Seattle Schools Community Forum

Seattle Public Schools has re-defined the word "curriculum" no fewer than six times in the past four years. It seems to change with each new Chief Academic Officer, Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning, or Executive Director of Curriculum. It also changes anytime the District needs to weasel or make other people (the Board or members of the public) appear ignorant.

Inspired by Gen Ed Mom I am starting a conversation about increasing the rigor, challenge, opportunity and support for students working beyond the Standards in our general education classrooms. As I have written numerous times before, the Standards, intended in theory as a floor - the minimum that students should achieve - function in practice as a ceiling - the maximum that students can achieve. The reasons are multiple, but the primary one is that the focus is on supporting all students to reach the standards rather than supporting each student to achieve as much as they can. All of the focus is on getting students to the standard and there is no focus left for teaching them beyond the standards. In addition to that faulty frame, there are bureaucratic practices that cap student achievement. They include horizontal alignment, vertical articulation, fidelity of implementation, and a gross misunderstanding of how Standards are supposed to work. There is also political opposition to s...

A good story in the Times about the growth and success of Mercer Middle School by reporter Brian Rosenthal.  What's interesting about this story is the subtext - namely, that Mercer has raised its achievement level by going off the district script.   To whit: - Mercer didn't follow the Strategic Plan.  That's not in the story but when Mercer was being extolled at the Seattle Channel forum on the Strategic Plan at Town Hall earlier this year, the question was asked if this work done at Mercer fell under the Strategic Plan directives.  The answer was no. - This story explains: There have been some bold moves, such as scrapping the district's mandated math textbook in favor of a specialized curriculum built to the same state standards. While the district requires middle schools to use Connected Mathematics Project textbooks, Mercer decided those books were too reading-intensive for its large number of students whose native language isn't English. So s...

I attended last week's Metropolitan Democrats meeting.  It wasn't an endorsement event but rather, one for their members to get a first look (and listen) to candidates ranging from King County Council to School Board Directors.  It was a good chance to hear from the School Board candidates (although not all were present).

Sign this petition and pass along if you are so inclined. Also, anyone who want to speak to this issue, call or e-mail the School Board office right at 8 am tomorrow morning.  Call 252-0040 or e-mail boardagenda@seattleschools.org.   You need to state a topic and I recommend stating that you will be speaking on the " high school science instructional materials " or " high school social studies instructional materials " and then relate how the high school alignment is probably a key issue to why Floe is being dismissed. 

Note: I pulled this out of one thread because I thought it important for parents to see and let their views be known to someone in SPS in a position to do something about it.  Thank you to Maureen from TOPS for this info. If anyone thinks their 8th grader is prepared to skip 9th grade Physical Science (Seattle Girls' School? TOPS? Others?), please email the High School PTSA and Science Director, Elaine Woo (ewoo@seattleschools.org), and let them know right now. You can also email me at maureen at germani dot org so we can coordinate. TOPS grads cover 100% of the 9-12 Physical Science standards and at least 75% of the 9-12 Life Sciences standards. Their teacher is certified K-12. There has never been a reason (or a way?) to make sure they get HS credit for what they cover but I spoke with Elaine Woo yesterday about the possibility of piloting a HS level Physical Science class at TOPS (not that I have to authority to do anything about it). It makes more sense to allow...

I attended DeBell's (crowded) meeting yesterday.  I'll post about it later but would like to hear from others. Update:   Michael DeBell's meeting had about 13-15 people (at various points).  I like how Michael has people introduce themselves and then he writes down their topic and tries to get to everyone's topic.   There were several teachers and staff as well as Ramona Hattendorf from the Washington State PTSA.

Lesson learned; never just skim through anything you post that you didn't write. That is what I did on the Science thread and I got something very wrong (although it doesn't really change my concerns). I wrote that there were going to be 4 mandatory science courses to be taken for graduation. That is wrong. The SPS graduation requirement is TWO science credits . One of them, by state law, has to be a lab science. The 4 courses that the district says will meet that requirement after the science alignment are physical science, biology, chemistry and physics. The issue still remains that many SPS high schools have other science courses that are popula and valid science courses. These include some from the 10-year program of Biotech at Ballard High School. The idea that all these other science courses (save AP and IB courses) will have to go thru a process to validate them to replace one of the four current possibilities is troubling. It's troubling because if you read ...

Here is the final section of the thread on the high school science curriculum alignment. Again, ALL parents, you may not be here yet but believe me, you will care deeply about this when your child gets to high school. But if you are an elementary parent and you shrug now, then when you get there, no fair asking why science in SPS high schools is so limited. Tell the Board you are worried and want a wide variety of science classes available. (Also, ask the Board to not let the district systematically dismantle the BioTech program at Ballard.) Part Two Currently the district is still proposing that all 9th graders take physical science, 10th graders take biology, and then chemistry and physics or a science elective. These are the issues that schools are facing as result of this proposal: 1) What will happen to students who do not pass the first two classes? Will they simply retake those courses over and over? If so what does this do to upper level science class selection. 2) ...

What the heck is going on with the curriculum alignment in Science? I can't make heads or tails of it. Originally, the science curriculum was supposed to be aligned first along with the math curriculum, but then the alignment of the science curriculum was deferred as the state was revising the science Standards and GLEs. The new state Standards have been set, so the alignment of the science curriculum can now go forward. There is a timetable for the work on the District web site, but it doesn't appear that the District is sticking to the timetable. The members of the high school science materials adoption committee have been named. Other than that, it's unclear if anything else on the timetable has actually been done. During the week of January 24th, Elaine Woo, the District's Science Program Manager, was supposed to send out an invitation to view instructional materials. The public was supposed to be notified that they could review the science instruction...

There was an interesting story in the NY Times last week about a low-performing high school with some extremely high-performing students. As you probably know, Intel sponsors a science competition for high school students that is extremely tough and very competitive. They generally take about 300 students in the competition. There are always the perennial schools like Bronx Science with many candidates but there are also other schools moving up. One is Ossining High School in Ossining, New York. Both Bronx Science and Ossining are in Westchester County in New York but Ossining is a diverse city best known as the home of Sing Sing prison. Out of the 300 students selected, 8 came from Bronx Science and 8 from Ossining. However, none of these students were selected as one of the 40 finalists. Ossining's Intel students are mostly girls (there's one boy). Their research includes: Jessica Brill (Development and Function of Extrathymic T- Cells in Athymic Bone Marrow Trans...

There sure are a lot of words used at Seattle Public Schools that have a special or specific meaning within the context of public K-12 education. The jargon of education. The professionals often use this jargon among themselves to speak precisely. At Seattle Public Schools the professionals often use this jargon to confuse or intimidate the public. The staff of Seattle Public Schools particularly like to MIS-use this jargon to confuse the public, or to tempt the public into mis-using the jargon to make them appear ignorant. Of late, this trick has been practiced more by Dr. Cathy Thompson and Kathleen Vasquez than any other member of the staff. Consider this example: Middle School Language Arts Curriculum Adoption . The District is not really adopting a curriculum; the District is adopting instructional materials. But it serves the interests of the District staff to confuse the public (and the Board, who are merely glorified members of the public) about the definitions of the words...

This past week we saw something I had never seen before, a complaint about Board-adopted materials, Brave New World as a 10th grade Language Arts text. Dorothy, Mel and I were in the auditorium and heard the presentation by both sides, the Board's questions and the answers. Phyllis Fletcher from KUOW was also there. I had gone over to Ms Fletcher when she entered the room and congratulated/thanked her for her story on the matter from that morning. The story described the problem at the root of the matter and fairly and accurately represented the perspectives of each side. That contrasts starkly with other stories written about the situation. The story in the Times didn't misrepresent the situation, but didn't explain it either. Consequently there were 207 comments about PC or totalitarian efforts to "ban" the book before I posted a comment that stated the actual situation. The story in the P-I , however, was just plain wrong. The headline read: "...

There was a student at Hale who went to her parent with concerns over a book being used in her child's LA class. The book was Brave New World written in 1931 by Aldous Huxley. The parent and student are Native Americans. (Just to interject here; I mistakenly thought there was no Board policy attached to this review and I simply erred in not scrolling down the page. My apologies.) Basically if a parent or guardian has an issue with instructional materials they are to go to the principal and staff member first. If that fails, any party at step 1 may request the administrator in Charge of Curriculum and Instruction meet with those involved to resolve the issue. After step 2, the principal shall furnish the party not in agreement with a copy of the "Request for Reconsideration of Instructional Materials" form. When that is received, a "Reconsideration Commitee, is formed to reconsider the material. (The committee is made up of a parent of a child at the gra...

There is a blog commentor who thinks that it is a waste of time to discuss curricular alignment or standardization. This thread is to give that anonymous commentor the space to tell us why we should all just stop talking about it.

On Monday, May 17, the Board's Curriculum and Instruction Policy Committee will meet from 4:30 to 6:00. Here's the agenda : a. Graduation Requirements - When/how to bring to committee of the whole b. Update on STEM at Cleveland - Alternative Learning Experience process c. Performance management/Waiver Process - Establish guiding principles - Set timeline for work between now & September d. Alternative Schools Evaluation/Review - Who/when e. Policy E 04.00 - Community Schools There's something here for almost everyone. Graduation Requirements Will the District move towards CORE24? How smart is that? How are we going to get kids to earn 24 credits when we can't get 30% of them to earn 20 credits? How can we provide students with the classes needed for them to get 24 credits? Is it even a good idea for every high school graduate to have the credits needed to gain entry to a four-year university? Why is that seen as the only legitimate goal? Will the District stand...

Very different from the Online Learning Policy is Board Policy C04.00, Alternative Courses of Study. With the Online Learning Policy, the Board grants the superintendent the authority to determine which courses earn credit and which do not. In Policy C04.00, the Board retained control of the question. Any school that wants to award credit to students via an Alternative Learning Experience must annual present written policies to the Board for review and approval. The difference is rooted in the state law authorizing Alternative Courses of Study, WAC 392-121-182, which, in Section 2 requires " The board of directors of a school district claiming state funding for alternative learning experiences shall adopt and annually review written policies for each alternative learning experience program and program provider ". The law does allow the board to delegate the decision, but Seattle's Policy makes no provision for that. Oddly, some online courses are covered by the Alternati...

There is increasing talk these days about making every school in the district a "quality" school. The New Student Assignment Plan has increased the frequency, volume, and urgency for this bumper sticker talk. But despite those increases, there has not been much increase in action or even understanding of the goal. Everytime I hear someone spout this talk about "every school a quality school" I stop them immediately and ask them what they mean by that. What is a "quality school"? How will we know one? I pretty much tell them that if they cannot accurately define a quality school then they should just shut the hell up about it. I hate it when people use words without knowing what they mean. So, for the record, I have my own idea about what is a quality school. It is a school where the students are taught - at a minimum - the core set of knowledge and skills that they should be taught at their grade level and they learn it. It's a school in which students...

There were two Curriculum Alignment meetings this week. If you attended, let us know what you were told and what you thought of them. There are two more next week: Monday, Nov. 30th from 6:30-8:00 p.m. Ballard High School 1418 NW 65th St. Tuesday, Dec. 1 from 6:30 - 8:00 p.m. Garfield High School 400 23rd Avenue

If you go to a Curricular Alignment community meeting - and I encourage you to go - the question you should be asking is this one: "We've tried this before without success. How will it be different this time?" There are four necessary supports for curricular alignment which are NOT in place. The people who are responsible for curricular alignment do not have control over these elements, so they can't make them happen. We have tried for years without success to establish these four necessary supports, but have never been able to realize them. So the central questions to curricular alignment will be "What will be different this time that allows us to do what we have never been able to do before?" Keep asking: How can we be sure that the students are learning the curriculum? If students who are working below grade level do not get any intervention, then they will not be ready and able to succeed with the grade level curriculum. There will be no vertical alignme...