Seattle Schools Community Forum

Over at the sleepy T editorial board, they woke up and decided (probably via Councilman Burgess), that they don't like the Creative Approach MOU.    The title of this missive?  " Seattle Public Schools' Innovation Plan Requires Tweaking, Scrutiny"   Here's what I wrote in the comments: "The Seattle Public Schools' pursuit of innovation is a work in progress that would benefit from wider, sharper scrutiny." Hello Times! Where have you been? Over at the Seattle Schools Community Forum blog, we have been discussing this over and over. Many us spoke out against it at Board meetings. First, it isn't hard to get 80% of people to agree if you have a good plan. It's the details that count and clearly this detail got missed by the Times and Councilman Burgess who sat silently through the entire Board meeting where it was discussed and voted on. Very funny as well mentioning the education levies have a simple majority. Parents...

Well, it looks like it could if the Obama administration has its way on education funding in the 2012 budget. (Oh man, can it be I'm going to side with the Republicans on this one?) From a NY Times article in today's edition: The 2012 budget proposal includes $900 million for Race to the Top, which the administration says would be awarded this time not to states but to school districts. That would make it possible, for instance, to channel money to Houston or other districts in Texas, which wanted to compete in the Race to the Top initiative but could not because their states declined to participate. Some House Republicans are skeptical of the program, however, and — like other line items in the education budget — it could face trims or elimination as Congress works on its own and the administration’s budget proposals. What this could mean is that Seattle can submit a proposal on its own. Now, of course, we don't have charters and last time around, ...

Last story: shocking news but all this turnaround and transformation? It's just dawning on some ed reformers that it might not be so easy to find replacements for principals. This was also in the NY Times. The Obama plan for turning around low-performing schools has hit a snag: That policy decision, though, ran into a difficult reality: there simply were not enough qualified principals-in-waiting to take over. Many school superintendents also complained that replacing principals could throw their schools into even more turmoil, hindering nascent turnaround efforts. And, guess what? They have to slow down the machine, allowing principals in place to stay on for three years instead of two. Although the program created an expectation that most schools would get new leadership, new data from eight large states show that many principals’ offices in failing schools still bear the same nameplates. About 44 percent of schools receiving federal turnaround money in these states still have t...

Apparently the Broad Foundation has a concern. They are hiring Public Agenda to do research to figure out the following: "Understanding Community Opposition to Taking Bold Action on Failing Schools" In communities across the country, leadership reform efforts face serious opposition when they aim to implement bold actions to turn around failing schools. Public Agenda, with the support of the Broad Foundation, is embarking on a research project to explore why so many of these well-intentioned efforts misfire. We hope to learn more about what could be done to improve communication and build more trust and confidence between school leaders committed to reform and communities afflicted with persistently low-performing schools. Public Agenda is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that is widely respected for its public policy research. Part of the Broad Foundation’s mission is to transform K–12 urban public education through better governance, management, ...