Seattle Schools Community Forum

The Washington State Budget and Policy Center does a great job unpacking these issues of why the Legislature would want to reform local school levies.  The article is about the competing bills in the House and Senate over this reform (bold mine). Local levies – property taxes approved by voters for a specified school district – have become increasingly used to fill gaps left by inadequate state resources. Although local levies are intended to fund “enrichment programs” like extracurricular clubs and advanced learning programs, the funding from them currently supports a multitude of school’s basic needs. Things like teacher salaries and textbooks. When the State Supreme Court ruled in its 2012 McCleary case that the state had failed to meet its constitutional obligation to fully fund basic education, it asserted that this model doesn’t work. The court noted that the state’s reliance on local property taxes to support basic education – instead of broader, statewide taxes – fail...

Here's his latest blog post ; good starting place for dialog about school funding in Washington State.

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.

I knew when the charter school initiative was being debated that charter schools were not supposed to get as much money for transportation as real public schools.  In fact, one of the main questions in the application was about transport. So now it turns out that in the recently passed Budget bill there was a section to cut down the transportation funding.  (This comes to us via the Washington Policy Center.) Section 505(2)(b) of the House Budget Amendment to the Senate Budget bill, SB 6002 , would have required transportation funding for charter school students to be calculated based on “total number of students in the district.” The voter-approved charter school law, however, requires that, “Allocations for pupil transportation must be calculated on a per student basis based on the allocation for the previous school year to the school district in which the charter school is located” (RCW 28A.710.220(3)).  If you know our charter law, every charter school i...

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...

Update:   when pondering this question of charter schools and money, I recalled the wording about charter schools and district levies.  Now we all know that charters, whether new or conversion, may access levy dollars, whether capital or operations. That likely extends to the Families & Education levy .  I have asked the City about this and yes, they are taking it up with the City Attorney.  My reading of the law (and Eric if you are out there, chime in) is yes.  Problem is the City does not give money via F&E levy.  (The district doesn't but it is somewhat easier to figure out a charter share.)  The City provides services so I guess the City could decide which services to give to a charter but it cuts up that piece of pie even more. End of update. The question gets asked, all the time, and especially now that we all know that under 1240, a private school can open/change to become a charter school. The question is - can a private schoo...

Thanks to reader, Greg Linden, for this link to GeekWire and their assessment that yes, Washington State does suck when it comes to K-12 and higher ed public education.  Technology Alliance Chair, Cheryl Vedoe - “It seems you can grow an innovation economy by largely relying on imported talent. And that’s what we are doing — relying on imported talent. The question for us to consider is as a state: Is that really what we want to do? Don’t we want those children who grow up here in Washington, our own citizens, to have a fair shot at the jobs that we are creating here?” Meanwhile this is what Zillow co-founder, Rich Barton, has to say (GeekWire points out that he likes charter schools and supports a state income tax.)   We are a high-tech state. We are a wealthy state, and I can’t believe that’s going on. And I don’t really understand why,” said Barton, referencing some of the charts shown during Vedoe’s presentation. “Many of the people in this room probably send their k...