Seattle Schools Community Forum

I was interviewed last Friday for a KUOW story by Ann Dornfeld on the legislative efforts to save the (former) charter schools.  It played today.  Astonishing.

Let's start with the local which would be the Work Session on Seattle Schools becoming a charter authorizer.  This work session on was April 8th and the staff leads were Ronald Boyd (Legal),  Erin Bennett, Director Policy and Strategy Research, and Clover Codd, Executive Director of Strategic Planning & Partnerships. All the Board members were present as was Superintendent Nyland.  Nyland led with "From some time ago, the Board opposed them (charters) and that was then and this is now."   He said something about SPS being the biggest district.  He said the deadline to apply to to be an authorizer was in June and "we have just enough time to get on-board."   He also said SPS had " no option of not playing" as part of future levies will be going to charters (which is true).  He said SPS would want to know about charters located within district; what their focus is, location, etc.  He failed to mention that that information can be easily...

I've been pacing myself to go through all the charter school applications.  At about 566 pages each, it's a long slog. But I can confirm that I see none of them - submitted to the Charter Commission - that are applying to be conversion schools.  What is somewhat troubling is that one of them - Pioneer School which currently exists as a private school - didn't even seem to understand the question.  Have they read the law?  It's unclear.  I also note the presence of several ex/current Microsoft or Gates Foundation employees in a couple of applications.  I was also quite surprised to see former Washington State legislator, Dawn Mason, on the application coming from the Gulen group.  I note that Gulen is in the news as their supporters in Turkey are presumed to be behind the effort to overthrow that country's secular government.  In the US, it runs one of the largest networks of charter schools – purportedly secular – with links to more...

Wear Red for Ed shared Susan Smith 's photo . FLORIDA from Susan Smith Last Night Jeb Bush's foundation and Michelle Rhee's StudentsFirst group hosted a showing of the pro-parent trigger propaganda movie "We the Parents" in Jacksonville. Apparently, these are the Florida parents who support parent trigger. From Fund Education Now!, the story of the parent trigger law in Florida in 2012: We are here today to go on record: Not one legitimate Florida Parent Group has asked for this Parent Trigger/Parent Empowerment legislation. We do not support this corporate empowerment bill that uses a parent's love to "pull the trigger" and pass all that they hold dear into the hands of a for-profit corporation eager to peel off a chunk of every child's per pupil funding dollars for themselves. We will not be silent while our legislators use our money to fund three separate, unequal and unfair systems of education. We do n...

The push is on to expand charters, TFA, student data and yet, more and more people (including some legislators) are finally saying, "What is going on here?" A highly acclaimed charter group in NYC were found to be trying to push out a child with disabilities - it was recorded on tape. From the Daily News : The tapes, a copy of which the mother supplied the Daily News, poke a hole in claims by the fast-growing Success Academy chain founded by former City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz that it doesn’t try to push out students with special needs or behavior problems. Nancy Zapata said she resorted to the secret tapes last December and again in March after school officials used their “zero tolerance” discipline policy to repeatedly suspend her son, Yael, kept telephoning her at work to pick him up from school in the middle of the day and urged her to transfer him. The News reported earlier this week that the Success network, which boasts some of the highest test ...

The Washington State Charter Commission has released the application form/information for applying to be a charter school.  I am mostly happy because there are items in there that I believe are of great importance and I applaud the Commission for listening and including them in.  My hope was that no school community or district gets caught by surprise by any charter coming into their district (or school building).  Letter of intent Each applicant has to file a letter of intent before submitting their application.  It has to be filed 30 days before the application is due (which is Nov. 22nd).  So, by about October 22nd, we should know who is intending to apply to be a charter school.  (I believe Spokane will get their notification about being an authorizer by sometime in September.)

One update, from KUOW, is that the contract negotiations between the district and the union have hit an impasse.  The district has indicated they have given all they can. What are the issues? The SEA and the district are at odds over several issues. The union is unhappy with the district's half-hour extension of the work day for elementary school teachers because it would not result in extra classroom time for students. The union and district are also clashing over whether to require the use of students' state test scores in teacher evaluations. The last contract required that state and district standardized test scores be used as part of the teacher evaluation process for teachers of the tested subjects: reading and math. While district officials say using state test scores in teacher evaluations is a valuable part of the contract they bargained with teachers three years ago, Knapp said the landscape for teachers and students is entirely different today. ...

Yet another thing I missed on I-1240 (it's just the gift that keeps on giving) - I had thought you could not convert a private school to a charter but yes, you can.  I know, I thought 1240 had prohibited this but, in my defense, I can only say that I had read so many other states' charter laws (and many do prohibit this) that I got confused.  I double-checked with my ace reader, Eric B, and nope, we missed this. Turns out at the Board of Education (which has to write some rules around the law), they have had a bit of a struggle over this issue as well. Okay, so let's go over what we do know. First, the words "private school" do not even appear in I-1240 so that should have been a dead giveaway from the start.   I was told by the BOE that yes, " the statute is indeed silent on this issue. "  They aren't saying it's a omission but I believe it is a deliberate one. The private school has to be a 501c3 (or create one). The private schoo...

This particular thread will probably end up being quite long as there is both news to report from the actual meeting as well as the upshot of what we are going to end up getting for charter schools. The meeting was held in a conference room off the Governor's office.  There was a high wooden conference table with chairs that had low seats but high backs.  (I found this both funny and irritating because it had the effect of a bunch of kids sitting at an adults' table but you also could not see almost anyone's face as they spoke because the chairbacks block all views.) Not surprisingly, Steve Sundquist "volunteered" to chair the meeting (and, as I tweeted, I suspect he will end up chair of the commission).  To his credit, he's very good at chairing meetings.  I did not recognize anyone else not on the Commission except for long-time charter supporter, Jim Spady.  (He left the meeting quite frequently to confer with various people.)  I was seated next to ...

Here's the complete letter sent to Attorney General Bob Ferguson's office by the League of Women Voters, El Centro de la Raza, and the WEA.  From the first paragraph: We request that your office investigate and promptly institute legal proceedings to remedy the constitutional violations arising from ...(it continues on with the RCWs in question). Specifically, the Charter School Act improperly diverts public school funds to private non-profits in violation of the Washington Constitution and is otherwise unconstitutional on multiple grounds, including but not limited to the following: And then they put forth their arguments.  Here's my summation:

Some pretty funny (and not surprising) public education items in the news. First up in the category of " well, that didn't take long ", the Washington Policy Center opines on Senator Ross Hunter's idea that the state should take over failing schools.  (This is a similar idea to what happens in many other states - the schools become "turnaround" schools.)  Lawmakers should remove the cap that limits the number of charter schools that can open to only eight a year, up to a total of 40. We don't even have ONE charter and they want the limit raised.  Unbelievable. They do use the thought that Charlie had: Removing the cap would benefit all children, because just the possibility of a parent takeover would motivate school officials to improve services for children before that option arises. That, in turn, would give parents the leverage they need to seek positive change in education. Imagine this message from parents, “Give our kids the educ...

Initiative 1240's rules for conversion charters has some clarity, some flexibility, and some elements that make no sense at all. To follow along you'll want quick access to the text of the initiative .

South Shore PreK-8 came up as a topic during a discussion over conversion charters .  I, like many, believe it would be a target (a willing one) for a conversion takeover.  I suspect you could get the parents or teachers to agree and I'm sure LEV, who now directs the foundation money that South Shore gets, would also be agreeable.  That leaves the community and the district that may not like the idea of losing a $73M building to a charter entity. One thing to keep in mind - ALL charters are their own districts .  If they take over a district building, they can decide the parameters - within the law - of public use just as SPS does.  If you use a school building for your local community meetings or Boy Scouts, you might have to find someplace else to go.  I also don't know what it would mean for the joint-use agreement that SPS has with Parks for SPS playfields.  I would assume if a charter group takes over the building and its grounds and is its ...

So let's run through the experience of other states with charter schools. Trigger Law Now the proponents of 1240 will say the word "trigger" isn't in there (it's called "conversion").  But if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck - it's a trigger. But wait, other states have trigger laws, right?  Correct.  But none have been able to legally use them.  Here's a great wrap-up of the history of the charter trigger.  Also, here's a chart of all the trigger laws.  You can see that nowhere else can teachers alone takeover a non-failing public school.   This article explains some of who is pushing the trigger for charters.  It's people like Michelle Rhee, Rupert Murdoch and right-wing extremist, Philip Anschutz.    That's a nice group of people to be taking marching orders from. Also, keep in mind that the one in 1240 would be the harshest trigger in the country.  Not only is it NOT just for failing schools (li...

I would really love to go in-depth on this subject right now but I am running a state-wide campaign against I-1240 (so I have my hands full). However Facilities has always had a special place in my heart so I digress to put up this post.  Charlie has pointed out the numerous issues of the lack of clarity in this BEX.  Frankly, I'm not sure the district has a real plan.  Again, instead of long-range planning and forecasting (could they please just hire Kellie LaRue already), it's triage and putting out fires.  It is also the wages of sin.  And the biggest sin our district has is to put off what needs to get done.  They started pulling back on basic maintenance in the late '70s and never looked back.  The chickens have come home to roost, folks.  We also have quite a few elderly buildings (over 40-50 years old).  Those buildings are in constant need of repair and maintenance.  I think most of you and most taxpayers would be shock...

The charter school initiative, if approved, would create a time bomb that would seriously threaten Seattle Public Schools. The threat doesn't come from the possibility of a charter school organization creating a school in Seattle - at least not if they get their own building. The threat comes from the possibility of a conversion. A conversion occurs when a majority (50% plus 1) of either the teachers or the families at a school request conversion to a charter. If that were to happen at an attendance area school, then the school would become, essentially, an option school. The attendance area boundaries all around the school would have to change to cover the converted school's attendance area so that every student had an attendance area school. There is no school in Seattle that has any excess capacity to speak of. Any addition to the attendance area of any school - particularly one of this scale - would result in the instant overcrowding of the school to something like 13...

The judge in Superior Court heard the challenge to Initiative 1240 yesterday and rejected most of WEA's reasoning (with a few tweaks).    Stand for Children issued a statement saying all the changes from the WEA had been rejected but apparently they don't bother to keep up with what actually happens in court.  They say they will use a combination of volunteer and paid signature gatherers (but there is no legal way to find out how many of each but I suspect an ARMY of paid).  They need about 250,000 signatures to be on the ballot but it would be good to get at least 300,000 for safety's sake. The title now says "Initiative Measure No. 1240 concerns creation of a public charter school system." I totally agree with this as voters need to know this is a system and not just a few schools. The concise description is still over by 3 words but the WEA missed that. Bill Gates has given $200k to the cause and Nick Hanauer has kicked in money as well.  It ...