Seattle Schools Community Forum

The coverage by the press, especially the Seattle Times, has been very frustrating over the last two weeks. Below is an excerpt from a letter sent by Pathfinder parent, Jennifer Giomi, to the Seattle Times, expressing very clearly some of the problems with the coverage. ********* ...in your column today you portray Raj as a great man whose been given the shaft. A recent editorial also spoke of our "effective" Superintendent as have many other articles. I too think Raj Manhas is probably a lovely, caring man with many skills and abilities. Though I'm not personally familiar with all aspects of his leadership during his career with the public schools, I'm sure he's made some achievements. However, that does not mean he/the District is infallible. Why has the Times not devoted any space to independent analysis of his recommendations? Could it not be that some are better than others? Could it not be that the Board supported Phase I of schools closures because while di...

Marguerite Roza, from the Center on Reinventing Public Education at UW, and a member of the CACIEE, wrote an interesting piece recently for Education Week called Must Enrollment Declines Spell Financial Chaos for Districts? She writes, "The crux of the problem is that while some revenue streams are dependent on student counts, expenditures are not...The idea proposed here is that a much larger share of district resources be allocated on the basis of enrollments, not only to schools, but also to departments, services, operations, administration, or other district functions." The following excerpt seems quite relevant for Seattle schools: "Budgeting per pupil might seem harsh when enrollment is declining, since schools can end up with fewer dollars than they had the previous year. But this approach, when coupled with a choice system, also puts decisions about how to handle declining revenues and whether or not to close or merge schools in the hands of the parents and the ...

Maybe the biggest problem with the Seattle School Board is not who is on the Board, but instead how the role of the School Board is defined , including, of course, the relationship between the superintendent and the School Board. A popular reaction to School Board dysfunction around the country is to turn to the Policy Governance model as defined by John Carver . In this model, the School Board defines the vision, providing clear policy direction, and then holds the Superintendent and district staff accountable for making it happen. The Mercer Island School Board received training in and adopted this model in 2004. Many other urban school districts around the country, including Austin, Texas, have adopted this model in recent years as well. "A radical redesign of the function of school boards, Carver explains, would include (1) a focus on educational results rather than on the methods by which they were achieved, (2) newly defined relationships with the general public and parents...

The PI has a thoughtful piece today, School closures bring out worst in us , by columnist Robert Jamieson, which directly addresses the racial issues involved in both school closures and the recent turmoil at School Board meetings. If the new superintendent continues down the path of ignoring racial and cultural issues, including the history of school district interaction with different groups in Seattle, efforts at substantial system change will continue to meet strong opposition. The problems of the district cannot be reduced to numbers --- test scores, and dollars and cents --- and solutions cannot be that narrowly focused either. I am appalled that activist Sakara Remmu has faced threats because of a combination of her work opposing the school closures and the racial tensions in our city that won't go away, even if we ignore them. Going forward, our work to improve Seattle schools has to acknowledge and address this distressing reality.

During the last few days, I've been involved in several conversations about whose "fault" it is that the district is having such large problems. The argument has tended to divide people into two camps: the people who believe it is Raj's fault, and the people who believe it is the School Board's fault. I certainly lean heavily towards the side of blaming Raj, but obviously, there is plenty of shared responsibility and blame to go around. Discussing the "Whose fault is it anyway?" question doesn't necessarily help us move forward with improving Seattle Public Schools. Yet, it is important to understand what has gone wrong in order to work on "fixing" it and preventing similar problems in the future. On that note, I share this message from Charlie Mas: ********************************* I read Lynne Varner's editorial in the Times today and she and I have exchanged email about it. The end result is this question: How much leadership should...

Two interesting Seattle Schools' events today: - At 12:56 pm, the Which Way Seattle? Series: Inequality in Public Education on the Seattle Channel, cable channel 21 or live on the web by clicking the Seattle Channel Live link. - Tonight from 7 pm to 8:30 pm, the Third Annual Forum: Arts Education in Seattle Public Schools at the Nathan Hale High School Performing Arts Center . A free event sponsored by the Seattle Arts Commission, the Mayor's Office of the Arts & Cultural Affairs and Seattle Public Schools. Chief Academic Officer Carla J. Santorno will discuss next steps to putting the arts back in education, and Superintendent Raj Manhas will present a 2005-06 progress report. For more information call (206) 684-7171 or send a message to arts.culture@seattle.gov .

I think the district made some mistakes when they put together the list of projects for BEX III. I agree with comments by Charlie Mas, Mel Westbrook and others about some of the problems with the proposal. But, I believe we should still support passage of BEX III. Why? I met with Fred Stephens (Director of Facilities), Don Gilmore (BEX III Manager), and Kathy Johnson (Facilities Planning Manager) last week and had my questions answered satisfactorily. I was favorably impressed with the staff, their knowledge, and their willingness to share information and background on the project. My sense is that defeating BEX III would just delay the much needed repairs to and rennovations of many buildings around the district.