Seattle Schools Community Forum

 A truly compelling article from two researchers on what is happening with closing the opportunity gap. (bold mine) The enormous gap in academic performance between high- and low-income children has begun to narrow. Children entering kindergarten today are more equally prepared than they were in the late 1990s . From 1998 to 2010, the school readiness gap narrowed by 10 percent in math and 16 percent in reading. The gaps that remain are still vast. But even this modest improvement represents a sharp reversal of the trend over the preceding decades. It’s worth noting that the gap in school readiness narrowed because of relatively rapid improvements in the skills of low-income children, not because the skills of children from high-income families declined. 

Good News Mark Perry , the long-time principal at Nova High School, was honored by the Alliance for Education's Thomas B. Foster Award for Excellence as a distinguished principal.  Perry will receive a $50,000 cash grant for his school.  He has been principal at Nova for 16 years.

I want to be sure that everyone has seen this. It's important. CLOSING OPPORTUNITY GAPS An Action Plan for Accelerating Achievement for African American Males and Other Students of Color In this document, the District commits to some very specific benchmarks: Every student will achieve proficiency in Reading and Mathematics by end of Grade 2. Every student will have a personal learning plan and an advocate/mentor to keep him on track to high school graduation and successful post-secondary transition. Every student will meet standards of performance in Reading, Writing, Mathematics, and Science at the end of key transition grades. Every student will receive fair and equitable treatment regarding discipline and access to rigorous instructional programs. Every student will graduate from high school prepared for success in college or career. Whenever I see commitments of this kind from the School District, I always want to ask "What if it doesn't go like that?...

The State Board of Education is holding a board meeting July 7-9 in Seattle . Please join board members for an open discussion July 8 at the Rainier Community Center on important topics such as strategies for closing the achievement gap, standards, and assessment. Please note that the regular meeting will be held at the Museum of Flight. Rainier Community Center, Seattle, WA 4600 38th Ave S Seattle, WA 98118 From 6:30-8:00 pm    Might want to come and give them a cheerful earful on Common Core and SBAC. From the Times: The forum is part of the board’s regular meeting, which begins today at the Museum of Flight. The three-day  agenda includes a review of of experiences districts had giving the new Smarter Balanced state math and reading tests this spring on July 9 from 10-11:30 a.m. The meetings on July 8 and July 9 both have times scheduled for publi...

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

An article in the Seattle Times today troubled me deeply. Tough Talk (from the left) on race and Seattle Schools  described a recent meeting in Columbia City called “Race, Class and Education”. The meeting acknowledged the wide difference in academic performance between affluent White and Asian students and minority students from low-income homes. That fact is troubling in itself. The school district's refusal to address the gap is also troubling, but most troubling were the number of people who think the solution is to discontinue honors classes. You're going to have to read this thing for yourself, but I would like everyone to keep in mind, what Wayne Au apparently has forgotten: that equity and equality are not the same thing. Ending service for students working beyond grade level will not help students working below grade level.

The Latest: Based on information I got today at the BEX Oversight Committee meeting, I knew that it was likely that an attempt would be made to clear the Mann Building.  I observed the building for a period of time late this afternoon.  I saw several people stop and look at the still-locked gates including a construction truck and private electrician company truck.  I saw no one come in or out of the building. In the Open Thread it was reported at 6:43 that there was a Tweet that Banda had a Notice to Vacate the Property that said everyone had to be out by 6:00 pm today or they would be considered to have been "trespassed."  The Tweet was a rally to come to the building.  Someone Said reported police and power trucks there.  Then at 7:52 pm, Someone Said reported that KIRO-tv tweeted that the Seattle City Light workers were "turned away" by Horace Mann occupiers but no police were there.  Power had gone out at my home so my family and I left an...

Here's what he said in his speech about public education: As mayor, I will make education at every level the foundation of the city’s work. We need to move from being an educated city to becoming an education city. As Mayor, I will use every possible tool in my toolbox to make sure that our education system is delivering the education and skills that our kids need and our economy demands. I’ll work with the council on bold ideas like universal pre-school and use the Road Map Project’s “Cradle to Career” indicators and milestones to push for better leadership and resources for education.  We can no longer close our eyes to the sad fact that we are failing too many kids—this is not an achievement gap, because these kids have it in them to succeed. It is an opportunity gap, because we have not done what we need to do to lift kids up and give them what they need. We as a city cannot move forward economically while leaving so many of our own kids behind – that kind of...

 Update: Changed headline so as not to upset the more tender-minded readers.  The original title, though, was verbatim and was spoken by a Taskforce member to Superintendent Banda. Charlie and I attended along with Joanna Cullen, a long-time Central resident and public education advocate. I honestly hesitate to put this up but I am because pressure needs to come to bear to end this situation (at least at the Mann building - there are other real and valid issues that the Taskforce is completely right about). (To note: there were at least 25 people in the room, most of whom I did not know and could not read their names from afar.  I apologize for those I can't name.) Bottom line from the meeting: To be clear - the district has said that the remaining groups in the Mann Building need to be out by Wednesday, September 18th. (This date is the one the district has to meet in order to get State dollars to help with the project. They will lose those dollars if they d...

So goes today's headline in the NY Times.  Although the United States no longer leads the world in educational attainment, record numbers of young Americans are completing high school, going to college and finishing college, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly available census data.  The share of high school graduates in that age group, along with the share of those with some college, have also reached record levels. This year, 90 percent were high school graduates, up from 78 percent in 1971. And 63 percent have completed some college work, up from 34 percent in 1971.   Okay, do we have an educational crisis in this country?  Yes and no. We certainly are continuing to graduate students from our K-12 system in continuing to rise numbers.  More of them are going to college. But there are two issues for each level of public education. For K-12, it is the children who are dropping out or struggling mightily.  Tha...

A heartfelt guest post from The Washington Post's Answer Sheet written by Brock Cohen about the REAL issue that holds back schools in closing the achievement gap.  This was written by Brock Cohen, a teacher and student advocate in the Los Angeles Unified School District who contends that we can no longer afford to trivialize the critical role that poverty plays in a child’s learning experiences – and that true school reform begins with social justice. Brock’s students were recently featured in an NPR piece that charts some of his students’ daily struggles as they pursue their education. He starts off with hearts and flowers from NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee, Arne Duncan and even the President.  That's all good and well but charters and TFA are just distractions.  What had grown increasingly clear to me was that my students’ academic struggles did not simply stem from inaction, ineffective parenting, drug use, or neglect. While these elements were usual...

Here is a link to a story on the LEV blog with the headline " Washington among the worst when it comes to Black male graduation rates ". The story - written by the League of Education Voters - says: "The Schott Foundation has released individual report cards revealing the graduation rates of Black male students, and Washington is among the worst performers." Later in the story, however, the LEV admits: "The national graduation average for Black male students in the 2007-2008 school year is 47 percent, which technically means that Washington is slightly above average." Waitaminnut. Does LEV know what the word "worst" means? If Washington State is, in fact, above average, how can LEV claim that it is "among the worst"? Washington isn't even among the worse, let alone the worst. If this article is reflective of the LEV's ability to interpret data, then they stink at it. Now, I'm not proud of the state's 48% gradu...

A story in the Seattle Times today ( 'Alarming' new test-score gap discovered in Seattle schools ) reports a significant gap in the pass rates on state-mandated tests for Black students when they are disaggregated by the language spoken in their home. In short, immigrant Black students out-perform African-American students on state tests. 62% of black students who come from homes where Amharic is spoken passed the state math tests while the pass rate for black students from English-speaking homes was only 36%. Even in the Reading tests, those who come from a home where Amharic is spoken passed at a 74% rate while those from English-speaking homes passed at a 56% rate.

From the NY Times, a story about a CDCP  advisory committee recommending vaccinating boys and young men against human papillomavirus ( HPV ). The committee recommended that boys ages 11 and 12 should be vaccinated. It also recommended vaccination of males ages 13 through 21 who had not already had all three shots. Vaccinations may be given to boys as young as 9 and to men between the ages of 22 and 26. HPV infection is the most common sexually transmitted disease — between 75 percent and 80 percent of females and males in the United States will be infected at some point in their lives. Most will overcome the infection with no ill effects. But in some people, infections lead to cellular changes that cause warts or cancer, including cervical, vaginal and vulvar cancers in women and anal cancers in men and women. A growing body of evidence suggests that HPV also causes throat cancers in men and women as a result of oral sex. And not to get too graphic here, folks, but for those...

Here are my highlights:

In her letter to the community regarding the appointment of Marni Campbell to the position of Executive Director of Schools in the northwest region, Dr. Enfield wrote: We know quality teaching is the number-one factor for student success. This statement is totally false. We actually know that the number-one factor for student success is the active involvement in the student's education by an adult in the child's home. It has been demonstrated time and time again that home influences utterly swamp school-based influences on student achievement. Dr. Enfield knows this statement to be false, yet she wrote it. What does that mean? A) She was trying to misinform and deceive the public. B) She is misinformed herself. C) She is a sloppy writer who neglected to add the word "school-based" between "number-one" and "factor". I don't know. I can't make conjecture about it. I do know that I called district communications and asked them and t...

I spoke to someone last night and it reminded me of one of my greatest frustrations with Seattle Public Schools. I have been a school district activist for about 11 years. For all of that time the District's stated number one goal and priority has been to close the Academic Achievement Gap. Ask anyone in the district leadership what their primary goal or highest priority is and that will be named. So where is the plan to achieve that goal? There is none. They have never made one. What kind of organization - business, sports, government, non-profit, cultural, whatever - sets a goal, swears commitment to that goal, but never makes any kind of plan to achieve it? That's simply not credible. If the District were ever to write a plan to close the Academic Achievement Gap, they would do it by bringing every student up to Standards. And the only reasonable way to do that would be to identify every student who was working below Standards and give them the support they need to r...

This isn't really what Dick Lilly over at Crosscut said but it's what went thru my mind reading his recent article .  Here's his premise about "closing the achievement gap": Among the results of this frustratingly persistent problem is a vast, energetic industry of school reform, headlined in recent years by the involvement of powerful private foundations and the policy directives of the federal government: “No Child Left Behind” in the “Race to the Top.” Over the years, a variety of structural changes have been proposed and, to one degree or another, tried: small schools, mayoral governance, charter schools, (more) intensive professional development for teachers, (more) leadership training for principals. Testing and more testing, along with the loss of federal funds and wholesale staff changes when schools have failed to improve scores (many states dumbed down their tests to avoid the consequences). And lately, paying teachers based on student test r...

In 2009 the State formed the Achievement Gap Oversight and Accountability Committee to synthesize the findings and recommendations from the 2008 achievement gap studies. You can read their report and review their recommendations for yourself. You will find that very few of them have any practical value. In fact, I'm not sure that any of them do. A lot of the so-called recommendations are merely goals (i.e. " Increase the on-time and extended graduation rates for African American students to reach parity with the highest-performing demographic group by 2014 and to achieve a 100 percent graduation rate by 2018. " Even the recommendations that are actually recommendations are too vague to be of much value (i.e. " To be effective, leaders must have high expectations of all students and teachers, and a high degree of awareness of their own culture and the culture of others. ") In short, the whole report is crap. It represents the utter failure of the public K-1...

I need someone with a legal background to read this thing but I do see some problems here. Here is WAC wording for why the district can do this (italics mine): "(a) The purpose of the conditional certificate is to assist local school districts, approved private schools, and educational service districts in meeting the state's educational goals by giving them flexibility in hiring decisions based on shortages or the opportunity to secure the services of unusually talented individuals. The professional educator standards board encourages in all cases the hiring of fully certificated individuals and understands that districts will employ individuals with conditional certificates only after careful review of all other options. The professional educator standards board asks districts when reviewing such individuals for employment to consider, in particular, previous experience the individual has had working with children. " How do we know the TFA teachers are un...