Seattle Schools Community Forum

On November 30 the Seattle Times will host a panel discussion about K-12 Education called: K-12 visions and outcomes: Solving the education problems money can’t fix Here's the stated premise: Washington’s K-12 public education system is broken. Only 77% of our students graduate. Only 39% of graduates are ready for college or a career. The state fully funding basic education is just the beginning. We need to fix the outcomes for all students, preparing them for graduation, college and the workforce. What are acceptable outcomes for Washington’s children? What steps must be taken to build a successful K-12 system where every child receives an equitable, quality basic education? Join The Seattle Times LiveWire for a timely forum with education experts, advocates and policy makers, facilitated by Seattle Times Editorial Page Editor Kate Riley and former Executive Editor Michael Fancher. The members of the panel are:

I actually had not meant to sit down and write this one but I had so many articles piling up on this subject, it seemed the right time.  To be clear (as I am certain that 99% of adults in the U.S. would agree), all is not well with public education.  There are many reasons for that.  Now, if you just looked at white and many Asian students, the U.S. is doing as well as most top-level countries. But the U.S. is a very heterogeneous country that tests all public school students.   We are also a country that seemingly is accepting that nearly 25% of our children live in poverty.  Anyone who thinks that a good teacher is going to overcome institutional racism, poverty and inconsistent/low funding is wrong.  Also, when I speak of education reform in the U.S., I mean corporate ed reform.  I'm not saying change isn't needed; I'm saying what is being pushed is not really working and, at the end of the day, seems to be serving to allow some people to make...

To note for today: - Diane Ravitch , talking about her new book, Reign of Error, at UW's Kane Hall at 7 p.m.  It should be full so I would advise getting there early. Diane will be on KUOW at 1 p.m. today.   - another taskforce meeting on the Mann building from 5-7 p.m.  at JSCEE.  You'd have to call the district to find out which room because it changes.  I am not surprised they are still having these meetings since no one at the district will verify what is happening with that building and its occupants. - School Board candidate debate at the Vera Project at Seattle Center from 6-8:00 p.m.  My caution here is that it is co-sponsored with City Club by the so-called Our Schools Coalition and the Alliance coached the students who will act as the panel. 

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 ...

With her new book ( Reign of Error ) on September 26, 2013.   Her talk will be at Kane Hall (Red Square on the UW campus) in Room 130 from 7-8:30 p.m.  Free and open to the public.  REIGN OF ERROR. An incisive, comprehensive look at today’s American school system that argues against those who claim it is broken and beyond repair; an impassioned but reasoned call to stop the privatization movement that is draining students and funding from our public schools. Note: the book comes out on September 17th and is naturally available for pre-order at bookstores and on-line retailers.  Books will be available at the talk and Diane will be signing them from 8:30-9:00 p.m. that evening.   Diane Ravitch is a historian of education and Research Professor of Education at NYU and Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. For more information contact: kenzeich@uw.edu or tepinfo@uw.edu .

I know that many believe that the drumbeat, the concern, the outrage over corporate ed reform is a few voices in a canary mine.  Or exaggerating.  Or those voices are conspiracy therorists. And yet the evidence is stacking up as I have documented.  Against TFA, against charters, and now, in one of the biggest exposes - corporate ed reform.   The good news is that this house of cards is sagging and will fall.  From the eagle eye of Washington Post writer of The Answer Sheet, Valerie Strauss, comes a story about thousands of public disclosure e-mails, across six states, that show quite a lot of linkage between corporate ed reform and making money off of it. The non-profit that did the public disclosure request and released the information is In the Public Interest.   The correspondence is available at: • Rhode Island: http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/node/2746 • Oklahoma: http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/node/2745 • New Mexico: http://...

The district had what is called an "exit conference" yesterday from a regularly scheduled state audit.  Two items of note turned up. For the FOURTH year, the district claimed more students than they could justify for the federal grant for Native American students.  According to the Times, they received about $6k more than they should.  The district has returned nearly $330k over the last 3 years to the feds. Not good and really, truly - there is no excuse.  (I'm sure the district had one but I'm glad I was not there to hear it.)  And people wonder why the Native American parents are mistrustful of the district.  And, the district was questioned in the spending of federal grant money for preventing high school students from dropping out to the tune of about $490k.  The district got the grant in 2010 for about $12M over five years and apparently the questioned spending was not part of what was in the district's original application.  Fro...

As you may recall, there was a school board election in LA in April that had an odd feature - millions of dollars poured into it by corporate ed reformers from outside the state.  Even in mega-large, uber-urban LA, there was surprise over why this was happening. Out of three candidates, one ed reformer won, one moderate won (who had been targeted nonetheless by the ed reform crowd) and one seat went to a runoff. Yesterday that runoff was held. The ed reform candidate, Antonio Sanchez, had an interesting combo - labor unions and money from the political-action committee formed by outgoing LA mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa (which was more than $1M). His opponent was Monica Ratliff, a career teacher.  She went out and got newspaper endorsements and relied on small donors.  She raised about $50k. I don't see that the race has been called but Diane Ravitch is reporting that Ratliff has won, with 52% of the vote.  Unless something really shifts, I suspect Ratliff wi...

Over at Diane Ravitch's blog, she has more evidence of corporate ed reform crack-up.   I'll just let her tell you: At a panel discussion in New York City, Bridgeport Superintendent Paul Vallas made a startling admission. He said that the efforts to develop a teacher evaluation metric was a huge mess and that no one understands it. He said: “The Bridgeport, Conn. superintendent — who has served stints in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New Orleans and earned a reputation as a turnaround consultant for struggling districts with big budget gaps — said reforms he backed were at risk of collapsing “under the weight of how complicated we’re making it.” “We’re working on the evaluation system right now,” Vallas said of Bridgeport. “And I’ll tell you, it is a nightmare.” Vallas went further and said: ““We’re losing the communications game because we don’t have a good message to communicate,” he said. In separate comments, Vallas criticized evaluations as a “testing ind...

From the Washington Post's The Answer Sheet, a guest column by an 8th grader, Isaiah Schrader, in New York (he is a gifted student so the essay reads very well). Guess what kids?  The new Common Core assessments developed by the mega-uber education group Pearson?  Contains brand-names (complete with trademark logos) in test questions.  What does Isaiah have to say (bold mine)? The “busboy” passage in the eighth grade test I took was fictional, written about a dishwasher at a pizza restaurant. In it, the busboy neglects to notice a large puddle of root beer under a table that he clears. His irate employer notifies him about the mess, and he cleans it up. It seems alright at first glace. However, the root beer was referred to at one point as Mug™ Root Beer. It was followed by a footnote, which informed test-takers that Mug™ was a registered trademark of PepsiCo. The brand of soda, the type of soda, and, come to think of it, the exact beverage was not necessar...

I am working on a series on Common Core (which is coming at you like a Japanese bullet train.)  But there are some pretty funny things happening so I just couldn't wait. Conservatives and Dem ed reformers and corporate ed reformers have been able to join hands and sing Kumbaya over charters, TFA, teacher evaluation, etc. But here comes Common Core and it all falls apart.  The conservatives loathe Common Core and have succeeded in spreading the word.  The GOP passed a resolution against it and conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation have lined up against it.  At least 10 of the 45 states that signed on to Common Core have introduced backpedalling legislation.  A few, like Virginia, are still holding out. It is absolutely fascinating to watch this thing unfold.  I knew that at some point conservatives would turn on ed reform and indeed they have (with a vengenance).  Their buddies, the Dem ed reformers, have, in turn, unleashed the dogs...

Man, did they ever.  From the LA Times : The clash over education had been building throughout the three-day convention, underscoring a larger debate taking place in education circles.  California Democrats on Sunday condemned efforts led by members of their own party to overhaul the nation's schools, arguing that groups such as StudentsFirst and Democrats for Education Reform are fronts for Republicans and corporate interests. Before delegates overwhelmingly passed a resolution excoriating the groups on the final day of the party's annual convention here, speakers urged them to focus on protecting students and teachers. "People can call themselves Democrats for Education Reform — it's a free country — but if your agenda is to shut teachers and school employees out of the political process and not lift a finger to prevent cuts in education, in my book you're not a reformer, you're not helping education, and you're sure not much of a Dem...