Seattle Schools Community Forum

Corporate Education Reformers may have a lot of business expertise, but that knowledge and skill does not translate to public education. They don’t seem to realize that almost nothing they have learned from the private sector is applicable in the public sector. Competition doesn’t work the way they think it does. They don’t seem to understand that schools have finite capacity. They don’t seem to understand what it takes to start a school. They don’t know what drives academic achievement. They don’t seem to understand the needs of students. Their focus on productivity is misplaced. They don’t recognize teachers as professionals. They don’t seem to understand that all teachers need the union to protect their jobs. They don’t seem to understand which school costs are fixed and which are variable Their first and fundamental mistake is that they have trouble understanding is that the profit motive, which is the force that drives everything in the private secto...

It's not entirely surprising to see this slippage happening in the ed reform world; indeed, with the deep and moneyed pockets they have, it's almost a surprise. But my theory is that they tend to believe that they 1) know all the answers and so 2) they exist in an echo chamber.  As I read my Twitter feed daily, I'm astonished at the same 10 subjects, rehashed and repackaged over and over. All of what I want to discuss in this thread will be leading to another thread on what the new "story" is for ed reform and it comes around "equity." Here's the latest news on this front.

The back and forth in the comments section of a Seattle Times story about Teachers United got me thinking about the difference between Education Reform and education reform. I don't know if I have written this out before, but I feel a need to write it out now. The goals of many of the millionaire- and billionaire-funded Education Reform Organizations are focused on either reducing the cost of education (their taxes) or re-directing the money spent on education into their pockets. Improving opportunities or outcomes for students is not their real goal, it's only the rather transparent marketing they wrap around their actual intentions. These solutions are devised by people who don't have applicable experience in the classroom, don't have a real understanding of the work, and haven't considered the obvious unintended consequences of their proposals.

Read this guest column by Colin Pierce, IB Coordinator at Rainier Beach High School, that appeared in the Seattle Times Education Lab. You can comment there on the Seattle Times site.

Here is a comment, pulled out as the start of a new thread. My review of the proposals made by Education Reform Organizations shows that all of their efforts, in the end, are either about reducing the costs of education - and therefore keeping a few tax dollars in their pockets - or about directing some of those tax dollars into their friends' pockets. It's all about their money, not the students. I wish someone could prove me wrong about that.

I am an opponent of corporatist, millionaire- and billionaire-backed Education Reform, but I am no supporter of the status quo. I want to see radical change in our public education system, just not the changes that the Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation, or the WalMart heirs support. I support changes that directly address the failures in the system and are proven effective. So, just to make it perfectly clear, I will list a number of education reforms that I absolutely support. These reforms address the fundamental flaws in our education system. And what are those flaws? Our schools, here in Seattle and across the country, do a great job of educating students who come to them prepared, supported, and motivated. They always have. However, our schools, here in Seattle and across the country, do a dreadful job of educating students who arrive at school without preparation, support, or motivation. They always have. The solution, to me, is obvious: We - as a society - must prov...

Lynne Varner of the Seattle Times wrote an editorial,  Moving education theory from the lab to the classroom , in which she got it mostly right. She now seems to support making education reforms based on research. This is a big change from her previous support for education reforms that had no research to support them or reforms that were discredited by the research. If you can get past the one ridiculous and self-serving claim "I’ve written about education long enough to have a sense of what works." the rest of the column is pretty good. And here's the interesting thing: the researching did not support mandated retention for third graders who don't pass a state proficiency test. They didn't support giving schools letter grades. They didn't support granting unaccountable hire/fire authority to principals, and they didn't support the dismantling and privatization of our public school system. No. They didn't support any of the things that Ms Varn...

Man, the Seattle Times is pulling out all the stops in the days before retreating behind a paywall. There are several inflammatory articles and columns about education on the Times web site right now. You would think it was just before an election instead of just after one. Feds probing Seattle schools’ treatment of black students This story is about a U.S. Department of Education investigation into whether black students in Seattle schools are punished more frequently and more harshly than white students for the same behavior. The comments section reveals some really horrible racist remarks and, more than anything, a gross misunderstanding of the purported problem. The feds are not investigating whether black students are punished more frequently (they are) but whether they are punished differently from other students for similar infractions. Senate GOP scales back education agenda This story is a good one. Brian Rosenthal writes about how the Republican Majority Coalition is s...

A great, great op-ed in the NY Times by UC Berkeley professor, David L. Kirp, called T he Secret to Fixing Bad Schools. He just spent the last year researching a book on public education in Union City, N. J.  I'll let him tell you what he found out: The striking achievement of Union City, N.J. — bringing poor, mostly immigrant kids into the educational mainstream — argues for reinventing the public schools we have.  Union City makes an unlikely poster child for education reform. It’s a poor community with an unemployment rate 60 percent higher than the national average. Three-quarters of the students live in homes where only Spanish is spoken. Public schools in such communities have often operated as factories for failure. This used to be true in Union City, where the schools were once so wretched that state officials almost seized control of them. How things have changed. From third grade through high school, students’ achievement scores now approximate the...

The Seattle Times printed a long, comprehensive Vision for public education in Washington State. They propose a number of changes in the fundamental perspective on education, the most significant of which is an expansion of the State's role in education from K-12 to 3-to-23. There's a lot here, some good, some flawed, some banal. It is recommended reading. Washington state must embrace a new vision for education

We spend a lot of time talking about the reforms promoted by Education Reform Advocacy Organizations which we oppose. I also spend a lot of time correcting them when they say that those who oppose them are fighting for the status quo. So folks might wonder what reforms I actually support. It's a fair question. I absolutely believe that public K-12 education in Washington, and across the country, needs serious reform. It is build on a model that, in turn, is built on the faulty assumption that the students will fit a narrow mold. The system is set up to expect and serve students who come able and ready to learn in a traditional school setting. The whole thing needs to be reconfigured around a different, more accurate, set of beliefs around who the students are, what they need, and how public schools can deliver it.

I have touched on this idea a couple of times before, but with the Board poised to vote on the contract with Teach for America I think it is time to bring it back. I am not an advocate for the status-quo. I'm surprised that I even have to write that. Holy cow, if I haven't established myself as a critic of the education establishment, then I don't know what you have to do to qualify. Just the same, for clarity's sake, I will spell it out. It is clear to me that the current practices that dominate public K-12 education are serving the bulk our students poorly with dreadful consequences and, in the case of students from low-income homes, English language learners, minorities, boys, and students with disabilities, the service is even worse and the consequences are tragic. I'm not a fan. That said, the education reform landscape does not look promising either. Most of the "solutions" presented by the Education Reform industry have little or no promise. The...

Gee, a lot of local education news seems to be about specific individuals these days, like our own People magazine. We have Representative Eric Pettigrew (D-37) making yet more news for placing $3 million for Seattle Schools into the state house budget. There are a number of interesting bits about this story. First there is the obvious conclusion that he (and his backers) hope this will save his political future in the 37th District. Kind of like a celebrity donating to charity to save his reputation after getting caught in a scandal. Second is the characterization of the funding as a "gift" by the Seattle Times. Later today I'm going to present my children with the "gift" of food, clothing and shelter. Third is the lack of interest in the similar state funding for small, rural high schools. Isn't that also a "gift"? Will this money for southeast Seattle schools restore Mr. Pettigrew to the good graces of his local party supporters? How will the...

A lot of the work in education appears to be focused on small things that make little difference instead of big things that make a lot of difference. All of the fights are over the small stuff that doesn't much matter. These are distractions that keep us from taking the battle to the big stuff that really does matter.

I have been reading a lot of Education Reform material this week. Some of their blogs are even busier than ours. When I read things by the more responsible and less hysterical members of that community I see a lot that makes sense to me. In fact, I see a lot that I could have written myself. I also read a lot of stuff that makes no sense at all. So let's try to sort through this and determine if we can't find some common ground. Education Reform have two primary agenda items: charter schools and "teacher quality". I can't support either of these, but I understand their concerns. Perhaps their concerns can be addressed through some more responsible structures than the ones they are proposing. They also seem to be deeply interested in education technology, as am I, but, again not in the same way as the more extreme members of that movement. There is a responsible middle there also.

There is a lot of talk about the uses of technology in Education. The Seattle Times recently ran an ill-informed and ill-considered editorial about it. What potential benefits can technology offer students? How should it be used? How should it NOT be used? Technology offers some tempting opportunities. Individualized Instruction. We are all struggling to find a means to provide more individualized instruction that provides lessons at the frontier of each student's knowledge and skills. Technology could really help with that by allowing each student to work at his or her own pace on skill-building exercises. Dispensing Information. In a Google era, the role of the teacher as a dispenser of information is outdated. The teacher needs to focus on other roles. If we accept the truth that electronic media is better as an on-demand source of raw data, and if we delegate that duty to it, then teacher time would be freed. That time could then be used for the roles that the teacher...

I am repeating my offer to Lynne Varner. I invite her to join me in a reasonable and respectful conversation about public education. This thread is for that conversation. It will be for just her and me. I will delete comments from anyone else, so don't bother posting them. Here is her invitation, posted to the comments of her most recent column : Ms Varner, if you want a calm, nuanced, reasoned and reality-based conversation about Education Reform, I will be delighted to give you one. I'll host. You can meet me at the saveseattleschools blog. I will make a space for you there. Don't be afraid; it will be just you and me. We can cover any topic you like: testing, charters, unions, the Gates Foundation, Teach for America, the Seattle School Board, math curricula, the opportunity gap, whatever you like. More, I will honor your wish to keep away from any topic you don't want to discuss. No cheap shots. No debating points. No gotcha. I will show you courtesy and r...

There's an unintentionally funny article in Crosscut, The troubling lack of public will for reform of Washington schools , by Collin Tong. The story is funny because it expresses bewilderment over why the Education Reform movement hasn't found popular appeal. The movement doesn't have popular appeal because the people who are actually involved instantly recognize that the Education Reform movement is wrong. The writer interviewed "community leaders" on Education issues: Lisa McFarlane, Sara Morris, Scott Oki, Paul Hill, and Chris Korsmo. HA! As if they were leaders in the community. They are the paid lackeys of the Gates Foundation and the Broad Foundation. They don't represent the community at all. The story in Crosscut is a pared-down version of the story that appeared in the International Examiner .

The League of Education Voters is hosting an event in their "Voices from the Education Revolution Speaker Series". This one is called Innovations in Learning: Technology in (and out of) the Classroom Here's how they describe it: Technology has revolutionized our lives. But has it changed education in the 21st century? Join us to hear leaders share their experiences using technology to deliver better individualized learning and outcomes for students. Read our blog series on technology in the classroom. I think you will hear a lot of people advocating for a vision of the future in education that approaches the one I described in a blog post titled "The Future - Education Reform Version". The speakers will be: John Danner, CEO of Rocketship Education Cheryl Vedoe, CEO of Apex Learning Shantanu Sinha, President of Khan Academy Moderated by Tom Vander Ark Thursday, June 9 at 7:00 p.m. University of Washington Kane Hall, Room 210 4098 15th Ave NE, Seat...

It seems to me that the goals of Education Reform are primarily to bring the increases in productivity (and cost reductions) seen in other industries to the education industry. The greatest obstacle to the effort to cut the cost of education is teacher salaries. The cost of education cannot be cut until the cost of teaching is cut. The Education Reform movement seeks paths to cutting the cost of teaching. While technology has allowed for amazing radical increases in productivity in nearly every other industry, teaching is still, for the most part, done exactly as it was done in pre-industrial times: face-to-face with a personal relationship between a professional teacher and a limited number of students. For there to be any improvement in productivity (and reduction in cost), this model must be broken. Education Reform is pursuing four paths to increase productivity (and thereby reduce costs). 1. The de-professionalization of teaching. Teachers are professionals. They are expect...