Seattle Schools Community Forum

In the "wait, what?!" category comes this story from the Washington Post's Answer Sheet - School puts nearly 100 kindergartners in one class in a teaching experiment.   The first sentence in the article says "no, it's not a headline from The Onion."  This is being tried at the lowest-performing school in Detroit.  There are three teachers in the class. Incidentally, the lead teacher is 30 years old, another teacher is in her second year and the third is in her first year. It's from a story in the Detroit Free Press .  It sounds like it works (somewhat) but I honestly do not believe it is what is best for children. The AP is reporting that Washington state is the only state denied renewal of its NCLB waiver that seems unlikely to get their waiver back (the other three states seem to be doing what Arne Duncan wants).   Randy Dorn, the WA state superintendent said this:

From the NY Times, a story about a small school in Northern California populated by children of employees from Google, Apple, Yahoo and others and nary a computer in sight.  There are pens and pencils, paper and some knitting supplies. This is the Waldorf School of the Peninsula, one of about 160 Waldorf schools in the country that subscribe to a teaching philosophy focused on physical activity and learning through creative, hands-on tasks. Those who endorse this approach say computers inhibit creative thinking, movement, human interaction and attention spans. The Waldorf method is nearly a century old, but its foothold among the digerati puts into sharp relief an intensifying debate about the role of computers in education. "I fundamentally reject the notion you need technology aids in grammar school," said Alan Eagle, 50, whose daughter, Andie, is one of the 196 children at the Waldorf elementary school; his son William, 13, is at the nearby middle school. ...

This Accountability Audit Report by the State Auditor was better than the one in February if you are only looking at money.  But yes, money was once again lost and while the amounts are smaller than in February, it still damning and painful.

Audit&Finance Committee (Audit) - from June 7, 2011

I was only able to hit two of the four Board committee meetings last week (and not the work session either but Charlie covered that one).  I went the the Audit portion of the Audit and Finance Committee meeting on Tuesday.  This was a good meeting and especially so because of the arrival of the A&F's two new volunteer public advisors (looking for one but got two and that's even better).