idea for merit pay for teachers called "loss aversion." Economist Roland Fryer has been trying for years to find the magic incentive that would produce higher scores. He tried merit pay, and that didn’t work. He tried paying students to get higher scores, but that didn’t work. Now, he has at last found the key: He and his colleagues have perfected a technique called “loss aversion.” They give teachers a bonus (say, $4,000) at the beginning of the year. If the scores go up, the teachers keep the money.  If the scores don’t go up, they lose the...

First, I thought Dr. Royal's speech in Philadelphia to TFAers had been taken down at YouTube but apparently not.  This inspired Trish Millines Dziko, noted educator and head of Technology Access Foundation and the TAF Academy in Tacoma, to weigh in.  She, like Dr. Royal, is an outspoken advocate for children and public education.  She is strong and fearless.  Here's what she had to say in reference to Dr. Royal's speech: Pacific NW Education Reformers Pay Attention to This! Our public education system needs a lot of work in order to provide the type of education our children need to succeed. However, those leading the education reform movement (particular ly here in the PNW) have pushed their toes on the line of paternalism and are heading toward colonialism. Dr. Camika Royal (an African American woman who is also a former Teach for America member) really laid it out in a way that you should all take seriously and make the necessary adjustments. She ...

In the ever-continuing line of "is there nothing Michelle Rhee won't say to get her way", comes this latest video from her group, Students First.  It's a play on the Olympics (by the way, Michelle, you might want to watch that usage because the REAL Olympics is highly territorial about the use of the word).   It's a cheap shot video that has earned her a lot of criticism.  There are rumblings coming out of Chicago, which may have a teachers strike, that TFA is going to roll in with 5,000 TFAers.  There is a word for people who cross picket lines and if that happens, it will not be pretty.  It will be ugly and it may mark a very dark day for TFA.  We have many, many teachers in this country and if you are in a union, as hired TFAers are, you NEVER cross a picket line against others in your union.  Quit the union and then try it - you'd be better off.   I have to shake my head at the idea.   On the upside for TFA, a story of braver...

From the House Appropriations Committee work of last week, comes these results (via Ed Week ): Winners: Extension of allowing teachers in alternative certification programs to count as "highly qualified" through the 2014-2015 school year.  This would include those "higly qualified" TFA 5-week trained teachers.  Losers :  organizations, many of whom support disabled/Special Ed students, like the council for Exceptional Children, National Center for Learning Disabilities and the NAACP who do not want the provision extended.  Here's what they said: Absent expiration of the problematic provision ... low-income students, students with disabilities and English-learners will continue to be disproportionately taught by teachers-in-training and that fact will be masked from parents and local communities. Yes, because while TFA thinks the world of their teachers, they don't feel districts have any obligation to tell their parents where their teacher cam...

Thanks to Southpaw for the laugh of the day. From the kid's side: You've got to be kidding me. How does this keep happening? I realize that as a fourth-grader I probably don't have the best handle on the financial situation of my school district, but dealing with a new fresh-faced college graduate who doesn't know what he or she is doing year after year is growing just a little bit tiresome. Seriously, can we get an actual teacher in here sometime in the next decade, please? That would be terrific. Just once, it would be nice to walk into a classroom and see a teacher who has a real, honest-to-God degree in education and not a twentysomething English graduate trying to bolster a middling GPA and a sparse law school application. I don't think it's too much to ask for a qualified educator who has experience standing up in front of a classroom and isn't desperately trying to prove to herself that she's a good person.