Seattle Schools Community Forum

In my effort to keep up with who's who in ed reform in Washington State, here's a list of some groups you may run into.

I read an article in Crosscut this morning that was one of the more thought-provoking pieces I've seen about the state of Education Reform in Washington State. " Washington's new education initiative is no A+ " by Alison Krupnick explored the wading pool depth of A+ Washington , the Education Reform initiative from Excellent Schools Now . I find myself in a place very much like Ms Krupnick. I feel a great disconnect. In fact, I feel at least three great disconnects.

It isn't that hard to create the illusion of consensus where none exists. All you have to do it use multiple voices. The Gates Foundation has essentially pulled the same trick. Rather than speaking with a single voice, the voice of the Gates Foundation, it speaks as a chorus. Their message is carried by their proxies: the League of Education Voters, the Alliance for Education, the Our Schools Coalition, Stand for Children, Democrats for Education Reform, Washington STEM, A+ Washington, Excellent Schools Now, Partnership for Learning, Teachers United, Crosscut, the Washington State PTA, and more. They are all mouthpieces for the Gates Foundation, yet when they each speak it creates the illusion of a broad consensus, but it actually just one voice, multiplied. There are many finger puppets, but only one hand. So even if all of them speak it still counts as only one person, only one vote.

I've been receiving e-mails of parents receiving robocalls from Stand for Children and A+Washington. First, I thought it was discounted that these things work.  Even when Mayor McGinn calls, I generally don't listen (sorry Mr. Mayor, really busy).  Apparently Stand and A+Washington think they work. Here's two calls (that one person received - note, this person does not even live in Rep. Pettigrew's district so even more annoying): Hi, this is Ann from Stand For Children. I'm calling to publicly thank your legislator, Representative Eric Pettigrew, for his leadership on education in this year's legislative session. Thanks to Representative Pettigrew, kids in Washington state will have better access to great teachers, and principals will have the flexibility to evaluate teachers on performance and skills, not just seniority. Next time you see Representative Pettigrew, please thank him for his leadership for children this year. Hi, this is Mary Grace from A...

I attended this afternoon's committee meeting for the Board's Curriculum & Instruction Policy Committee. The attendees were chair, Director Martin-Morris, Director Carr and Director Chow (who was late because Gary Locke is to be Commerce Secretary for the Obama administration and, as Cheryl put it, they needed a Chinese-American to talk to at KOMO) as well as High School Director, Michael Tolley, and CAO, Carla Santorno. The topics to be discussed were changes to the grading policy, promotion/non-promotion and bell times for middle/high schools. As usual, there was a lot of paperwork passed out. There was: a memo from Carla about the Steering Committee for High School Reform; Proposal to Changes to School Board Policies D46.01 andC15.02 (grading) the survey about these changes a draft of changes to the Board policies (which came from staff) 3 years worth of AP and IB information for the high schools that have it (very interesting but I haven't read it all (FYI, I err...