Seattle Schools Community Forum

Locally (and, of sorts, public education news) comes the announcement that 37th district Senator Adam Kline will not be running to retain his seat.  Naturally, when a senator retires, the obvious replacement often comes from whoever are the representatives in that district (see Jamie Pedersen for Ed Murray).  I am hoping that Rep. Eric Pettigrew runs so that all the ed reform nonsense he has pushed and supported (and seemingly not understood given some of his past statements), he has to explain to voters.  And then he loses.  I also hear that Eric Liu, a great writer, is also thinking of running.  Eric is a great thinker but has never been elected to office.  He is so bright but also his BFF is Nick Hanauer which would (1) fund his campaign but (2) probably get him to support all Hanauer's ed reform push. Also locally, interesting story at KUOW about one family's work to get help for their autistic child , this time with a good outcome in Shoreline Sc...

The NY Times is having a discussion over the right time for which books i.e. should a 6-year old read Harry Potter?  There are a series of short essays from various people on the subject.  As a former children's bookseller, I would err on the side of waiting for certain books.  You can read almost any book to any child at any time but many themes are possibly too big for some kids as presented in some books. They could read them at 6 and then again at 12 and get something different.  That would be okay (and to be expected) except that if the theme worries the child or causes upset at a younger age, was that worth it?  Those books will always be there; it's not like they go away.  

From the Washington Post's The Answer Sheet, an article about D.C.'s county superintendent calling on President Obama and Secretary Duncan to call a moratorium on standardized testing. He also said it was wrong to evaluate teachers based on the scores their students get on standardized tests because the method that is is based on “bad science.” He noted that he had previously worked in the New York City Department of Education, the nation’s largest school system, where was director of school performance and accountability. It became clear, he said, that the formulas used to assess a teacher’s value with the use of test scores had huge margins of error, as much as 55 points. In fact, he said that a good way to create assessments for Common Core-aligned curriculum would be to crowd-source the development and let teachers design them rather than have corporations do it. He criticized policies that help make public education   “a private commodity.” An op-ed fr...

Mr. Sendak passed away today at 83.  How many of us loved Where the Wild Things Are (and our kids)?  Here's a link to the two recent interviews he did on the Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert.  They show a very sharp guy who was also very funny.  He inspired Stephen to write a children's book himself called I Am a Pole (and So Can You!).    Sendak's impression of the book: "The sad thing is, I liked it ." That quote made it to the cover of the book as a blurb.