Seattle Schools Community Forum

Via Director Harris: Concord International Elementary School’s Parent Teacher Association (PTA) is hosting an informational meeting on testing and student assessment of learning . Dr Wayne Au, an expert in educational equity, high stakes testing, and educational policy studies will be presenting. The event is scheduled for Tuesday, October 18 from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the South Park Neighborhood Center (8201 10th Ave S). For more information, please contact the Concord PTA president, Robin Schwartz at robinschwartz@hotmail.com

The UW Computer Science and Engineering Department has several items of note for parents of students interested in STEM.

Have you read thru the District's budgets ?  One funny thing is the cover with "Three Goals - 50,000 Journeys."   Last I looked the District was near 53,000 students.  What about the other 3,000?  Also, page 54, where they show the broad breakdown of "Expenditures" - it adds up to 99%, not 100% .  Must be that Common Core Math.  And guess who's spending is going up the most within SPS?  Central at 16.4% (but they still like to contend they are only 5.8% of the budget with 800 people working at JSCEE). Important new ruling from the State Supreme court on sealing juvenile records .  Story from Crosscut .

The Times has a great story about a student with Asperger's at Marysville Arts and Technology High School becoming valedictorian of his 50 student graduating class.  Chance Mair never told most classmates.  Good with math ( "I can count better than I can talk sometimes" ) and loving bowling, he went from special education classes in his beginning years in school to regular classes.  He will be attending WSU  on a full-ride scholarship.  In his speech to his classmates he said, "We choose whether we sink or swim, stand up or lay down, fight or fall, succeed or fail."   The Olympian is reporting that Governor Inslee will be signing a new state law to expand computer science in high schools by creating standards for teachers and students.  No word on where the money would come from to create these classes.  By popular demand, at least five people have sent me this article from the NY Times on kids and kindergarten.   I absolutely ag...

From the University of Washington Computer Science and Engineering Department: Each summer, UW CSE welcomes middle school and high school teachers from around the state at our computer science education workshop, CS4HS . Math and science teachers are invited to participate in an action-packed, three-day program designed to give them the knowledge and resources to integrate computer science into their classrooms and to build student interest in our exciting and rapidly growing field. The 2015 workshop will take place July 15th – 17th at UW’s Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering. Thanks to the generous donors who support CSE’s K-12 outreach programs, the registration fee for teachers is just $50. CS4HS participants will enjoy breakfast and lunch each day, an evening networking reception, parking or transit reimbursement, dorm accommodations for out-of-town participants, and 20 clock hours from the Washington Science Teachers ...

Computer science and young women - a great article from the NY Times that includes mention of a great computer science and engineering department at UW.  Behind the scenes of many of these colleges’ efforts is an organization called the National Center for Women & Information Technology . It provides consultants to college faculties on how to change their programs to recruit and retain women. On Thursday, the center is giving the University of Washington its first award, sponsored by Google, for colleges that have succeeded in this effort. The center hopes to give the award annually. Thirty percent of University of Washington bachelor’s degrees in computer science last year went to women. Ed Lazowska, chairman in computer science and engineering at the university, called that share “not great.” Still, it is twice the national average and up from 20 percent in 2010 and 15 percent in 2005. I had to smile at this article from WHEC in Rochester, New York ove...

UW's Computer Science and Engineering Department had kicked off a Washington State Algebra Challenge on April 21 with an end date of April 26th.  However, due to feedback from schools about state testing, they have extended the project.  Our schools sent the message, and we got it loud and clear! April and May are busy times for testing, so why not give everyone more time to participate in the challenge?  Today, we’re pleased to announce an extension to our end date – sign up and start the Challenge as early as April 27 (next week!), and go at your own pace until June 5, 2015 , when we close up our leaderboards for the 2014-15 school year. With our new date, we’ll be adjusting our goals and shaking things up a bit. With even more time, we can’t wait to see what the students of Washington state can accomplish together. The Center for Game Science at the University of Washington focuses on solving hard problems facing humanity today in a game based enviro...

Legislative action on public education still going (anything not voted out of committee by April 1 is dead and this list in not inclusive of all ed bills): - expanding states early learning system of ratings - HB 1240 use of restraints/restraining for students with disabilities (passed out of Ed Ctm unanimously)  - SB5748 tying student scores to test scores died but, as I previously reported, an amendment to bill 1345 includes tying student scores to test scores.  That bill is still alive. - SB5419 SUPER act - Establishes the Student User Privacy in Education Rights Act; which increases the strength of safeguards protecting student information. This one got by me. Given it's from a Republican, Senator Litzow, I don't have great hope. - SB5433 Requires the creation and incorporation of curricula about the history; culture; and government of the nearest federally recognized Native American tribe or tribes. - HB1031 Dual Credit Expands eligibility for Colleg...

I'll put a notation by each of these; please consider contacting your legislative reps for your support or rejection of each bill. From the Seattle Times :

From the UW Computer Science and Engineering Department : Want to control computers? Like to impress your friends with new skills? Curious about computing ? Our summer camps introduce middle and high school students to computer science through programming projects, magic tricks and faculty presentations.  Registration will be opening March 9th and closing 11:59pm on March 16th. The application will ask for the student's T-shirt size and a couple short written answers from the student. Students who register during this period will hear back by March 23rd at the latest. Read FAQs about our upcoming camps. They also include a huge list of other camps/programs with similar themes.  

From SPS Communications: "Students attending high school or middle school throughout the Puget Sound region are invited to get a taste of computer science and basic programming at Puget Sound App Day 2014, set for Friday, May 23 at Rainier Beach High School. Everyone is welcome to attend from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. May 23, regardless of prior computer science knowledge or experience, although registration is required. Since the event is being held on a school day, schools should follow their own district’s field-trip guidelines when registering their students. Sponsored by Seattle Public Schools’ Career and Technical Education, App Day is a programming event where students learn to create apps and games on their own devices – Windows phones, Androids, iPads, laptops or whatever they have brought with them. Rainier Beach High School computer science instructors, University of Washington computer science students, and engineers from the UW and Microsoft will circulate t...

UW's department of Computer Science & Engineering has DawgBytes: A Taste of CSE which is their K-12 outreach program.  They have lots of fun events as well as offering a UW CSE student to come out to your school to talk to students.  They have an e-mail list so you can get regular updates of events. Remember the story, There Was an Old Woman Who Swallowed a fly and The House that Jack Built?  Here's a mash-up ed reform version of them featuring Bill Gates from the blog, Russ on Reading. What's on your mind?

In yet another "look how backwards Washington State is and how terrible public education is here" op-eds at the Seattle Times, their newest one features Robin Lake of the Center on Reinventing Public Education.  Basically, our state is not doing enough to train more STEM graduates.  I use that word "train" deliberately because she seems to think you can just churn out these grads and that is not the case. First, it would help to understand that it is a societal problem.  Girls are encouraged to think "math is hard."  Every single profile about Bill Gates and his life is guaranteed to use the words "nerd" or "geek."  Something has to change for it to be okay to be a smart kid in the U.S.  (And NOT supporting all the kids who are doing well also kills the chances for more STEM grads.) Second, the Center on Reinventing Public Education is a mostly charter school think tank. Remember that when you read this op-ed. Ms. Lake says...

Several items I thought might interest you. Frida Kahlo, a favorite of mine One is a new video from Dove soap, straight from the Sundance Film Festival where it "premiered."  It's an 8-minute video about an experiment with teen girls, their mothers and cell phone photos called "Selfie."  Worthy viewing, I think.  My favorite line, from a girl, " Social media is widening the definition of what beauty is."  Yes, maybe a good thing out of all these millions of self-photos taken on cell phones is "look at me, I look great/having fun/I matter."  You can also show your kids there were always selfies - great artists loved to paint themselves.  One link here , another here .

 I've been noticing many more articles about sexism and the Web.  I'm going to try to string some of these articles together in this thread to raise the issue of why more women and girls aren't in computer science AND why girls may not play as many video games (it might have something to do with the reception at online gaming rooms). The first article was a story on KUOW about UW and young women in computer science .   One interesting line: “One of the things that parents tend to do is they’re much more protective of their daughter’s time online,” said Rane Johnson , a principal research director at Microsoft Research Connections. Johnson said parents want to protect their daughters from the unknown dangers of the Internet. “And so girls are experiencing gaming or the Internet or computer science or programming a lot less than their brothers,” she said. So first, is that true at your home?  Do you worry more about your daughter online than your son? ...

There is a big push throughout the country for all students (heck, everybody) to learn to code.  Do I know how?  Nope but I think it's a fine idea.  It allows everyone to tweak or invent.  Here's the latest from UW's Department of Computer Science & Engineering . Computer Science Education Week is December 9-15, 2013 but never too soon to start planning. What's an Hour of Code? It's a one-hour introduction to computer science, designed to demystify "code" and show that anyone can learn the basics to be a maker, a creator, an innovator. We'll provide a variety of self-guided tutorials that anybody can do, on a browser, tablet, or smartphone. We'll even have unplugged tutorials for classrooms without computers . No experience needed. Watch this "how to" video for more information. Check out the tutorials in beta . Other CSEdWeek events Computer Science Education Week is observed each year, in recognition of the b...

I just got back from a news conference where it was announced that the City of Seattle will be investing $500,000 in arts education in Seattle Public Schools.   This will advance the already established partnership between the City and SPS called The Creative Advantage. (That's Mayor McGinn's mom, Joyce, looking at students' artwork.  The boy to her right is McGinn's brother, Kevin.  McGinn is the boy hiding at her left side.) The goal is one hour of music and one hour of visual arts per week for every single student in SPS by 2020. The investment dollars came from something of a surprising source - admission tax revenue from the Great Wheel on the waterfront and the Chihuly Garden and Glass museum was higher than expected.  So thank you tourists for those dollars.  The $500k will be invested over the next two years to start rolling out the planning done under the $1M Wallace Foundation grant.  The Central district will be the first to see some doll...

I ran across some items about science and public education and wanted to share them. An article from the NY Times caught my eye about ADHD and sleep .  For some people — especially children — sleep deprivation does not necessarily cause lethargy; instead they become hyperactive and unfocused. Researchers and reporters are increasingly seeing connections between dysfunctional sleep and what looks like A.D.H.D ., but those links are taking a long time to be understood by parents and doctors. This article appeared in the journal Science about an interview with Ed Lazowska in UW's department of Computer Science and Engineering about the future of computer science.   (Public disclosure; I know Ed and the department very well.)  Some highlights:

From GeekWire : The UW Board of Regents officially approved the School of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) last week. It’s the first school in the state to combine all of the STEM fields into one academic unit. The school of STEM will bring together two existing programs —  computing and software systems , and science and technology — and house them under one school. The creation of the school was also due to the increased interest in STEM-related degrees — enrollment in the computing and software systems has doubled in the past 15 years. The school, which now serves more than 600 students, will offer seven undergraduate and two graduate degrees, with three more (Chemistry, Computer Engineering and Mechanical Engineering) coming in fall of 2014: Applied Computing  (BA) Biology  (BS) Climate Science & Policy  (BS) Computer Science and Software Engineering  (BS and MS) Cyber Security Engineering   (MS – begi...

This is a new video circulating out in the Internet world.  You'll recognize many of the faces in it. Look, I'm married to someone who knows how to program (and teaches computer science).  He did a stint at Google and yes, it's an exceptional work environment (free food - for both you and your dog - free snacks, massage chairs, games - it's a swell place to work).   But I would also gently point out that not everyone is cut out to be a programmer and many of the people in computer science have what I might gently call "communication issues."  Sometimes people are drawn to certain jobs based on their personalities. Yes, learning to program does bring together a lot of elements in the brain.   I think it might be good to have an elective class in every high school for programming.  But not everyone is going to have to program to have a job. Do I think it should be a core item to teach?  I do not.  I sense some arrogance in this v...