Seattle Schools Community Forum

The Our Schools Coalition is gearing up again to give input on the contract negotiations between Seattle Public Schools and the teachers' union, the Seattle Education Association. They have provided their rationale for why they should kibbitz in these talks. I disagree. I'm a fan of democracy and representative democracy in particular. I believe that the public IS represented in the negotiations by the School Board, the duly elected representatives of the public. I prefer the duly elected representatives of the public acting as the public's voice to each of us individually contributing our comments (a confused cacophony of tiny voices) or any self-appointed voices who claim to represent the community despite lacking any legitimate claim to that title.

I note that several Stand for Children-supported candidates lost tonight.  Congrats to those who fought back against charters - Rosemary McAuliffe and Gerry Pollet (and our friend, Marcie Maxwell). As of 9:28 pm: Yes 51.16% No 48.84% That gap is still tighten.  I cannot seem to find what percentage of the total votes this is but I suspect it is about 50%.  Still very close. Update: KUOW's Ann Dornfeld reports seeing the head of the Alliance for Education's Sara Morris at the Yes on 1240 campaign party. Also: Reporters aren't allowed to mingle with the guests at the  # i1240 charter schools supporters' campaign party. Nice. As of about 8:15 p.m.: Yes - 50.2% No - 49.8% And that isn't counting all of King, Skagit or Snohomish counties. Interesting.  Hard to call.  But really, much closer than the polls had indicated.

So goes today's headline in the NY Times.  Although the United States no longer leads the world in educational attainment, record numbers of young Americans are completing high school, going to college and finishing college, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly available census data.  The share of high school graduates in that age group, along with the share of those with some college, have also reached record levels. This year, 90 percent were high school graduates, up from 78 percent in 1971. And 63 percent have completed some college work, up from 34 percent in 1971.   Okay, do we have an educational crisis in this country?  Yes and no. We certainly are continuing to graduate students from our K-12 system in continuing to rise numbers.  More of them are going to college. But there are two issues for each level of public education. For K-12, it is the children who are dropping out or struggling mightily.  Tha...

I'm sure most of you have heard of the right-wing think-tank, the American Enterprise Institute.  Their director of educational-policy studies is Frederick M Hess who, back in Fall 2011, wrote a lengthy essay, Does School Choice "Work ".  I would grab a cup of coffee if you intend to read the whole thing but honestly, it's quite illuminating to hear from someone who I might think I wouldn't normally read for information on educational policy.  To whit: A few years ago, the Manhattan Institute's Sol Stern — author of Breaking Free: Public School Lessons and the Imperative of School Choice — caused a stir when he backed away from his once-ardent support. Howard Fuller, an architect of Milwaukee's school-voucher plan and the godfather of the school-choice movement, has wryly observed, "I think that any honest assessment would have to say that there hasn't been the deep, wholesale improvement in [Milwaukee Public Schools] that we would h...

It is time, once again, for the annual approval of schools . In short, the Board has to attest to the State that there is a CSIP for every school. The Board, however, does not actually check to make sure that there is a CSIP for every school. Instead, the Board accepts the claim of the presence of a CSIP from the Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning that there is a CSIP for every school. It's an interesting sleight of hand that allows the Board to both deflect responsibility from themselves if the CSIPs are faulty and to evade the work of checking the CSIPs. They are wise to do that because this year, as we see in most years, the CSIPs are faulty. I'll give just one example: Take a look at the CSIP for K-5 STEM at Boren and tell me how all of those folks working at Thornton Creek are going to create improvements at Boren. When these came up for a vote once before, Director Martin-Morris, rather infamously, said from the dais that it didn't matter if th...

Need to get that ballot in?  Here's a link to the ballot drop-off points.   From King County Elections: Return your ballot through the U.S. Postal Service using a first class stamp or at a ballot drop box or ballot drop-off van (temporary collection point). The deadline to return ballots is Election Day; ballots must be postmarked by Election Day or in a ballot drop box by 8:00 p.m.  Interesting info from our friends at The Stranger Slog about election results :   Enter numbers whiz Matt Barreto of the nonpartisan Washington Poll , who is promising to take tomorrow's 8:15 p.m. vote count announcement from King County (which will be King County's only vote count announcement of the night, and only a partial count at that); and then combine King County's results with the results from all the other counties (which should be closer to final counts, hopefully); and then run all those numbers through some fancy mathematical procedures; and then is...

In compliance with newly adopted policy 2200, Equitable Access to Programs and Services, the superintendent has made the first quarterly report on program placement decisions. A link to it is posted on this page: Program Placement . The report is deficient.