Seattle Schools Community Forum

(Editor's note: I am not a lawyer.  I am a layperson who is interested in the law and I have sought to understand the Washington State Supreme Court ruling on the charter school law.)  Background

I have to give credit to State Treasurer Jim McIntire.  He went all in on a new plan that wouldn't just fund public education but entirely revamp how our state collects taxes.  (His plan apparently would fund what State Superintendent Randy Dorn suggested for public ed spending.) He would: create a 5% personal income tax get rid of the state property tax lower the state sales tax (from 5.5 to 6.5%) and reduce some business taxes He says at the end of all that- with more state revenue but lower local levies - the State would be up by $4B.  He'd like to see this on the ballot in 2016.  (But it would also take a vote of the Legislature as well.) I am not in a position to analyze (I'm not sure I even have that skill set) but I'm with him - a conversation needs to be started. And, as usual, you have legislators like ed reform's Rep. Chad Magendanz (R-Issaquah) who says nah, we just need to shuffle around the deck chairs.  He is right that this can't be ...

Poll results on public education including Common Core from two sources.

From the Center for American Progress, a fascinating (and sobering) look at districts across the country.  The name of the study is Parallel Lives, Different Outcomes: A Twin Study of Academic Productivity in U.S. School Districts. (It's not light summer reading, to be sure.) For this report, “twin districts” have very similar sizes and they have the following in common: The proportion of students who are from low-income families The proportion of students who have limited English proficiency or are English language learners The proportion of students who receive instruction through individualized educational programs Our twin districts, however, differ in terms of per-pupil spending and revenues.

Well, that would be no but here's the latest National Report Card on school funding by the Education Law Center at Rutgers.  The authors are Bruce Baker, professor in the Department of Educational Theory, Policy and Administration in the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University , David Sciarra, Executive Director of the Education Law Center (ELC) and Danielle Farrie, Research Director at ELC. From the Introduction: The third edition of the National Report Card examines the condition of states’ finance systems as the country emerges from the Great Recession, but is still wrestling with its consequences. As in prior editions, this Third Edition of the National Report Card continues to make the case for states to take immediate and longer-term action to improve the fairness of their school finance systems. Two predominant characteristics of the U.S. education system highlight the importance of systems of school funding that are bui...

Dual-language in Washington State - a view from Seattle Globalist. A MacArthur Genius award went to an educational researcher , Angela Duckworth.  From Ed Week: Educational research psychologist and former teacher Angela Duckworth has devoted her career to understanding traits beyond IQ or test-taking abilities that predict a student's success— including grit and self-control. It is perhaps her own possession of these traits that helped lead the MacArthur Foundation to name Ms. Duckworth as one of this year's 24 MacArthur Fellows .   Duckworth and her colleagues began by developing ways to empirically measure grit and self-control. Even when controlling for cognitive ability, the presence of these traits were important predictors of success. Unlike simple measures of IQ or natural intelligence, these are traits that can be taught. From Ed Week, an article , Misdiagnosis in the Gifted (sure to start a fight here but I hope not).  As information f...

A reader, Budget Reader, asked some questions about the seemingly low budgeting for APP@Lowell/Lincoln (which to most people's minds are two schools but not to the district).  BR followed through and asked the district's Joe Paperman.  I thought it worth having its own thread for institutional memory and because several parents have asked the same questions. This is NOT a thread to start in on APP (so please don't). A thank you to both BR and Joe Paperman for doing this work. From BR: As a follow-up to my earlier post about the budget document and APP @ Lincoln, I sent my questions to Joe Paperman, who is in charge of budgeting for the District. He was kind enough to send a detailed response: