Seattle Schools Community Forum

When thinking of the Gates Foundation's work in the public education arena, there are not many wins to point to except for Common Core.  Of course, that's quite a large win even though many publications either don't know Gates funded that whole mission or they just leave it out of their writing about Common Core. I may have printed this editorial that appeared in June of last year in the Los Angeles Times   before but it bears repeating because of what the Gates Foundation says about itself.  About Common Core: The Gates Foundation strongly supported the proposed Common Core curriculum standards, helping to bankroll not just their development, but the political effort to have them quickly adopted and implemented by states.

Well, a lot of convergence on School Board races yesterday and it probably leaves just one incumbent standing for reelection - Marty McLaren.   I can direct potential candidates in District 1 (Sharon Peaslee) to people who know campaigns/School Board work for anyone who might be considering a run at the position.  Contact me at sss.westbrook@gmail.com. I saw Director Carr's farewell e-mail.  She lists accomplishments over her eight years on the Board "working together as a Seattle Public Schools governance team" and I was astonished to see "began foundational work for a universal preschool partnership with the City of Seattle" on the list.  Did you hear that the NSA doesn't want to go in the backdoor for your data ?  Nope, they want the key to the front door....from Google (and others).  From Extreme Tech : Instead of handing the NSA a unilateral window into encrypted communications taking place at Google or Apple, Rogers suggested a f...

Legislative action on public education still going (anything not voted out of committee by April 1 is dead and this list in not inclusive of all ed bills): - expanding states early learning system of ratings - HB 1240 use of restraints/restraining for students with disabilities (passed out of Ed Ctm unanimously)  - SB5748 tying student scores to test scores died but, as I previously reported, an amendment to bill 1345 includes tying student scores to test scores.  That bill is still alive. - SB5419 SUPER act - Establishes the Student User Privacy in Education Rights Act; which increases the strength of safeguards protecting student information. This one got by me. Given it's from a Republican, Senator Litzow, I don't have great hope. - SB5433 Requires the creation and incorporation of curricula about the history; culture; and government of the nearest federally recognized Native American tribe or tribes. - HB1031 Dual Credit Expands eligibility for Colleg...

From Politico, a great number of stories.  The first being that the SXSWedu is going on this week:  Education entrepreneurs from across the globe are flocking to Austin this week for SXSWedu. They’ll unveil the latest in education software and talk about how to innovate and disrupt their way toward better teaching and learning. And, of course, they’ll network. The conference is always known for showcasing new ed tech products, but this year, there’s another emerging theme: student data privacy . There are absolutely a large number of student data privacy events as well as Special Ed (I didn't see any on ELL) and computer science.   And look who has "lounges" at this event: McGraw-Hill, Microsoft, Pearson and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.   (Apparently, there is also a "playground" and it actually looks like it's for kids. )

I am absolutely amazed that people believe (a) there's nothing that can be done about privacy and (b) it's all for the good so why worry. We're adults and that's okay.  But kids?  How do they defend their privacy?  Right.  That's our job. I want to say in advance, people can take any kind of photo they want on their phone.  (But you might want to warn teenagers of the devastating outcomes if they do this. And trusting a friend/boyfriend/girlfriend is playing with fire in the teen years.) But understand, there are smart people who want data - of any kind - to use for their own purposes.  You are not wrong for taking a photo; you are wrong to believe there is security in any kind of devise that you have apps or data that uploads to any data cloud.   Here's the story of multiple celebs and their nude photos - taken on iPhones - and hacked out of the Apple"cloud."   Experts are looking at whether a flaw in Apple’s iPhone operating system...

Ramping up to the start of school, I hope to (finally) get several threads on student data privacy going.  I also hope to draft a template letter that I'm going to offer to parents to ask their school about any kind of signing up for online groups that a school asks students to do.   I don't know why the district would not think this important enough to even inform (no less ask permission from) parents about online services that their child signed up for and what information their child was asked to give away. Don't let anyone tell you that you do not have the right to ask - you do.   Education writer, Anthony Cody, has left Education Week and is writing his own blog, Living in Dialogue .  Anthony is a gifted thinker and his work is worthy reading.   He has guest bloggers on occasion and this piece by high school teacher, Mary Porter, is very good and very troubling.  Her thesis? Teachers must protect student agency and identity from the “templ...

 Update: the state of Kansas has suspended their state testing after its testing vendor was cyber-attacked and hard. From Ed Week: While the cyber strikes scuttled the testing schedules of hundreds of schools across the state and left state officials scrambling to upgrade their security infrastructure, the full fallout is not yet known. "We're still in 'fix-it mode' right now," said Marianne Perie, the director of the Center for Educational Testing and Evaluation , or CETE, which develops and administers the exams. "We're putting out the fire before we have a chance to assess the damage." This year's administration of this year's exams is considered a pilot, and the results will not be used for accountability purposes. The content of this year's CETE exams covers mathematics and English/language arts in grades 3-8 and 11 and is aligned to the Kansas College and Career Ready standards—the Sunflower State's rebranded version of the ...

Read this article by Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post.  It should cause you to consider what is coming.   Following on the heels of that article is her next one where one privacy expert says this could violate FERPA. Really, the photo, from Caledwell County Schools in North Carolina, says it all. In some places, parents and teachers are getting tired of embarrassing kids. New England Public Radio reported earlier this month that teachers and parents have banded together in Holyoke, Mass. to petition schools officials to stop publicly displaying student achievements on classroom data walls. District superintendent Sergio Paez, who has been pushing schools to use more data, said that students are not supposed to be identified, but teachers said they feel pressure to do so. The In These Times reported that Agustin Morales, an English teacher at Maurice A. Donahue Elementary School in Holyoke, said she thinks data walls are mean, but she has felt pressure to cr...

From SPS Communications: Superintendent Banda made several principal appointments Feb. 7 , including: • George Breland, Cleveland High School ; • Maria Breuder, McGilvra Elementary School ; • Dedy Fauntleroy, John Stanford International School ; • Robert Gary, Madison Middle School ; • Jo Lute-Ervin, Kimball Elementary School ; • Mary McDaniels, Madrona K-8 ; and • Dan Sanger, Bryant Elementary School . I see a couple of principals who seem to rotate every couple of years.  I'll note in reading through the bios that some note that parents and teachers at some schools were part of the selection committee but not at others.  The district seems to be depending on "surveys" but don't say what the survey was specifically about in the first place.  Again, why is that? From Superintendent Banda: I am pleased to announce that Carmen Rahm has been appointed Executive Director of Technology. For the past 10 years, Mr. Rahm has been Assistant Vice President for I...

 More on what works in math and science from this NY Times article , Guesses and Hype Give Way to Data in Study of Education.   Want to be data-driven?  Use real research. But now, a little-known office in the Education Department is starting to get some real data, using a method that has transformed medicine: the randomized clinical trial, in which groups of subjects are randomly assigned to get either an experimental therapy, the standard therapy, a placebo or nothing.  The findings could be transformative, researchers say. For example, one conclusion from the new research is that the choice of instructional materials — textbooks, curriculum guides, homework, quizzes — can affect achievement as profoundly as teachers themselves; a poor choice of materials is at least as bad as a terrible teacher, and a good choice can help offset a bad teacher’s deficiencies.   So far, the office — the Institute of Education Sciences — has supp...

Is this where we're at now?  We use data to stretch the truth, manhandle it, or, as KUOW puts it, "exaggerate?"  Apparently so because former Renton superintendent, Mary Alice Heuschel, has been telling a really stretched bit of data.  Heuschel is now the Governor's Chief of Staff. She claims Renton had a 94% graduation rate. Except they didn't.  From the KUOW report: It's also extremely inaccurate: Renton’s actual five-year graduation rate that year was 79 percent. Only 78 percent of Renton students graduated on time, within four years. The 94 percent rate Renton claimed was merely the district’s estimated five-year graduation rate. "Estimated five-year rate? "  What's up with that?

Thanks to a reader for this heads up on this column by David Brooks, "Driven to Distraction by Too Much Big Data" - it is well worth reading and pondering especially for public education. I want what is done in our state to be based on some degree of data and experience BUT I agree with Brooks - there are many other factors to consider in any kind of decision-making especially about children and learning.   But unlike Michelle Rhee, I don't want change for change's sake especially with a statement like this: “Given where we are today, given how poorly things are going in large part, we can’t afford to wait until all the studies are done on a single issue,” said Rhee..." Well, given our scarce education dollars, we can't afford NOT to make sure that the changes we make are based on some kind of real, verifiable and scalable evidence.

The Seattle School Board will soon consider terminating the District's contract with Teach for America. There is disagreement about this on the School Board, so we are likely to hear a discussion of the question with Board directors advocating for each side. This is good and healthy. This is what democracy looks like. I welcome a full discussion regardless of the eventual conclusion. I will, however, be deeply disappointed if the discussion is not honest. We have already seen the start of a dishonest discussion. This dishonest discussion needs to be stopped and it is the other Board directors who need to stop it. They need to stop it by exposing the dishonesty the moment it appears. When the Curriculum and Instruction Policy Committee met and decided to advance this motion to the full board, one of the Board directors, Harium Martin-Morris, spoke against the termination of the Teach for America contract. Mr. Martin-Morris made one of the most loathsome and dishonest statements I ...

And last in the line-up of data finds that may aid our conversations on closures (in district-speak, capacity management), is the DeJong report on enrollment projections. This 121-page opus (grab a cup of coffee before you sit down- you'll be here a long time) has maps and charts (in color, no less) with 10-year projections. Happy reading!

Here's another interesting piece of data entitled Seattle Public Schools Marketshare: 2000, 2004 and 2009 (only for elementary). Some of these numbers almost seem wrong but here it is in black and white. I'm not going to dissect it; I'll let you all figure out what details are of interest to you.

I was privileged, absolutely, to have served on the CAC with some really smart people. One of them, who is going to remain nameless at this point (she's a little shy), found some data that I know many of you will find interesting and possibly useful to our discussions. First up, a document called School Closure Update by Holly Ferguson, Manager for Strategic Alignment dated Dec. 4, 2007. It's fairly eye-opening. It gives an overview to where students who attended closed schools ended up, closing costs, expenditures and savings. From the report: "In the end, only 377 (50.7%) of eligible students actually were enrolled in the expected receiving school on October 1. Of the 366 students who are not attending their expected receiving school, 154 chose to leave Seattle Public Schools. If the percentage of students who enrolled in the expected receiving school is a reasonable indication of the success of the planned merger, the Viewlands/Broadview-Thomson merger was the most succ...

It was pointed out that I have repeatedly referenced the State Auditor's report (entitled "School Districts' Administration and Support Services" and dated September 20, 2008) without providing a link. Here it is. It's 142 pages but a summary of the recommendations for Seattle are on page 89 and the District's response is on page 126. Hope this helps.

I was reading the BEX Oversight Committee meeting minutes for June 13, 2008 and came upon this: "The State is hiring a consultant to conduct a performance audit on the capital program." This, of course, comes as no surprise to me. For a long time, I have felt this program had serious oversight problems. However, I haven't been able to verify through the Auditor's office if this will also include fraud, waste or abuse within its scope. One issue is the lack of credibility within the department. For example, despite the fact that even on the BEX III campaign materials it says that most projects were on-time and on-budget (which in itself is a change because there was a stubborn insistence that ALL BEX projects had been on-time and on-budget), in the May minutes of the Hale BDT it says "There are no current anticipated budget overruns on any BEX II or III projects." That statement (by Don Gilmore) begs the question of how Facilities would explain the b...