Seattle Schools Community Forum

Back to one of my major concerns - data collection on children and student data privacy. There was an important article published last week at The Answer Sheet at the Washington Post by Leonie Haimson and Cheri Kiesecker who are both public ed advocates and in leadership for the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy , a national alliance of parents and others, standing up for the rights of parents and their students to protect their data. Into the fray, via the Times, comes... Rob McKenna ?  You remember him, former Washington State Attorney General and failed candidate for governor?  Look where he landed? At the Gates-funded Data Quality Campaign.

Madeline L'Engle, who wrote A Wrinkle in Time which won the Newbery Award in 1963, said in her acceptance speech: "Because of the very nature of the world as it is today our children receive in school a heavy load of scientific and analytic subjects, so it is in their reading for fun, for pleasure, that they must be guided into creativity. These are forces working in the world as never before in the history of mankind for standardization, for the regimentation of us all, or what I like to call making muffins of us, muffins all like every other muffin in the muffin tin. This is the limited universe, the drying, dissipating universe, that we can help our children avoid by providing them with “explosive material capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly. 1963. And bravo to Linda Myrick who posted this on Facebook who said: It seems that today's muffins have multiplied astronomically with technology and the addictive appeal of data that can be sliced and di...

Secretary Arne Duncan issued a statement today as schools start up around the country.  Rather than saying how poorly our schools are doing, Duncan said this: First, the thanks. America’s students have posted some unprecedented achievements in the last year – the highest high school graduation rate in the nation’s history, and sharp cuts in dropout rates and increases in college enrollment, especially for groups that in the past have lagged significantly. For these achievements, we should celebrate America’s teachers, principals, and students and their families. These achievements are also indications of deeper, more successful relationships with our students. All of us who’ve worked with young people know how much they yearn for adults to care about them and know them as individuals. He even thanks teachers: I have heard from many teachers that they have not received all the support they’d want during this transition. Yet America’s teachers are making this cha...

 Update: From KPLU comes news that the City Council has delayed their vote on the Pre-K plan, apparently because a separate referendum (I-107) will likely be on the ballot in November.  The Mayor had wanted his proposal to go on the ballot in 2015.  Councilman Burgess says it might loosen the city's control over the qualifications for teachers.  But the I-107 side says that with their initiative more of the existing teachers would get professional development while with the City's proposal there would be many fewer current preschool teachers eligible.  end of update. Again, like mom, apple pie and the flag, we can all like the idea of providing enriching activities to stimulate the brains of our Seattle toddlers.  Research has shown that kids with good preschool do better when they enter kindergarten. Over at the Seattle Education blog , Dora Taylor does an incredibly heavy lift over the question of what exactly is being promoted (and by who) for t...

Someone asked a question in the Friday Open Thread about a Special Ed program and that led to SpedPTA president, Mary Griffin, to say this (and she calls it a rant alert and warning but really, it's a huge district-wide issue): I am not a fan of data sharing, but I am a fan of useful data collection and accessibility within the district. The district right now is suffering greatly from the lack of usable, easily accessible data.   Not having good data means that the Director of Special Education needs to spend two weeks going through all the student records identifying which students receive Special Education services.   Not having good data means they can't get their ducks in a row to even fill out the forms to request $12 million dollars to fund Special Education.  Not having good data interferes with enrollment predictions for next year and hampers communication about the location of classrooms.  Not having good data means even though t...