Seattle Schools Community Forum

You may recall my update on Common Core?   I left out the biggest news which is the looming showdown between California Governor Jerry Brown and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.  The fight is over - what else? - testing .  From EdSource : Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday defended the state’s decision to suspend state standardized tests this year and instead offer students a practice test in the Common Core standards that’s now being developed. And he gave no sign of steering away from a collision with the federal government over this issue. The governor wants to pilot CC assessments for schools that have the necessary equipment.  The issue is that a new California law says this: By requiring that every district capable of administering a computer-based test give students a Common Core field or practice test next spring, the bill will put California out of compliance with the federal No Child Left Behind law.  And that's because California - like m...

From The Atlantic magazine, one father's account of doing - not for his children but to understand their workload - his daughters' homework for a week.  Crazy amount of work. It turns out that there is no correlation between homework and achievement. According to a 2005 study by the Penn State professors Gerald K. LeTendre and David P. Baker, some of the countries that score higher than the U.S. on testing in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study—Japan and Denmark, for example—give less homework, while some of those scoring lower, including Thailand and Greece, assign more. The irony is that some countries where the school systems are held up as models for our schools have been going in the opposite direction of the U.S., giving less homework and implementing narrower curricula built to encourage deeper understanding rather than broader coverage. His take: The more immersed I become in Esmee’s homework, the more reassured I am tha...

I'm sure most of you heard about the drive-by shooting in Lake Stevens of Molly Conley,  student at Bishop Blanchet High School.  She was shot to death on her 15th birthday; the police have no suspects in custody at this time. From My Northwest , Linda Thomas reports that the school sent home her report card and in the envelope was a letter she wrote to her class as a last assignment.  Blanchet is a Catholic school so Molly does speak in religious terms.  But what she asks of her classmates (and herself) should ring true for all teens.  Show this to your middle schooler or teen and ask them to consider what she says going forward in their lives.  Hers is over but maybe she can generate some real thought about how students treat each other. I particularly like her last paragraph. Dear Class of 2016, I pray that we can find a way to connect and get along before our last year together. I pray we are different. I pray that we can be a family. I pray ...

This just came on my radar so sorry for the late notice. On Monday, the 29th, Town Hall is presenting Emily Bazelon of Slate (and author of Sticks and Stones ) in a discussion with Dan Savage of The Stranger (and creator of the It Gets Better program) about " Defeating the Culture of Bullying ."  I think it will be fascinating to listen in.   I do want to note that Dan can speak quite frankly so you are warned.  From Town Hall : Growing up has never been easy, but with the rise of the Internet and social media, bullying has taken on new, complex, and insidious forms, and suddenly childhood is exponentially more challenging—as parents, educators, and even elementary-age kids know all too well. Slate senior editor Emily Bazelon, a leading voice on the social and legal aspects of childhood drama and author of Sticks and Stones, returns to Town Hall after hosting 2012’s sold-out Political Gabfest to examine the ever-shifting landscape of kid-to-kid meanness and...

From our friends over at The Stranger Slog, comes this story of a young man who won a judgment against the Aberdeen School District for unbated harassment against him by classmates in both middle and high school.  The lawsuit was filed with the help of the ACLU.  He won $100,000 from the district. The harassment sounds like crazy town (some kids went so far as to create a mocking website of him).  He and his parents repeatedly reported the incidents, in person and in writing, and never got help from administrators.   There were harassment over his perceived sexual orientation and his race.  “ Public school officials must be held accountable when they fail to meet their responsibility to act decisively when a student is subjected to harassment by his peers," said Sarah Dunne, ACLU-WA legal director in a statement released today. "This settlement sends a message to school districts statewide to take strong action as soon as they learn that a student...

Here are the highlights from the April 25th Curriculum and Instruction Committee meeting.  (I'm just behind, sorry.  I also don't have the agenda with me so I'm flying by the seat of my notes.)

Following up on the story about adults trying to separate "best" friends and have kids have a wider group, there comes this lengthy - and disturbing - story from the NY Times about texting and bullying. The title is Online Bullies Pull Schools into the Fray. The opening to it is a story from NJ about a couple of sixth graders, a boy and a girl. They had been "dating" for about a week and "broke up". The girl then received a dozen terrible and sexually-based text threads from his cellphone one Saturday night. Her parents came to school looking for relief. The school said it occurred out of school on a weekend and offered that the parents might want to call the boy's parents. Too awkward as both fathers coached sports together. (Which begs the question, who's the grown-up? If you are concerned enough, you'll put the coaching aside.) The school asked about the police but the parents were reluctant because of the formality of a criminal...