Seattle Schools Community Forum

There's an article in the Times this morning about IB funding, particularly at Rainier Beach High School.  It reflects a pattern in Seattle Schools that truly has to be addressed.  That pattern is for the district - with a flourish and applause - likes to roll out new and "innovative" programs that are usually wildly popular.  And fund them with seed money and then expect them to continue on (finding the funding themselves.) I truly dislike that the district - and many school boards - like to start programs that they have no idea how to continually fund.  

A bit of a slow week at SPS, probably because of the MLK, Jr. day off.  It's a good day to reflect on issues around race relations and our district, our city, our state and our country.  Maybe a good day to go see Selma.  (I read that one student - at a sponsored viewing of the movie - had said thank you to the producers for making it because he finally learned what "MLK" stood for - meaning, the actual letters, not the man. Amazing.) Looking over the Board agenda for the school board meeting on Wednesday, I found a compare and contrast moment.  The Times had a good story about the Creative Advance Initiative - arts in the schools program - and it's highly successful launch.  The Creative Advantage Initiative, a program paid for by the city of Seattle, Seattle Public Schools and the private Seattle Foundation, this school year helped 1,659 students in about 12 schools — mostly in the central part of the city — who wouldn’t otherwise have ...

In advance of the Board meeting, I wanted to point out a couple of things, some of which Charlie and I have pointed out in the past. One, just to let you know, the speaker list is NOT full so you can call up and still get on.  Two, staff has a bad habit of waiting until the very last minute - particularly on Intro items on capital issues - to fill in the blanks.   They like to leave "placeholder" notations.  That might be okay on Friday but not on the day of the meeting.  This is a public entity and the public has a right to know what the budget is and who is doing the work within 48 hours of a Board meeting.  This "last minute" fill-in stuff is a disservice to the Board for their oversight work and to the public.   Three, continuing on putting items with blanks on the agenda, I note that while JSIS's request for approval for their funding of IAs seems to be complete, the one from McDonald does not.  The wording of the document: PLEASE NOTE:...

Here's what he said in his speech about public education: As mayor, I will make education at every level the foundation of the city’s work. We need to move from being an educated city to becoming an education city. As Mayor, I will use every possible tool in my toolbox to make sure that our education system is delivering the education and skills that our kids need and our economy demands. I’ll work with the council on bold ideas like universal pre-school and use the Road Map Project’s “Cradle to Career” indicators and milestones to push for better leadership and resources for education.  We can no longer close our eyes to the sad fact that we are failing too many kids—this is not an achievement gap, because these kids have it in them to succeed. It is an opportunity gap, because we have not done what we need to do to lift kids up and give them what they need. We as a city cannot move forward economically while leaving so many of our own kids behind – that kind of...

Dual-language in Washington State - a view from Seattle Globalist. A MacArthur Genius award went to an educational researcher , Angela Duckworth.  From Ed Week: Educational research psychologist and former teacher Angela Duckworth has devoted her career to understanding traits beyond IQ or test-taking abilities that predict a student's success— including grit and self-control. It is perhaps her own possession of these traits that helped lead the MacArthur Foundation to name Ms. Duckworth as one of this year's 24 MacArthur Fellows .   Duckworth and her colleagues began by developing ways to empirically measure grit and self-control. Even when controlling for cognitive ability, the presence of these traits were important predictors of success. Unlike simple measures of IQ or natural intelligence, these are traits that can be taught. From Ed Week, an article , Misdiagnosis in the Gifted (sure to start a fight here but I hope not).  As information f...