Seattle Schools Community Forum

Tom Stritikus announced that he is resigning his position as the Dean of the UW College of Education to accept a position with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Here is his message to COE students and staff:

This meeting could be interesting for a number of reasons. One, it is likely the last one where we will see Superintendent Banda up there on the dais with the Board.  (The Sacramento School Board is scheduled to vote July 17th and this Seattle School Board meeting is the last until August 20th.)  It may be awkward (to say the least) as the Superintendent is now the lamest of lame ducks.  Does the Board say farewell publicly or throw him a quick party after he makes the final announcement on his departure? Two, as usual, the agenda has got some items that stand out. 

The answer looks like, not anytime soon.   UW College of Education professor, Ken Zeichner, had a column at the Washington Post's The Answer Sheet this week about legislation in Congress to "reform" teacher preparation programs.  It's called "The GREAT Teachers and Principals Act" and naturally, it is nothing of the sort. During the last few years, The New Schools Venture Fund ( NSVF ), a major private funder of K-12 charter schools, has been intensely involved in creating and promoting a bill (the GREAT Act) in the U.S. Congress. This bill, if passed, would lead to the establishment of teacher and principal preparation programs that would not be subject to the same level of accountability as other state-approved programs. The bill is a part of a broader movement to disrupt the current system of college and university teacher education and replace it with deregulation, competition, and a market economy. We should be concerned over the lack of pu...

Back in 2010, Charlie wrote a thread on this ed reform group and a report they had written about the Seattle teachers contract. NCTQ - National Council on Teacher Quality - has now come out with another report, NCTQ Teacher Prep Review, and this one is about teacher preparation programs.   I haven't read all of it (it's 112 pages).  Their premise is that the overwhelming majority of teacher prep programs aren't worth it to their students.  What's interesting is not that they say the programs' content is bad but .. .that a vast majority of teacher preparation programs do not give aspiring teachers adequate return on their investment of time and tuition dollars. I may be splitting hairs but I'm not sure return on investment is the same as low-quality. They also complain that most of the programs don't prepare teachers to teach Common Core.  For crying out loud, it's just barely coming online and hello! there is no "content", only the s...