Seattle Schools Community Forum

A new initiative is coming on student data privacy in Washington State but here's the latest from California via the NY Times.  California has always been a frontrunner on this issue and this bill may be one that our Legislature could use as a template (along with the bills now going in Georgia, NY, and Colorado).  This is an issue that is gaining steam.     This says it all: “We don’t want to limit the legitimate use of students’ data by schools or teachers,” Senator Darrell Steinberg, a Democrat who is the sponsor of the bill and the president pro tempore of the California Senate, said in a phone interview. “We just think the public policy of California should be that the information you gather from students should be used for their educational benefit and for nothing else.” Also in a continuing pattern, Governor Cuomo of NY state yesterday said he would side with parents if Common Core rollout in NY state doesn't get better. “I think the ...

Seattle Times story: Tacoma teachers approve deal by 99% vote School starts again on Friday.

This article about the teachers' strike in Kent was in this morning's Times. There are, as of 11:17 am about 357 comments after the online article. That is a huge number of comments and most are that the teachers are greedy and the teachers' union is the problem for every problem in education. The district did offer a raise over a couple of years but the teachers are also asking for smaller class sizes. Eighty-six percent of the teachers voted to strike. Classes in Kent are supposed to start on Monday. Kent is the 4th largest district in the state and their teachers have never gone on strike before. From the article: "Michael Imbruglio, a chemistry teacher at Kentlake High, said he saw 150 students each day this past school year, compared with about 90 the previous year, when he taught in the Federal Way School District." So I'd have to check but Federal Way is likely the same size as Kent; that is a lot more students to be handling in a day (although I ...