Seattle Schools Community Forum

 Update 3: 1) Jones' campaign has hired the former lobbyist for Stand for Children and is using the well-known/notorious campaign director, Christian Sinderman.   2) The Stranger put out their November endorsements yesterday (partial) While we understand the case Jones makes for representation in education leadership, we can't support electing someone with views so dangerous to LGBTQ students to the highest position in the state school system. Reykdal also filled out that right-wing questionnaire, and his answer was definitive: "The standards do not promote cross-dressing and other fabrications of the extreme right," he wrote. "They teach gender identity and self awareness. These are good things not to be vilified." Vote for the progressive educator without any anti-gay/anti-trans fundamentalist Christian baggage in this race. Vote for Reykdal. Reykdal is looking better and better by the minute. end of update Update 2: The Olympian sai...

Chris Reykdal is a native of Washington state and attended WSU.  He serves as a representative in the legislature from the 22nd LD.  He is the Vice-Chair of the House Education Committee.  He was also the Deputy Executive Director for the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges.  He and his wife, Kim, were both teachers earlier in their careers; she is still a high school counselor.   Rep Reykdal's campaign website.

Want to understand where we are on McCleary?  Here's a good wrap-up from the Coalition to Protect our Public Schools.  Will the Supreme Court order the Legislature back into session?  I doubt it given there were so many extra sessions already.  I think the Supreme Court has seen what "action" looks like from the Legislature. No, I think the Court will probably act on one of the McCleary-requested actions (see below).   That will get the Legislature's attention.

State Superintendent Randy Dorn appears to be quite upset about the opting out of the SBAC in Seattle high schools.  So much so that the Times granted him an op-ed to write about SBAC where he says "few 11th graders are grappling with refusal to take the test..."   That would be almost a thousand juniors opting out of testing in the largest school district in the state.  That's not "a few" student "grappling" with anything. Then the Times has a new story updating how many more SPS juniors have opted out.

KIRO tv will be airing a story on the ELL situation today. There's a challenger for State Superintendent Randy Dorn and her name is Erin Jones .  Ms. Jones has taught in private schools and been an ESL instructor.  She is currently the AVID director for Tacoma School district.  She speaks four languages.  Her LinkedIn page says this: I have worked in Caucasian communities, African American communities, and some of the most diverse communities in the nation. My 3 children have attended public schools in WA, from Tacoma to Puyallup to Spokane to North Thurston. Two of my children attend state colleges. The third is a senior in high school. My husband is a public school teacher.  I am running for state superintendent because I want to leverage my vast experiences to serve my state in the most impactful way. What I hope to bring to the position: 1. Advocacy: I wish to advocate for educators at every level, so they are resourced at necessary levels ...

  In what is the biggest story for our district (and all districts in this state) is the likely reality of the Legislature going into a Special Session to complete the budget.    The impacts of this delay to our school districts is big and those impacts should have been considered at the start of the session.

State Superintendent Randy Dorn throws down on half-days/waivers for school districts, according to a report from KING-5 tv. Washington State’s school superintendent says he opposes the expansion of half-days on school calendars and wants lawmakers to act next year to give his office the authority to curb them. “Just because the adults have the problem of not having enough money does not mean we should take away kids' instructional time,” Randy Dorn told KING 5. “So they moved to this partial-day thing,” said Dorn. “I think it’s a burden on parents, working parents that have to do all the arrangements.” “I don’t like the idea of waivers. I don’t like the idea of half-days for professional development,” said Dorn. “Especially the kids that struggle the most, it hurts them the most if we’re not in the classroom teaching.” “The lack of adequate time for professional development, collaboration and planning is just one of the problems caused by underfunding,” WEA sp...

Former State Superintendent Judith Billings weighs in at the Times about charter schools. So The Times recommends Superintendent Dorn violate his oath of office to uphold the state Constitution. Article III, Section 22 states in plain language — by law not subject to interpretation if the language meets that test — “the superintendent of public instruction shall have supervision over all matters pertaining to public schools.” The initiative emphasizes charter schools will be public schools, yet excludes the superintendent from supervising them. Superintendent Dorn has suggested an easy “fix,” if the Legislature wishes to support 51 percent of the voters. A two-thirds majority of both houses of the Legislature could put charters under the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. Barring that, amending the constitution itself is the only way to move forward without violating the state’s highest law. She's right.   We were told, over and over, these are public...

Glad we don't have Board members like this one in Georgia who apparently tried to run over a high-school student in a Walmart parking lot. I spoke with State Superintendent Dorn yesterday.  As I had previous surmised (and he confirmed), he is truly confused about his role under the state constitution and what the wording is in 1240.  He is planning to have a conversation with the Attorney General's office to seek clarification on this issue.  If the AG's office is unable to give him that clarification, he may have to go to the ultimate source which would be the Supreme Court but the funding for that would have to come out his office's funding.  Not a great choice.  What is interesting is that he is somewhat agnostic on charter schools (he has seen some good ones from years back but, of course, sees the issues around thinning the pot of already weak funding to our existing schools). Anyone up for a snowball fight ?  The will be an attempt at Seattle Cen...

I have received word that the WEA Board of Directors has decided to fight I-1240 in court. From their statement:  “Though our candidates won, we are disappointed that corporate interests with their $11 million were able to pass the charter school initiative. Looking forward, your board of directors has decided to fund a legal challenge against the new charters law and, as we did with McCleary, are seeking partners and developing an approach and timeline for this effort.  More details about this will come.”  Please note: the WEA has NOT filed anything but this was a statement made to their membership last month.  Naturally, these kinds of efforts take time and money and the WEA is making all due consideration about their next steps. The Washington Policy Center is itself already on the attack against this action.    From their statement;  The union faces a costly, uphill battle. A lot of information about successful charter schools in...

Looks like the levy for the new Children and Family Services Center has passed as did the levy for our public libraries.   Jay Inslee (no on charters) is outpolling Rob McKenna (yes on charters). Looks like a couple of Stand's candidates got beaten back including Guy Palumbo, Stephanie Bowman and Tony Moore.   Also, their favored candidate in the 46th Rep race, Sylvester Cann, polled far behind Gerry Pollet. Randy Dorn received over 50% of the primary vote and so will advance, unchallenged, into the general election for Superintendent of Public Instruction. As of 4:30 pm today, there was a 23.7% voter turnout with King County on that low 23% side and Adams, Columbia, Jefferson, Pacific, Pend Oreille, and Wahkiakum counties all registering over 40%+ in voting.  Making for interesting forecasting. 

I'm late (and behind) on this post but life got in the way. Randy Dorn is an okay guy.  I supported his last election.  But I have found him a less-than-I wanted state superintendent.   I think he has gotten out there and pushed the Innovation schools program and continued to push more students taking the SAT.   However, I'm not impressed with his website which doesn't have much in the way of what he wants to do in the future.  And, I don't like anyone just walking into office.  That is what will happen if he gets more than 50% of the vote in the primary.    We need to have a dialog going into the general.  That's why I'm asking you to vote for one of the other candidates.   I only interviewed one of them, James Bauckman , and that's because he reached out to me.  (The other candidates, for the record, are John Blair who ran twice and lost, Don Hansler who ran for both Governor and this office and lost, and ...

From OSPI, Randy Dorn on Education Reform: January 2012 - State Superintendent Randy Dorn is pleased that education reform will be front and center during the 2012 legislative session. Dorn believes – and hopes legislators agree – that discussions around education reform must be mindful of the Supreme Court’s January 6 ruling on McCleary v. State, which held that the state isn’t providing adequate funding for basic education. Here are Dorn’s positions on the major reform issues: Improve/remove. Teachers who are not successful ought to be given every opportunity to improve. If they cannot improve, superintendents need the flexibility to remove those teachers without employing current expensive and unwieldy legal procedures. The Superintendent’s request legislation would change a teacher’s tenured status to “provisional” (instead of “continuing”) if that teacher gets two consecutive “unsatisfactory” ratings. Charter schools. Charter school legislation has been voted do...

The Times has an article about the smackdown between Governor Gregoire and State Superintendent of Schools Randy Dorn.  The issue is that the Governor is looking for more cuts and instead of prioritizing cuts, she's asked all state departments to submit cuts for taking 10% from their budgets.  That would mean about $97M in nonbasic education cuts.  Dorn said no.  He is refusing to submit any cuts, saying: "I cannot, in good conscience, submit a budget ... that is consistent with (your) requirements," he wrote. Now this is posturing because they largely protected K-12 last time around but now, cuts will be made.  (He is also spending a bushel on Common Core standards which are less stringent than the Washington State standards.  He could start there.) The outcome? And by not submitting a list of ideas to guide the Legislature — as all of the other agency directors have — Gregoire spokesman Cory Curtis says Dorn is making it harder for the state ...

Update: Checked with the Superintendent's office: she's on vacation. The Times has another story this morning with the words " financial abuse " in the headline. It follows with: Disclosures about the school-district program have put Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson's job at risk in what has become the most serious public corruption investigation in years. The release of the documents — the most comprehensive look yet at the allegations — comes as prosecutors conduct a secret criminal investigation of the financial dealings and the School Board considers whether to force out Goodloe-Johnson, sources familiar with the matter have told The Seattle Times. State Auditor Brian Sonntag on Thursday called it one of the most egregious cases he has seen in 18 years on the job. The Board: The School Board will meet in executive session Tuesday to discuss the audit, as well as a report from its own investigation, done by a private attorney, into what Goodloe...

I copied that headline from the Seattle Times story . I take no happiness in this news. I knew about this, warned about this, and Dorothy and I were trying to ferret out the whole story. Apparently, documents got leaked and this report got out before the SAO was quite ready to release it. To let you know, earlier this month I wrote a white paper and sent it to the Mayor, the City Council, and the entire Seattle state legislative delegation. I called it " Approaching Storm: the Coming Crisis in Seattle Public Schools ." I did not include any information on this story as I had to make sure I had the facts in hand. This just adds to what is in the report. Coincidentally, I have a meeting today with Councilwoman Sally Bagshaw. When I first became aware of Silas Potter and the Small Business Program, I was suspicious. As we were told, the money spent over the last two years on this program had to be paid back to the Capital fund from the General Fund. That is one reason ...

Charlie posted the district's news release on the audit. I always enjoy the minimizing that goes on in these things. One of the most clearly called out issues of the audit was lack of Board oversight of BEX spending to the point where the Board was not even being told about spending. What does the press release call it ( in the middle of a paragraph): ".. .communications with the Board ..." Like staff forgot to send the Board an e-mail. So what did the Board have to say? At first, when Steve asked for comments or questions, there was dead silence. That wasn't a good sign. He then handed the microphone over to Michael DeBell, noting that Michael was the only current Board member who was on the Board serving during the audit time period. Michael pointed out that there were 3 different Boards over the time period. Then Michael started something I thought I would see from other Board members but not him. He started the CYA period. He asked the auditors to expand ...

Here's a first - I agree with nearly everything in a Times' editorial on education. I left this comment. I went to a Town Hall last night that included newly-elect state Senator Scott White. He seemed pretty enthused on this idea although the lack of detail seemed to trouble him. Several in the audience thought it "bold" but again, the details. One person asked why the Governor would be so in-your-face to Randy Dorn. Yes, it is a bit unseemly. The Times zeroed right in on the issue - streamline, consolidate and have a clear line on pre-k-higher ed. The Governor can do a lot of this on her own. But creating a whole new department with the head of it directing an elected official (Randy Dorn) who is appointed by her? And, how does this all REALLY save money? There cannot be any new initiative over the next 5 years without showing how it would save money and/or where the money would come to fund it. Everyone should take a deep breath and step back from the podium...

This is interesting. In a story in the Seattle Times, the Governor says she wants to create a new state "Department of Education" that: ...would absorb responsibilities currently held by a wide array of officials, including State Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn, who oversees public K-12 education in the state. The new Education Department would be headed by a secretary, reporting to the governor. She says: "Today in our state, we do not have an education system," Gregoire said. "We have a collection of agencies that deal with the subject of education." The Democratic governor said consolidating Washington's education efforts — "from preschool to the Ph.D." — would save time, money, and improve outcomes for students. How can this be done? Gregoire's plan could require amending the state constitution, which establishes the state superintendent's office. Amending the constitution requires a difficult two-thirds...

The Times has what they call "The Truth Needle" and Linda Shaw, their education reporter, filed a report this morning. Let me allow her to tell you: The claim: Starting in 2008, Seattle Public Schools reported that a meager 17 percent of its high-school graduates met the entrance requirements for four-year colleges. The district quietly quit using that number then recently revised it, without comment, to 46 percent. "... revised it, without comment ..." classic SPS. This is why, when you read a contract or a hard number, you should bookmark that page or print it out. It might just disappear and you'll feel like you got gaslighted (how old am I to use that reference). Now that 17% is out there in ether and even though many of us were left scratching our heads (how did all those seniors at Roosevelt get into college?), what can you do? This 17% number has been used by LEV, Seattle Foundation and many other "community" groups. What the Times f...