Seattle Schools Community Forum

The recent $1.5 Billion prize in the PowerBall lottery made a lot of news. A lot of people who don't normally buy lottery tickets bought some for that drawing. I didn't because, as my brother succinctly told me, buying a ticket does not significantly improve your odds of winning. Needless to say, I didn't win the big prize. I didn't think about what I would do with the money if I won. That's what you buy when you buy a lottery ticket, right? You buy the license to dream. I didn't buy a ticket so I didn't have license to think about how I would spend the money and I certainly didn't presume that I would win and start spending the money before the drawing. That would be crazy, right? Yet that's what Seattle Public Schools does on a regular basis. They draw up all of these initiatives - Targeted Universalism is the latest one - which, I suppose, are all very high-minded and well-intentioned, but are predicated on one or more fantasies.

This week the Board will hold a Work Session on SMART Goal #2 – MTSS-B. (The district has now created an MTSS-A and MTSS-B. “A” is about “success in academics” and “B” is for “attitudes, beliefs and belonging.” They wait until pages 13-14 to define MTSS overall.) This is such a large issue that I’ll write two parts to this thread. One, what this Work Session going to be discussing and two, the theory behind these ideas. The work session is three hours long for two topics (the other is the Board self-evaluation.) But it would appear the bulk of the Work Session is for the first topic. The Powerpoint is quite long and, sadly, is so chockfull of ed jargon on race and equity that you can’t quite make out what will truly be happening. And that’s a pity because this is work that is needed. Missing – and shockingly so – is what lessons this district has learned from past efforts. One is the African-American Academy which was created for African-American children in the district, with pla...

ST Reader alerted me to a story in the Times about Seattle Schools doing a pilot for a new company run by a UW professor, Zoran Popovic who directs the Center for Game Science at UW.  He founded a non-profit called Enlearn with money from (who else) the Gates Foundation.  But the Times notes: Enlearn is developing a commercial application for the interactive technology aimed at the global K-12 market. Of course.  It's supposed to a personalized learning/differentiation service for students wherein the students play the "games" on tablets, data goes to the teacher: "...providing a moment-by-moment progress report on how each student is faring and whether the class as a whole is ready to move on or needs a better explanation."  "The platform, in real time, provides the key misunderstandings and misconceptions for every individual student, which directly informs the teacher about what to do next at that instant," Popovic said. In other word,...

Please forgive me, but I'm old, and old people like to natter on about the past. It's just what we do. We like to imagine that our experience has value. We see things and we think "Hey, I've seen this before!" That's bad enough, but then we feel compelled to tell you about it. Back in 2000 Seattle Public Schools was on fire with a revolutionary idea. It was a change in perspective that would reform public education. We were going to become a Standards-Based Learning System. Once implemented, Standards would fix all our woes. It would get all struggling students to learn at grade level. It would support advanced learners without those politically disturbing self-contained programs. It would integrate our students with disabilities and our English Language Learners. Once we became a Standards-based Learning System we would enter a new education paradise. The District headquarters spoke of little else. They did pilot projects with big announcements and then mad...

 Update:   I originally thought this was from a teacher but it is from a parent .  My apologies Below is a post from a parent, "No Confidence," from another thread but I read it and said bingo!  (Emphasis mine.) I think that the first change that could make some difference would be for teacher & administrators to understand the limits of their abilities to assess. At least the teacher could say, Sally is learning differently than many other kids I see and we don't know why. Johnny is refusing to do writing assignments and we don't know why. Next I think that PD should include training about learning & developmental differences, with case studies , to the extent that at least teacher are familiar with the possibilities. (I have spoken with so many SPS teachers & administrators who believe that twice exceptional kids don't exist.) There are signs to look for. I also think that there should be some staff members who develop expertis...

One article is about the growing number of colleges and universities that are admitting students but not right away; the student has to wait for a semester or even a year.  The admission is gauged on the student going to another college or university and maintaining a certain GPA.

A thread was requested about ALOs (Advanced Learning Opportunities, the third tier of the Advanced Learning program) and differentiated teaching .   Differentiated teaching is a teacher knowing his/her students' strengths, challenges and readiness and being able to adjust teaching to the different levels in the classroom.  (This doesn't necessarily mean teaching to every single student's level but rather knowing that there are different abilities in the classroom and trying to meet those needs.)