Seattle Schools Community Forum

This week, Orlando, FL is hosting the U.S Conference of Mayors.  According to Reuters, "hundreds" of mayors endorsed "parent trigger" laws... "...aimed at bypassing elected school boards and giving parents at the worst public schools the opportunity to band together and force immediate change." Well, it does force change but is it change the only outcome parents create?  Generally so.  The adage "be careful what you wish for" surely applies here to those parents. I called Mayor McGinn's office and they are going to let me know if he voted on this issue and if he did, how he voted.  It will be a great disappointment if he voted yes.   Parent trigger laws are in place in several states including California, Texas and Louisiana and are under consideration in states including Michigan, Pennsylvania and New York. So far, though, the concept has never successfully been used to turn around a school. Though it has not yet been shown t...

From Dr. Enfield's office: The Seattle Foundation President and CEO Norm Rice today announced funding for Teach for America in Seattle Public Schools. I want to thank The Seattle Foundation and all the donors for their support. Please see the attached announcement for more information. From the district press release: The TFA teachers receive a typical first-year salary from the District and are members of the Seattle Education Association. They will, however, receive additional support from TFA during the school year. The Seattle Foundation will cover the $4,000 fee per teacher paid to TFA– an estimated $20,000 total. This fee is used to offset the cost of training. “We know that an exceptional teacher in every classroom can help close the achievement gap and increase the academic success of all of our students. Teach for America brings even more exceptional and motivated teachers into our classrooms,” said Norman B. Rice, President and CEO of The Seattle Fou...

Update:     It seems the Seattle Foundation gave TFA $80k in December 2010 to " support general operating expenses of the Seattle program ."   Their other generous donations cover a wide range of Puget Sound programs (including intervention programs in Renton, Northshore and Highline schools).  Interesting that they want to help support a non-local program that doesn't even exist here yet.   As I previously reported, I had this back and forth with Washington STEM over their funding of TFA.  At one point, they had brought in the TFA regional director who told me that they are trying to get recruits with science and math backgrounds.  Clearly, there is no way for them to guarantee who will come but she said 10 recruits with math/science degrees had indicated Puget Sound as their first choice.

Just as spring heralds the arrival of new growth, it is sometimes difficult to tell the flowers from the weeds (and to figure out how some things just keep growing). As previously announced, the money for the TFA recruit fees ($4k per teacher per year for SPS and $3k per teacher per year for Federal Way) will come from a grant from the Washington STEM organization.  This would be okay except in trying to figure out how this large grant ($475k) brings more math and science to either district, it gets murky. At the Washington STEM website, the media kit on the grants explains they will " over-recruit " for TFA recruits with a math or science degree.  I asked what this meant and couldn't quite get an answer.  (They don't have their own PR people and the question got farmed out to their PR person.)  As per TFA, I eventually had to go through the TFA regional person, Janis Ortega.  (This happens a great deal of the time.  Try to contact a former TFAer and yo...