Seattle Schools Community Forum

Arne Duncan pushes hard on Obama's preschool initiative. “ Two different challenges that I think we have to face,” Duncan said. “One that [HHS Secretary] Kathy [Sebelius] talked about is sometimes you have a cultural piece where people are scared to put their kids in more formal care and they prefer, you know, to do the grandmother, the neighbor, whatever. “And so how we communicate very directly with families and churches and non-profits to make sure if we build it they will come, there’s some work we need to do there,” Duncan said. Sebelius said pre-school could make Hispanic children “culturally comfortable” with entering public schools as kindergartners. And this is the challenge (and the dismissal) by those pushing universal preschool. Who is Arne Duncan to say that people who want their children with them are NOT getting what they need educationally?  It's almost like saying, "we know better for YOUR child."  He is treading into dangerous waters here. ...

The AP is reporting that the State Supreme Court will announced on Friday that it would consider if the charter law of Washington State violates our state's constitution. I would say that's a rather large piece of news as I have been repeatedly told that it was "highly unlikely" this would happen.  Oral arguments are scheduled for Oct. 28th.  I just might have to go and listen. A King County judge had earlier ruled that parts of the law were unconstitutional and both sides asked to skip the appeals and go straight to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court issue centers around our Constitution's wording about "common schools" and whether charters meet that specific definition (and therefore are entitled to be funded in that manner). NCLB letters are reaching mailboxes soon.  (SPS is holding back to see if their individual district waiver comes thru based on the district's belief that the CBA covers using test scores for teacher evaluation.)  Her...

 Update: From KPLU comes news that the City Council has delayed their vote on the Pre-K plan, apparently because a separate referendum (I-107) will likely be on the ballot in November.  The Mayor had wanted his proposal to go on the ballot in 2015.  Councilman Burgess says it might loosen the city's control over the qualifications for teachers.  But the I-107 side says that with their initiative more of the existing teachers would get professional development while with the City's proposal there would be many fewer current preschool teachers eligible.  end of update. Again, like mom, apple pie and the flag, we can all like the idea of providing enriching activities to stimulate the brains of our Seattle toddlers.  Research has shown that kids with good preschool do better when they enter kindergarten. Over at the Seattle Education blog , Dora Taylor does an incredibly heavy lift over the question of what exactly is being promoted (and by who) for t...

I come to this issue because of two recent stories about kindergarteners. One was from Oregon where - guess what?  Bad news about testing kindergarteners for "school readiness."  Two state official up the food chain in public education in Oregon called the kindergartener readiness results " sobering ." It is important to have a baseline for each child.  But this pressure of testing and standards - which are not developmentally appropriate for these children - is wrong.  It is unlikely to move the needle and, in fact, is more likely to hurt them.  Every single book or article I have ever read about early childhood  development talks about the learning through play model (which is rapidly disappearing). So then we come to the story from Elwood, New York about the cancellation of a kindergarten play in the name of  "college and career" readiness goals. From  The Answer Sheet, Kindergarten (and even preschool) has increasingly beco...

I went to the Board meeting two weeks ago and a couple of Work Sessions/Committee meetings.   This thread is the Board meeting and Operations Ctm. meeting. Here are the highlights: Board Meeting This was the one where the high school basketball teams were honored.  Very fun to be there (although the Garfield boys wanted to look as serious as possible).  Paul Apostle of HR said they were making "exceptional" progress to hire early in hard-to -fill posts like Sped and ELL.  There was a bit of mention for Genesee Hill which is now running about $2M behind.  As Chris Jackins pointed out, just looking at the site, you can see potential problems.  I'm not sure why this wasn't apparent sooner.  The later start for secondary schools had about 3800 signatures by then. One lone NW Center father spoke about the issue of where their program will end up.  He did say they didn't want to stay but that the district should "own" what they did in...

Surprise from a reader (and I agree) - a figure from a Danny Westneat column. Did this surprise anyone else? 2370 kids, about 5% of all of the students in Seattle Public Schools, are homeless ? I had no idea it was that many. From the Week in Geek :  The physics of the Winter Olympics.  Good piece to show to the kids as you watch some amazing athletes in action.   (Those kids on the snowboards give me a heart attack.)   Heads up on a coming trend in politics - more "school choice" meaning more charters and now the push for vouchers.  This from Non-Profit Quarterly . Most candidates for major local or state positions, particularly governor, scurry to charter schools to be seen as supportive of these vanguards of the school choice movement. Among Republican candidates for office, the message of charter school advocacy seems to be designed to resonate with voters frustrated with the purported inadequate performance of traditional public schools, even ...

Here's what he said in his speech about public education: As mayor, I will make education at every level the foundation of the city’s work. We need to move from being an educated city to becoming an education city. As Mayor, I will use every possible tool in my toolbox to make sure that our education system is delivering the education and skills that our kids need and our economy demands. I’ll work with the council on bold ideas like universal pre-school and use the Road Map Project’s “Cradle to Career” indicators and milestones to push for better leadership and resources for education.  We can no longer close our eyes to the sad fact that we are failing too many kids—this is not an achievement gap, because these kids have it in them to succeed. It is an opportunity gap, because we have not done what we need to do to lift kids up and give them what they need. We as a city cannot move forward economically while leaving so many of our own kids behind – that kind of...