Seattle Schools Community Forum

Just wanted to give advance notice of this talk but I will have more to say soon.  I greatly admire Ms. Burris and look forward to her talk. To note, the Work Session on the SAP will also be that day at JSCEE but it is from 4:30-5:15pm with a Work Session on the Budget to follow from 5:15-6:45 pm. It is very disappointing that not a single Board member will have a community on Saturday in order to talk with parents about the SAP and get their input. PLEASE JOIN US FOR AN EVENING WITH CAROL BURRIS Closing the Opportunity Gap through Detracking and De-Testing Wednesday, January 11 - 6:30 – 8 p.m.  Garfield High School Quincy Jones Performing Arts Center  400 23rd Avenue, Seattle 98122 Carol Burris will deliver a keynote address regarding the tremendous benefits of detracking, and how ranking students based on their perceived intellectual abilities creates defacto segregation in our schools. Wayne Au, Professor of Education at the University of Washington, ...

Interesting article from The Washington Post on boys and sleep.  Thank you to reader, Dan D. For much of history, of course, most girls couldn’t even get a decent education. But as soon as girls joined the classroom, they revved ahead. These charts from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development  show that in developed nations, girls started outpacing boys in educational achievement starting in the 1960s. These days, girls earn 57 percent of bachelor’s degrees, and 51.8 percent of PhDs.

 Update 4/1: more than a dozen states are also having testing problems.  From KSL.com:

One of the charms that ed reformers like to dangle before public school parents is choice.  It's quite the appealing siren call because 1) we're Americans and we love choices (even when they can overwhelm and even paralyze us) and 2) the idea that "wealthy people have choices when it comes to their children's schooling and so should you." Number two is false on so many levels.  Wealthy people have many more choices period.  Houses, cars, vacations, clothes, colleges, you name it - wealthy people have so many more choices.  What's interesting is that the schools in our district are - almost to a school - full.  Now is that because there are more people in our city? Maybe but the private schools are full as well.  (Imagine if even half those private school parents came back.) Here's a great essay by Chicago Schools' parent, Julie Vassilatos, The Frightening Implications of School Choice (bold hers, red highlight mine.) Because "choice" of...

I have many public ed stories that have piled up on my computer so here goes.   (There won't be any charter school stories because there are so many of those, I'll be giving them a separate thread.  The news is not good.)

From The Washington Post's The Answer Sheet, a story about Indiana governor, Mike Pence,   remark that teachers "shouldn't take it personally" when their students' scores plummet because of a new state test.  One teacher, Donna Roof, a 30-year veteran teacher, answered back.  (In Indiana, teacher evaluations do use test scores although the Governor says that, given the test is new, they get a one-year reprieve.)

Hillary Clinton seems to be ever-more nuancing her ideas about public education.  A couple of weeks ago she said this (from the Washington Post: ) Clinton also said that public charter schools “should be supplementary, not a substitute” for traditional public schools.  Then, at a closed door meeting with teachers and paraprofessionals on Nov. 9th she said this:

From the Washington Post :

I have heard from parents that assessments have started for some elementary students.  But naturally, parents aren't being informed about this. Seattle Opt-Out. Here's a link to the K-8 assessments. Here's a link to the high school assessments. Some schools still use MAP (except in high school)and some will use Amplify.  One parent said she was told that Amplify was being used for "instructional differentiation."  From the Soup for Teachers page via Erin Kinsells Klones: MAP can potentially be administered three times a year: Sept. 21-Oct. 30, Jan 4-29 and May 9-June 10.  WaKIDS can also be administered, in buildings that have all-day state-funded K, Aug. 1-Oct. 29, Oct. 30-Feb. 14 and Feb. 15-July 31.  This information is available on the District website.  Now the tricky part, the part that concerns us greatly: parents may or may not be informed. Crazy, we know, but that is part of the work we're doing. School admin at your buildin...

From OSPI: H ow many states scored statistically higher than Washington?

There have been a number of hugely important ed reform stories from around the country in the last couple of weeks.  But naturally, my focus was on the strike and the charter law ruling. Update: some good national stories about the Seattle strike: Washington Post The surprising things Seattle teachers won for students by striking   NY Educator   What Seattle had that we don't end of update Here's what has been happening in Florida and California. Two big stories out of Florida; one is about the Gates Foundation leaving one district holding the financial bag on a huge project, the other is about Florida superintendents' letter of no confidence in their state testing.

In the interest of fairness, here's the link to the district's page on the strike.   Commendations To address questions about the start of school, the strike and contract negotiations, the district has established a message line. Questions left at 206-252-0207 will be added to the FAQ on this section of the website. However, there are some points which both sides continue to work toward agreement, including teacher and professional salary. Below is a brief summary of the top issues in the negotiation. Read the negotiation proposals and counter proposals on the Negotiation Proposals webpage.

Great op-ed from the Washington Post from the 2015 Superintendent of the Year, Philip D. Lanoue,  as selected by the American Association of School Administrators.  He is the superintendent of the poorest county in Georgia.  As Clarke superintendent since 2009, he is credited with making more gains to close the achievement between economically disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged students than any other district in the state. (highlights mine) Evaluating the total learning experience for either students or teachers through high stakes testing has no real research base and holds little value for students. Let’s not confuse the high-stakes testing movement with the practice of effective and meaningful assessment. I believe there is consensus among educators that conversations regarding school transformation must shift from problems and failure to solutions and successes. 

Pretty amazing poll - A majority of Americans think there is too much emphasis on testing AND that test scores alone can't judge a student/teacher/school BUT believe parents should not opt their kids out from testing. They reject Common Core.   They believe "lack of financial support" is the biggest problem for their local school. Americans across the board once again named lack of financial support as the biggest problem facing their local schools — the 10th consecutive year in which that issue has landed at the top of the list.

OSPI has two  job openings of interest. - Special Education, Dispute Resolution Program Supervisor - Privacy and Records Governance Manager Yikes! the Schools First! group (the group that manages the district's levy elections) has "Mayor" Mike McGinn as honorary co-chair.  Wonder if anyone told them about Ed Murray. They have Lauren McGuire as BOTH an honorary co-chair AND a Board member. Both. She's busy. From the Wait, What? blog, Jonathan Pelto reports this: The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium has provided its member states with most of the results from the spring’s Common Core SBAC testing. Unlike Connecticut, where the Malloy administration is apparently keeping the information secret as long as possible, the State of Washington has been updating the public about the results as they came in. As of two weeks ago, Washington State had already received the results for more than 90% of its students.

From Senator Patty Murray's office: TOMORROW - Floor Debate Begins on Sen. Murray’s  Bill to Fix “No Child Left Behind”

How does once in elementary, once in middle school and once in high school sound for state testing for federal reports?   Because honestly, the overwhelming majority of teachers can tell how a child is doing in school so why the time, cost and lack of real help for teachers/parents with multiple year testing.  FairTest has this link to send a letter in support of Senator Jon Tester's amendment (yes, that's his name) to limit testing to three times in a student's K-12 academic career.   (This would not preclude district assessments.) Congress is taking up NCLB on July 7th.  From Diane Ravitch, PARCC is Falling Apart with the Departure of Ohio:

Update :  another Denny parent let me know there was no separate Denny opt-out form.  What appears to have happened is that only students who took the SBAC  and completed a "Denny Way"form got to go the school carnival.  The form was given ONLY to students who took the SBAC. So for the students who didn't take the SBAC, they were "empowering" students by having them write "appeals" to go to the carnival.   I don't know how many students who opted out got to attend the carnival  based on appeal. end of update A Denny parent let me know that their opt-out info from Denny had a tiny notation at the bottom about if a student opts out of the SBAC, he/she might not get to do some activities. That apparently has now taken the form of the principal, Jeff Clark, not allowing students who opted-out to attend a school festival that was held last Friday. I'm thinking some people would find that punitive and unfair but that's just me. I...

As further proof that WA State PTA (and National) seem to be moving further and further into the ed reform camp, comes a message from WSPTA urging members to support HB 2214. The first thing to know about HB 2114 is that one of its authors is Chad Magandez, ed reformer thru and thru.  He loves charters, is connected to LEV The second item to note is that this bill is pretty much a wolf in sheep's clothing.   While it says it reduces the number of tests for graduation, it really does this: If you read the bill, you will see it accelerates the SBAC test monopoly from 2019 to 2016 and it will severely harm the Opt Out Movement by imposing a fourth year of advanced math on anyone who opts out of the test in high school - giving Washington state the most draconian graduation requirements in the nation. So not only does it speed up SBAC, it will NOT preserve a parent's right to refuse their student from taking test (and I see that in the House of Representatives, ther...

From the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (bold mine): WASHINGTON, D.C., April 7  – Senate education committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-Wash.) today announced a bipartisan agreement on fixing “No Child Left Behind.” They scheduled committee action on their agreement and any amendments to begin at 10 a.m. Tuesday, April 14 . Alexander said: “Senator Murray and I have worked together to produce bipartisan legislation to fix ‘No Child Left Behind.’ Basically, our agreement continues important measurements of the academic progress of students but restores to states, local school districts, teachers, and parents the responsibility for deciding what to do about improving student achievement. This should produce fewer and more appropriate tests. It is the most effective way to advance higher standards and better teaching in our 100,000 public schools. We have found remarkable consensus about the ur...