Seattle Schools Community Forum

From the Washington Post :

Update : Renton's union approved their new contract today with over 95% approval. As well, word is that the Sisley slums on 65th and 15th are coming down tomorrow.  Good news no matter what but 1) I won't be there to see it and 2) not the ones in front of Roosevelt High. end of update Ross Hunter (D-Medina and one of the "roadkill" Dems) is leaving the Legislature to become Governor Inslee's Director of Early Learning .  It's a nod to the prominence that early childhood ed is increasingly taking in public education.  That means he is likely to be a point person for the City's Preschool Program. The district announced that Ron English - on administrative leave since February - has "retired."  I have seen no press announcement but this from a tweet from KPLU's Kyle Stokes.

It's too late for 1A but from The Atlantic comes a great story of this issue of why "pre-k" and what it means. Background (partial) " Pre-k" and "preschool" are often used interchangeably in education circles and by the news media.  After all, the two can mean the same thing: schooling that happens prior to kindergarten. But rarely do politicians who’ve declared early education a top priority say they want to expand access to preschool.  Pre-k is seen as a solution to those problems. Preschool , on the other hand, connotes nursery school. And when people imagine nursery school, they think of daycare. A babysitting arrangement.  It’s all about the single year that precedes kindergarten: pre-k.  In edu-speak , pre-k typically refers to a specific category of early learning that focuses on ensuring kids are prepared for kindergarten .   Framing the final year of preschool as pre-k, some say, implies that it’s an essential building blo...

Preschool - another education growth industry in our country. Did you think this push for preschool came from the brains of Burgess and Murray?  Please. Duncan and Obama have been pushing this.  They have a RttT (not affectionately called Race to the Tots).  Education Week had this article , "Growth in States' Early Childhood Spending Opens Business Opportunities" from December 2013.

Get a cup of coffee/tea - there are a lot of them (and big news items at that). Good News The governor of Tennessee just signed into law that every single high school grad gets a free ride for two years at a community college .  From Yes! : The bill provides two years of tuition at a community college or college of applied technology for any high school graduate who agrees to work with a mentor, complete eight hours of community service, and maintain at least a C average. High school graduates will start to reap these benefits in fall 2015. Oregon Sen. Mark Hass is selling the idea to his state, too. He sponsored a bill that passed earlier this year to study whether a similar system in Oregon would work. The results should be out later this year. Education Satire Hey, you 3-year old slackers ! It has come to our attention that your older brothers and sisters have been showing up to Kindergarten completely unprepared for the requirements of a rigor...

Update : Consider attending/viewing a debate on this issue at a Town Hall presented by Seattle Channel, Town Hall Seattle and Seattle CityClub.  It's next Wednesday, the 24th at 7 pm.   It's cable channel 21 (or HD 321).  They will be having polling during the event.  It's free but you have to register.  (I am not on the panel but did a pre-recorded interview with host Brian Callanan that will be shown.) Register at www.seattlecityclub.org or call (206) 682-7395 . Doors open at 6 p.m. with audience instructions at 6:30 p.m. and the live televised program at 7 p.m. End of update. My concerns are outlined - for both preschool propositions - at Publicola.    I flesh out those concerns in detail there but broadly: - did the City and the unions really try to find unity?  Because I believe a joint-measure would have passed easily.  Instead, we have two nearly completely difference measures.  What happens if one side wins?  Wil...

Hard to believe at this late date that this is news but the company Land's End is producing - by popular demand- shirts for girls that are science-themed. Still on the clothing theme, there's a new campaign by a group, Too Small To Fail, to impress upon parents to teach their pre-school children news words by talking to them more .  How?  The cute kid-sized shirts list conversation topics that parents can use when chatting with their children. The campaign is designed to address the so-called "word gap" that exists between children from low-income families and those from more affluent families. According to research, affluent children have heard 30 million more words by age 3 than children from low-income families . "One of the things that families told us is that they know they should be talking, reading and singing," Susan True of the Bay Area Council, an organization that collaborated on the campaign with Too Small To Fail, said in a promot...

I will do my best to get this in a linear order but the e-mails were not always provided in that manner. To note, the trip was March 3-6th so clearly, getting started in early Feb was difficult on staff.  I wonder how the City thought the district had so much travel money to try to send 5+ people to three cities.   Key staffers involved: Cashel Toner - head of SPS Early Learning, seemingly the lead on this effort - went on trip Flip Herndon - head of Facilities, pushed to go on the trip by Toner - went on trip, provided an overview of his impressions vis a vis Seattle (I'll put this up separately as it gives some insights as to what the district's current thinking is.  I have no idea what the Board thinks but Blanford wanted to go on this trip.) Patricia Stambor - in HR, oversee Strategic Partnerships - had the biggest lift of anyone involved and seems like a good foot soldier in all this.  I note that at the end of all the work Toner thanks everyone but Stamb...

This will be Part One of a thread about the Pre-K "mission trip" that several Seattle schools' employees took as well as one Board director. Part One will be the Narrative of what happened.  Part Two will be the day-by-day planning for this trip.  Mirmac1 got e-mails via public disclosure and they paint a very damning picture.  Because of my concerns over this troubling incident, I wrote a full report to the State Auditor.  I can only say that I believe there may have been some illegalities in what happened but that's not my call. I DO think whether or not funds were misused, some of it feels unethical and it is clear there is a heavy push - from outside the district - on those inside the district for more and more pre-K in Seattle Schools. There are a couple of SPS individuals who are either myopic or simply do not care about how their push for pre-K could affect/impact other programs and that money is scarce.  There was very much of a "just find me t...

(Yes, I know I'm supposed to be gone but I saw this in my mail and wanted to pass it along to any interested groups.) The W.K. Kellogg Foundation yesterday  announced  a $5 million investment to identify and expand promising family engagement efforts that support early childhood educational success. Given your interest in education and family engagement issues, I thought you might be interested in sharing this news with your networks. I’ve included more information and a sample tweet below. The foundation is seeking initial submissions of intent from organizations and groups striving to build innovative, equitable and effective family-engagement approaches and will invest up to $5 million in 2013-14 with possible funding of up to $500,000 for one to three years. Applications, available on  this website  which includes more information, are due  Sept. 23, 2013 . From First Book Seattle: If you work with children from low income families or i...

Update:   I noted in this thread that Suzanne Estey's campaign manager is former Seattle Student Senate rep, Dexter Tang (who is a great kid).  Which is kinda sweet but also to note, her consultant in the campaign is none other than Christian Cinderman who has been a very high-powered consultant to numerous campaigns.  Also to note, Stephan Blanford's and Suzanne Estey's newest contributors?  None other than the CEO of Microsoft, Steve Ballmer and his wife, Connie, who both maxed out at $900 each for each candidate.  I believe Mr. and Mrs. Ballmer reside on the eastside. End of update. The District IV race seems to be shaping up along two lines (and no surprise what those lines are).  (District V seems to be all Blanford and there sure are confusing signs from him.  That's another thread.) I refer to Suzanne Estey and Sue Peters.  (Dean McColgan doesn't seem to be a strong candidate and is seems to be on the ed reform side although I think...

The King County Democrats had their endorsement interviews this weekend and have put up the questionaires that each candidate filled out.  Very illuminating. To note: Murray, Martin, Harrell, Steinbrueck all say no to charters (and vouchers) Burgess and McGinn gave "qualified" answers to charters.  Here they are: Burgess I did not support the charter school campaign last year as I viewed that effort as a distraction from some of the larger issues we need to address related to public education. I’m a strong advocate for innovation and reform in public education, but these initiatives should be pursued in cooperation with our teachers, principals and parents. We have seen significant reforms in Seattle Public Schools through the collective bargaining process; for example, teacher evaluation protocols and creative approach schools. McGinn I believe we should monitor the 40 charter schools authorized statewide by the statewide initiative to determine whether they g...

Is this homework a kindergartener should be able to do?  I heard that at one Seattle elementary (it slips my mind which one but I think it is Roxhill) that they have ended homework and require only reading every night.    Should kindergartners have homework ? An upcoming event that may be of interest to you and your student - the unveiling of Mirror, a permanent art installation at SAM.   From their website : MIRROR is an urban earthwork that changes in real time in response to the movements and life around it. At the unveiling, guests will experience an unprecedented performance with synchronized choreography of MIRROR in relation to compositions by minimalist composers Steve Reich and Terry Riley. Mr. Riley will be in Seattle for the performance of his monumental work In C, featuring musicians from the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. The event is free as are SAM galleries that day but you have to print out tickets for the Mirror event as well as pick up ti...

From Superintendent Banda via SPS Communications (and I believe one of our astute readers called this one for Michael Tolley about a week ago): "I am pleased to announce that after a strong national search, Michael Tolley has been named Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning, where he will oversee all aspects of students’ academic growth at Seattle Public Schools. Mr. Tolley stepped into this role as the Interim Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning in September and has demonstrated his strong leadership. He plans to have the District’s Teaching and Learning team continue development of a comprehensive professional development plan to implement the Common Core State Standards and provide students with increased academic and social/emotional supports. In addition, he will focus on working with school and Central Office staff to address opportunity gaps across the District and to ensure that the needs of each and every student are appropriately met. Mr. To...

Thank you to reader Gail for this portion of the Mayor's State of the City speech yesterday.   I have put in red those items that I wanted to call out. Press Release Today, Mayor Mike McGinn gave his fourth State of the City speech. Education and our schools were a major priority. There is no probably no stronger foundation for opportunity, and long term economic success, than ensuring that our children are educated. Click here to view the speech. Early Learning Early learning is a critical place where we can make an even bigger difference. The achievement gap need not be permanent. Kids shouldn't have to go to their first day of kindergarten starting off two laps behind the other kids. If we focus on early learning, every kid can start on that path together. This fall, the City Office for Education will launch an Early Learning Academy to provide high quality, evidence-based early learning training for preschool providers in Seattle. This initiative wil...

Psychology Today put forth this article by researcher Susan Engel, "What Test Scores Don't Tell Us: The Naked Emperor."  Ms Engel reviewed over 200(!) studies of K-12 standardized tests. What I have discovered is startling- most tests used to evaluate students, teachers, and school districts predict almost nothing except similar scores on subsequent tests. I have found virtually no research demonstrating a relationship between those tests and measures of thinking on the one hand, or life outcomes on the other. To grasp what we do and do not (yet) know about standardized tests, it’s worth considering a few essential puzzles: why we find individual differences in test scores (why one child does better or worse than others), what makes a child’s test scores go up, and what such improvement could possibly indicate.

 From the Times : Washington has won a major federal education competition and will receive up to $60 million during the next four years to improve private preschool programs across the state. In Washington, the money will go to support two initiatives: free training for preschool providers , and a standardized assessment that kindergarten teachers will use at the beginning of the school year to determine the skill level of the incoming class. About 175,000 children are served by 7,400 private child-care programs throughout the state, said Betty Hyde, director of the state's Department of Early Learning, an agency created five years ago by Gov. Chris Gregoire and the Legislature to improve early education. Another 8,000 children attend ECEAP, and about 14,000 are in the federally-funded Head Start program. The grant will pay for the providers in those programs to get the latest training in early learning. The other major initiative, the kindergarten assessm...

I wrote an article for Crosscut (the on-line e-zine of the Northwest) about the upcoming Families and Education levy . I talked to both people on both sides of the issue, read all the supporting materials and did research on what the levy has done in the past. I wholeheartedly support this levy . It covers so much ground from pre-K thru high school. New to this levy are programs that the district has eliminated like college counseling and summer learning. In addition, it will have a program the district doesn't have but is working in other schools districts - direct interventions for struggling students. Unfortunately these programs will only be available at the high poverty middle and high schools but better it is there then not having it at all. Most of all this levy has oversight, accountability and transparency. For me, those are the ding-ding-ding "we have a winner" words for a levy. I want to know exactly where the money is going. I want to know that on...