Seattle Schools Community Forum

The American Library Association sponsors Baned Books Week every year to highlight censorship around our country.    From The Answer Sheet : "More than 11,300 books have been challenged in libraries and schools since 1982, when Banned Books Week began. The 10 most challenged books in 2012 were: Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey Reasons: Offensive language, unsuited for age group The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian , by Sherman Alexie Reasons: Offensive language, racism, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group Thirteen Reasons Why , by Jay Asher Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, sexually explicit, suicide, unsuited for age group Fifty Shades of Grey , by E. L. James. Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit And Tango Makes Three , by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson. Reasons: Homosexuality, unsuited for age group The Kite Runner , by Khaled Hosseini. Reasons: Homosexuality, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually ex...

 Update on this story with numbers from Rainier Beach High School: RB had the highest increase in reading scores for high schools in the district (17%). 22% increase in Science and 8-10% increase in Math  End of update From SPS Communications (bold mine): Seattle Public School students again made significant academic gains during the 2012-2013 school year, Superintendent José Banda announced today. The preliminary scores released by the Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) show Seattle students outperforming the state average in multiple subjects. [1] In 2013, Seattle students met or exceeded standard on the state exams at a higher rate than the previous year (2012) in 19 of 21 exams taken. Seattle also exceeded the 2013 statewide average in 19 of 21 exams, remaining slightly behind in only 10th grade reading and writing. The district widened its lead over statewide averages in 18 exams reflecting a trend in recen...

Here are two utterly compelling and important opinion pieces from the NY Times (thanks to Seattle Citizen for pointing them out). This is important stuff. The first is by Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus called Who's Minding the Schools .   Both are professors and are co-writing a book about math. The second opinion piece is by Claire Needell Hollander, a middle school English teacher. If you have ever worked with students in an academic sense - as a parent, a teacher, a tutor - you will recognize the worry in this piece.   Reading and writing are such personal skills that trying to mold a child's understanding of how to read and write by providing such a narrow focus gives me a lot of worry.  Ms. Hollander's piece is called No Learning Without Feeling . Highlights from Who's Minding the Schools: - Indeed, the first wave of exams was so overwhelming for these young New Yorkers that some parents refused to let their children take the test.   These st...

Seattle Public Library created an enormous (over 2300 books) book domino chain and let it loose last Friday.  It took them five tries to get it right.   Bravo! This is in support of their 2013 Summer Reading program (have you signed your kid up yet?).

Interesting column from the Huffington Post.  Maureen Johnson, a writer of teen books, had this idea. She tweeted "I do wish I had a dime for every email I get that says, "Please put a non-girly cover on your book so I can read it. - signed, A Guy" - and so came the idea for a challenge for her 77,000 followers. A challenge that she called Coverflip. Below, she explains more. The Coverflip slide show in the article is a fun one to look thru. Ask your child if it matters; it might be a good conversation starter.

Psychology Today put forth this article by researcher Susan Engel, "What Test Scores Don't Tell Us: The Naked Emperor."  Ms Engel reviewed over 200(!) studies of K-12 standardized tests. What I have discovered is startling- most tests used to evaluate students, teachers, and school districts predict almost nothing except similar scores on subsequent tests. I have found virtually no research demonstrating a relationship between those tests and measures of thinking on the one hand, or life outcomes on the other. To grasp what we do and do not (yet) know about standardized tests, it’s worth considering a few essential puzzles: why we find individual differences in test scores (why one child does better or worse than others), what makes a child’s test scores go up, and what such improvement could possibly indicate.

Yes, unbelievably one boxed set of the beloved tale has a blonde (!) Anne who is clearly not 11 with a come-hither look.  Here's Amazon's page for the book.  You'll stroll down and see a red-headed, freckled Anne until at about listing #10.   Happily, the reviews are low based on that cover decision. Then there's another sexed up book - The Bell Jar.  Again, what?!  This is a UK anniversary edition of the famed Sylvia Plath book.  “If Sylvia Plath hadn’t already killed herself, she probably would’ve if she saw the new cover of her only novel The Bell Jar ,” wrote Jezebel’s Morrissey, who then added her aesthetic judgment of the artwork: “Also, it’s ugly and the colors suck.” Why are they doing this to girls and women?  It's certainly not a message to give to young girls. This story comes to us from The Stranger Slog. In other dumb reading news, a Republican (of course) legislator in Idaho introduced legislation that would require all hi...

First up, this is not directly ed related (although peripherally), a letter from a whiter-than-white (his term) Republican who was mightily unhappy with his party this election.  (Caution: he minces no words so if you are a delicate reader, do not read this section.)  He does speak to some of what ed reformers on the Dem side like to do; namely, name-call and harangue which to my mind, never works.   One of the reasons my family is affluent is that my wife and I have a collective fifteen years of university education between us. I have a Masters degree in Science and Technology Policy, and my wife is a physician who holds degrees in medicine as well as cell and molecular biology. We are really quite unimpressed with Congressional representatives such as Todd Akin and Paul Broun who actually serve on the House science committee and who believe, respectively, that rape does not cause pregnancy and that evolution and astrophysics are lies straight from Satan’s butt ...

Scholastic is launching a new Harry Potter Reading Club for the start of the school year.  There will be a live webcast with J.K. Rowling and she will answer questions from kids. Teachers can sign up now (it's on October 11 at 9 am our time).   As well there are welcome kits to the first 10,000 registrants (but you can download it as well). Hilariousness with an sober side.  It seems that there is this new idea for merit pay for teachers called "loss aversion." Economist Roland Fryer has been trying for years to find the magic incentive that would produce higher scores. He tried merit pay, and that didn’t work. He tried paying students to get higher scores, but that didn’t work. Now, he has at last found the key: He and his colleagues have perfected a technique called “loss aversion.” They give teachers a bonus (say, $4,000) at the beginning of the year. If the scores go up, the teachers keep the money.  If the scores don’t go up, they lose the...

A Denver-based group, Burning Through Pages , has some fantastic posters that will be available soon. Burning Through Pages is a Denver-based non-profit organization that helps kids join book clubs in their communities (run by our volunteers and other kids), launch new book clubs in their communities, or interact one-on-one with a BTP volunteer.  We want to help kids experience literature on whatever level makes them comfortable, excited and reading, reading, reading!   We actually buy the books for the kids and if they love them, they keep them – and no, we are not joking. Posters. Thanks to Kate Martin for the heads up.

Teachers in Tacoma voted to strike late today so there will be no school tomorrow.  Eighty-seven percent of the union's total membership voted in favor of the strike.  School opened Sept. 1 without a contract.  Their issues include teacher pay, class size and seniority. What's interesting is that apparently teachers striking is illegal in Washington State but not enforced.  At least that is the way I've heard it - teachers? From the NY Times, an interesting column about an all-important question: are we teaching kids lessons that will help them succeed? Not just what they learn but: "...life skills like self-control, motivation, focus and resilience, which are far better predictors of long-term success than high grades." “What are we really trying to do when we think about raising kids?” asked Dr. Kenneth R. Ginsburg, an expert in adolescent medicine at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “We’re trying to put in place the ingredients so the child is g...

I love children's literature.  It's one thing that I look back on with fondest during the time my children were growing up.  I loved revisiting old childhood favorites of mine and was so thrilled with all the new literature out there.  (I remember when I worked at All for Kids Books and Music and the buyer handed me a book without a cover - a publishers' copy - and said "This is the next big thing."  I read it and was enthralled.  It was Harry Potter.) But since my boys are young adults, I haven't kept up as much.  But there's a new debate over how much realism should be in young adult books.  The Times had a story from the Scripps Howard news service about this issue.  This debate was first sparked by the 1967 publication of "The Outsiders" by S.E. Hinton, which is considered the first book truly aimed at teens. Many parents were horrified by Hinton's picture of violent, disillusioned young adults, but teen readers loved the book — a...

First up are two pieces of good news from the northwest corner of the district. My Ballard reports that a Salmon Bay student, Leo Pfeifer, won recognition by C-SPAN for his documentary, "Homelessness: An American Crisis."  He is one of 30 students to be recognized out of 1,100 entries and won 1 of 4 second prizes ($1500, not shabby).   On Friday, he and his cameraman, Ian Derby,  will be honored at an assembly at Salmon Bay and presented with a check.  From the district's website, Ballard High band director, Michael James, was selected as one of five directors from around the country to receive a full scholarship to the Lincoln Center's Band Director Academy.  He was chosen based on the quality of recordings submitted to the Essentially Ellington Jazz Festival.  More jazz band honors for SPS. Also, Bryant and Thurgood Marshall won the City Finals in the 2011 Global Reading Challenge .  They advance to the Video Conference final with Canada...

This isn't really what Dick Lilly over at Crosscut said but it's what went thru my mind reading his recent article .  Here's his premise about "closing the achievement gap": Among the results of this frustratingly persistent problem is a vast, energetic industry of school reform, headlined in recent years by the involvement of powerful private foundations and the policy directives of the federal government: “No Child Left Behind” in the “Race to the Top.” Over the years, a variety of structural changes have been proposed and, to one degree or another, tried: small schools, mayoral governance, charter schools, (more) intensive professional development for teachers, (more) leadership training for principals. Testing and more testing, along with the loss of federal funds and wholesale staff changes when schools have failed to improve scores (many states dumbed down their tests to avoid the consequences). And lately, paying teachers based on student test r...

In the Times, a heart-warming story about the winners of the Newbery and Caldecott Medals, given for best children's writing and best illustrations respectively. The winner for the Caldecott Medal, Jerry Pinkney for The Lion & the Mouse , has won 4 Caldecott Honors previously. He is the first individual African-American to win the honor and he won it at age 70. Rebecca Stead won the Newbery Medal for When You Reach Me . Here's a link to all the award winners this year. About Pinkney acceptance: It was especially meaningful for Pinkney to win a Caldecott Medal for "The Lion & the Mouse" because it's a fable "that's been coursing through my mind for years. "... I believe ultimately the enduring strength of this tale is in its moral: no act of kindness goes unrewarded. Even the strongest can sometimes use the help of the smallest. To me the story represents a world of neighbors helping neighbors, unity and harmony, interdepende...

From the Telegraph newspaper , this headline, "Children more likely to own a mobile phone than a book." A study by the National Literacy Trust of 17,000 schoolchildren from 7-16 found that almost 9 in 10 have a cell phone (or to go Brit "mobile") than have their own books in the home. The Trust also had some research saying that 80% of children with better than expected reading skills had their own books compared with 58% below the level expected for their age group. Research by Nevada University in the U.S. found that "children coming from a “bookish home” remained in education for around three years longer than young people born into families with empty bookshelves, irrespective of parents’ own education, occupation and social class." Very sobering. What's interesting is that you see more kids texting than actually talking on the phone but does that make it any better? I'd think it's probably true in the States as well.