Seattle Schools Community Forum

The Issaquah School Board voted to use eminent domain to acquire property for school use.  From The Issaquah Press: The Issaquah School Board voted unanimously Wednesday night to use eminent domain to acquire the 40-acre Providence Heights College property as a site for a new high school and a new elementary school. A majority of the speakers pleaded with the board to repurpose the existing buildings. The Washington Trust for Historic Preservation included the campus on its 2016 list of the state’s seven most-endangered historic properties. State law permits school districts to use eminent domain to acquire private property as sites for schools. If a district and a landowner cannot agree on compensation, the matter goes to superior court. Stiffarm said the process, if it requires a trial, can take at least a year.   Interesting article from the Bellingham Herald about how many Democratic legislators are now running for open statewide seats (like state super...

The answer looks like, not anytime soon.   UW College of Education professor, Ken Zeichner, had a column at the Washington Post's The Answer Sheet this week about legislation in Congress to "reform" teacher preparation programs.  It's called "The GREAT Teachers and Principals Act" and naturally, it is nothing of the sort. During the last few years, The New Schools Venture Fund ( NSVF ), a major private funder of K-12 charter schools, has been intensely involved in creating and promoting a bill (the GREAT Act) in the U.S. Congress. This bill, if passed, would lead to the establishment of teacher and principal preparation programs that would not be subject to the same level of accountability as other state-approved programs. The bill is a part of a broader movement to disrupt the current system of college and university teacher education and replace it with deregulation, competition, and a market economy. We should be concerned over the lack of pu...

That's a simplistic question - clearly - but part of the discussion of this column at Slate by Sara Mosle. You'll recall that I wrote a thread about an article in the NY Times about the movement of younger teachers in and out of of the classroom, particularly TFA teachers. So Ms. Mosle, a former TFAer (20 years ago), gives an interesting perspective (bold mine): The Times article, however, neglects another downside to charters' emphasis on youthful hiring: Many schools launch with few or no adults on staff who know first-hand what it's like to be a parent. If you aren't a parent, maybe this won't strike you as odd. It wouldn't have struck me that way more than 20 years ago when I joined Teach for America in the program's first year and taught for three years in New York City's public schools. I was single, childless, and clueless about even the most basic aspects of child-rearing. My students' parents seemed like creatures f...