Seattle Schools Community Forum

So the Gates Foundation's education wing is back in the news; this article appeared in yesterday's Times. To wit: "The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today unveiled ambitious new directions for its education giving, which include working to double the number of low-income students who complete some kind of college or post-high school degree. Efforts also would be made to identify and pay higher salaries for good teaching, help average teachers get better, devise better tests and create a national set of learning standards for high schools." (What no cure for cancer?) Sorry, but that's a lot of education reform for anyone's plate and to do it nationally? Good luck. I do support all of it but it's a little unclear, because the goals are so broad, what it all means. Do they mean tests for NCLB? Define average for "average" teacher. I truly support national standards for high school (I support one national test for NCLB) but education i...

I attended both the Alliance for Education breakfast and the first community meeting on the Strategic Plan at Roosevelt. I have some thoughts about the Plan but that's for another post. I thought I let you know how it went. So the Alliance event was hopping (who knew so many people could get up and be there that early?). Patrick D'Amelio, the head of the Alliance, let the group of usual suspects know that there were 800 of us there. There was former mayor, Norm Rice, current mayor, Greg Nickels, Rob McKenna, Brian Sontag, Terri Bergeson, Ed Murray, Tim Burgess, etc. and every Board member but Mary Bass. (Just an aside but I hate going to events where getting to the main point of the event takes a really long time. I appreciate that everyone in power wants (feels?believes?) they should be acknowledged or maybe it's just that it shows how many people support public education but I have to believe that these VIPs really wanted the event to start and end on time.) Getti...

This article appeared in the August 7th Idaho Statesman (but I found it via Crosscuts, the on-line magazine). "According to Philanthropy Northwest's Northwest Giving Profile 2006, 69 percent of charitable dollars in Idaho go to education, versus 16 percent in Washington, 24 percent in Oregon and 23 percent nationally." In explanation the article says: "Both trends may signal that charitable giving in Idaho is a "place-based" undertaking and that givers tend to know their beneficiaries — and beneficiaries' needs — from the ground up. This sensibility contrasts with a state like Washington, where the technology sector and powerful, rather new foundations like Starbucks, Gates and others have given philanthropy a global character." This is an interesting subject as one SB candidate, Steve Sundquist, is pushing a plank for more philanthropy dollars. The article discusses how Idaho unlike say, California, has fewer hands out for money and being a small...