Seattle Schools Community Forum

In what is one of the most odious items I have read about American textbooks in a long time, this one created by McGraw-Hill for world geography had this (from the Washington Post ): In a section titled “Patterns of Immigration ,” a speech bubble pointing to a U.S. map read: “The Atlantic Slave Trade between the 1500s and 1800s brought millions of workers from Africa to the southern United States to work on agricultural plantations.”

From Apple Insider : As Apple's education-related media event on Thursday approaches, multiple reports are claiming that the company could announce an initiative to help textbook makers produce interactive ebooks for the iPad, with some sources calling the initiative "Garageband for e-books." According to the report, some industry executives are also confident that Apple will likely unveil a textbook publishing tool this week. Inkling CEO Matt MacInnis, who worked on education projects at Apple before leaving to focus on interactive e-books, voiced his belief that a textbook app from Apple is in the works. "When you think about what Apple is doing... they are selling tens of thousands of iPads into K-12 institutions," MacInnis said. "What are they doing with those iPads? They don't really replace textbooks, because there's not very much content on offer." Late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had intimated to biographer Walter ...

From the NY Times, a story about a small school in Northern California populated by children of employees from Google, Apple, Yahoo and others and nary a computer in sight.  There are pens and pencils, paper and some knitting supplies. This is the Waldorf School of the Peninsula, one of about 160 Waldorf schools in the country that subscribe to a teaching philosophy focused on physical activity and learning through creative, hands-on tasks. Those who endorse this approach say computers inhibit creative thinking, movement, human interaction and attention spans. The Waldorf method is nearly a century old, but its foothold among the digerati puts into sharp relief an intensifying debate about the role of computers in education. "I fundamentally reject the notion you need technology aids in grammar school," said Alan Eagle, 50, whose daughter, Andie, is one of the 196 children at the Waldorf elementary school; his son William, 13, is at the nearby middle school. ...

Ballots drop this week so look for yours in the mail.  What can you do?  Get out that e-mail list and bravely ask your friends, family and anyone else to give due consideration for the candidates of your choice for School Board.  I find that, like Port Commission, most people are lost on School Board candidates.  Tell your e-mail list who you are voting for and why and ask for their consideration for a vote.  Also to note, the Vote the Moms Facebook page .  Good place for updates on the School Board challengers. I receive the Washington State PTSA Council listservr and found quite a lively (and somewhat tense) back-and-forth over the PTSA support of charter legislation . Here's what the actual wording is (which surprised me): The Washington State PTA shall initiate and/or support legislation or policiesthat drive innovation and accountability in public education by allowing the operationof public charter schools in the state of Washington. The PT...

KUOW's Phyllis Fletcher did a piece on the budget on Wednesday.  There wasn't a lot new but I note that Steve Sundquist seems unwilling to admit that yes, some people received raises strictly based on the "market study" or "internal equity adjustments." From the story: Board President Steve Sundquist says some of these came about due to the elimination of 90 jobs. Sundquist: "In situations where an employee is being asked to do significantly more work we need to make sure to retain that employee, so they're in a position to serve the public, that they're fairly compensated for that work. It's admittedly a difficult thing to talk through with people. " No, Steve, we would understand if the district cut back on staff and asked the remaining staff to take on more and paid them for it.  What is tiring is your deflection of the fact that some people got raises just to get raises.  Who paid for the market study?  Why was it impor...

UPDATE: Here is the Powerpoint link. Item 8: There was some confusion/frustration over an item on page 12 ( Strategic Plans: Moving Forward ) about the item " School Performance Framework (to include MTSS) . Thanks to Kay who said, "What is MTSS?" Turns out that RTI is now MTSS ( multi-tiered system of support ; a response to intervention) Susan Enfield talked about using what they have learned works and taking it out to other schools. This generated a lot of discussion. The item has its original cost at $8.7M and its proposed cost at $0-3.1M. The focus here has been on Level 1 and 2 schools and the interventions scale-up for all schools. Duggan said that of the $5.2 current budget for 37 schools, they have revenue for $2.1M so they need $3.1M to keep up. But Sherry could not follow the bouncing dollar signs (I couldn't either). Duggan said the $8.7M is in the gap. MGJ said that in a Dece. 15th conversation (I believe it was another ...

Good 2010 education news roundup at The Washington Post blog, The Answer Sheet. I suspect many of you have read most of these articles but it is good to have them all in one place. (Thanks to Dorothy Neville for this link.) From the NY Times, an article about the popularity of buying iPads for use in schools. Fad or not? If this is of great use, wouldn't a smart phone do the same thing but more cheaply? As part of a pilot program, Roslyn High School on Long Island handed out 47 iPads on Dec. 20 to the students and teachers in two humanities classes. The school district hopes to provide iPads eventually to all 1,100 of its students. The iPads cost $750 apiece, and they are to be used in class and at home during the school year to replace textbooks , allow students to correspond with teachers and turn in papers and homework assignments, and preserve a record of student work in digital portfolios. Pro and Con: “There is very little evidence that kids lea...

So the latest state to distort history (after the fine job Texas is doing) is Virginia. They had a person (I hesitate to say writer) who is not a historian write their Virginia history book. She said she found information about black Confederate soldiers on the Internet. Seriously. From the Washington Post Answer Sheet blog: What she found was the work of members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. That’s a group of male descendants of Confederate soldiers, based in Tennessee, that has long claimed that big numbers of black soldiers fought for the South. Professional historians of the era say this is nonsense. The author, Joy Masoff, has penned other works including " Oh Yuck! The Encyclopedia of Everything Nasty " and " Oh Yikes! History’s Grossest Moments ." She also disputes that slavery was the underlying issue that caused the Civil War. The Masoff textbook was ruled "accurate and unbiased" by a Virginia committee of content specialists a...