Seattle Schools Community Forum

Boy, is there a lot out there. First up, great news for the students receiving Washington Opportunity Scholarships - their check goes up from $1,000 to $5,000.  From the Times report: The scholarship is for Washington residents studying at in-state institutions who are majoring in science, technology, engineering, math — often called STEM — and health-care fields, and who meet an income threshold that's considered low- to middle-income — up to $102,200 for a family of four. Its aim is to encourage more students to go into those high-paying, high-demand fields. It may be especially important to middle-income families, who often don't qualify for financial-aid programs and must rely instead on loans, especially as tuition has risen so dramatically. Freshmen and sophomore scholarship winners will receive the smaller $1,000 award. Because it's renewable, and can be used for up to five years of college, the value of the scholarship could be as much as $17,000 ...

Interesting op-ed in the NY Times about the lowering of class time/school year in U.S. Schools. The minimum required school day in West Virginia is already about the length of a “Harry Potter” double feature. In Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Milwaukee, summer school programs are being slashed or eliminated. In Oregon and California this year, students will spend fewer days in the classroom; in rural communities from New Mexico to Idaho, some students will be in school only four days a week. What's great is that a trend of expanded schedules that started in high-performing charters has transferred over to some regular public schools (wow, it can be done!): In Boston, for example, the Edwards Middle School has gone, in five years, from the worst-performing, least-desired middle school to a model of success after it increased scheduled teaching time by 30 percent. Students there now outperform the state average proficiency rate in math and have nearly closed achievement...