Seattle Schools Community Forum

As we are coming to a close of our long national nightmare that is the 2016 Presidential election, here's some thoughts from Peter Greene at the Curmudgucation blog tries to explain what Bellwether Education Partners, a reliably reformy right-tilted thinky tank, believes the next president should do in public education policy.

Such a question.   I looked into this question when I was asked to speak about public education before a group of young early-leader Dems.  If you go back to the start of our country's history (even before we were a nation), it was about intellectual thought.  Being able to read was the key factor.  (The other key factor in public education?  Local control but that's a subject for another day.) But, in the early days, it was for the landed gentry and their offspring.  But naturally, as we became a nation, we grew but public education still wasn't for everyone.  (Watch 12 Years a Slave and see the real and present danger of being enslaved and knowing how to read and write.  That said, I wish this film had been more like the book which had a much fuller picture of the hero and what he did AFTER he was able to get away.)  But business - ever wanting trained workers and that that meant those who could read and write - did want more "educ...

An article in the Huffington Post about college costs caught my eye. Over the past three decades, the inflation-adjusted income of the median American family has basically remained stagnant. The same can’t be said of college costs, which have simultaneously surged to almost unrecognizable heights , according to a new report by the left-leaning Center for American Progress. Costs at private nonprofit four-year colleges have increased by more than 150 percent since 1982, but the real trouble is at four-year public schools, where inflation-adjusted costs have experienced a startling 250 percent jump. Yikes.

From The Atlantic, an article on higher education funding in all 50 states.  Very depressing with all this talk of "we need more trained workers."  As the costs soaring, the funding drops.   See Washington?  We're up towards the top.  And, the correlation is there between higher cuts to funding and rising costs. 

David Goldstein over at The Stranger Slog lays out the case for the GET (Guaranteed Education Tuition) program.  The legislators who are talking it down are - no surprise - some of very legislators who have turned on their own party, Rodney Tom and Steve Litzow along with Ross Hunter.  (And, as Goldy points out, some live in some of the most expensive areas of Washington State.)  GET is Washington's prepaid tuition program, a variant of the federally sanctioned tax-free "529 plans." Families buy their children college credits at today's prices, plus a (sometimes hefty) premium, and then cash out in the future, tax free, at the value of the tuition and fees at Washington's most expensive university. One hundred GET units equals a full year of tuition and fees, and the current $172 unit price represents a 39 percent markup over the University of Washington's $12,401 tuition and fees for the 2012-13 academic year. Tuition can't (and won't) kee...

So goes today's headline in the NY Times.  Although the United States no longer leads the world in educational attainment, record numbers of young Americans are completing high school, going to college and finishing college, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly available census data.  The share of high school graduates in that age group, along with the share of those with some college, have also reached record levels. This year, 90 percent were high school graduates, up from 78 percent in 1971. And 63 percent have completed some college work, up from 34 percent in 1971.   Okay, do we have an educational crisis in this country?  Yes and no. We certainly are continuing to graduate students from our K-12 system in continuing to rise numbers.  More of them are going to college. But there are two issues for each level of public education. For K-12, it is the children who are dropping out or struggling mightily.  Tha...

From the Times, a story about Washington State and the low rate of college attendance.  More than half of Seattle adults 25 and older hold a bachelor's degree, making it one of the most well-schooled cities in the nation. So it may come as a surprise that only about one in four public-school students from Washington's high-school class of 2009 will finish college by 2015, according to a Seattle Times analysis of recent trends. While the percentage of high-school graduates who went to college jumped by nine points in the United States over the past two decades, the percentage of college-going high-schoolers in Washington fell. We were once well above the national average for the percentage of high-school students who go on to a two- or four-year college. But today, by some measures, we are one of the lowest states in the country. When they do go to four-year colleges, Washington students do well: The average graduation rate at the state four-year schools is...

Talk about clash of the Titans - Town Hall is having an event with 6 of the state's university presidents plus the usual suspects from Microsoft and Boeing and other business types.  Sorry I didn't see this sooner but it will be very interesting.  I believe they record their events so you should be able to see it another times. WA State Presidents Promote  Higher Education Funding in Washington Wednesday, February 1, 2012, 7:00 – 9:00pm Great Hall; enter on 8th Avenue. $5.

From the " boy, I'm glad my kids didn't go to these schools " file, a story from Georgia about worksheets used in elementary school math that reference slavery, beating a slave and picking cotton.  And the principal said he "will work with teachers to come up with more appropriate lessons."  That's it.   A district spokesperson said she didn't think the teachers meant any harm.  Also, we're losing teachers rapidly in this country according to the activist group, Take Part.    Five reasons:  burnout (particularly among charter school teachers), threats of layoffs, low wages, testing pressures,  and poor working conditions.  From the New York Times, an interesting story about how education brings "mental fitness." “Education seems to be an elixir that can bring us a healthy body and mind throughout adulthood and even a longer life,” says Margie E. Lachman, a psychologist at Brandeis University who specializes in aging. For th...

From the Stranger Slog comes news that UW has moved its in-state waitlist by 210 freshman students.  About 120 remain on the list while all other students currently on the list will be notified there isn't room for them in the 2011 autumn quarter.