Seattle Schools Community Forum

The State of Washington will, in the coming weeks, determine the new K-12 Math Standards. They have a draft set that folks can review. The OSPI has promised to name three curricula which they regard as roughly aligned with the State Standards and they will support. Districts will not be required to adopt one of these three curricula (yet), but the OSPI has promised support for these three, which, if it materializes, would be a strong incentive for Districts to select one of them. The OSPI has promised that there will be at least one traditional math curricula among the three for each school level. Seattle Public Schools has recently adopted math curricula for middle schools (CMP II) and elementary schools (Everyday Math supplemented by Singapore Math). This year, the District will adopt a new high school math curriculum. The District's math curriculum adoption web page is horribly out-of-date, but it offers the best information publicly available on the topic. According to that we...

In a recent post, I wrote about the need for interventions for students who are not working at grade level. From my perspective, the District should have a system to assure early and effective intervention for individual students not meeting standards. There are, of course, other perspectives. Some may think that each school should develop their own interventions and apply them as they see fit. I suspect that there are others who see no need for such interventions and find the whole idea of "working at grade level" or "meeting Standards" as artificial and industrial rather than natural and humanistic. In addition to the question of whether there should be interventions, and the question of what authority should direct them, there is the additional question of what form they should take. The range could run from teachers taking additional time to provide students with remedial instruction on an ad hoc basis within the regular class time, to Individual Learning Plans,...

I went to the presentation on the new Washington State K-12 Math Standards last night at Roosevelt High School. The new standards are supposed to be more rigorous, more narrowly focused on core content priorities, they are supposed to require greater depth in those core content priorities, they are clearer and more detailed, and they are supposed to be pedagogically neutral - not preferring either reform math or traditional math. In the end, however, the change in the Standards won't help the state improve the number of students meeting the Standards. The problem isn't that the old Standards were bad - they were bad, but that wasn't the problem. The problem is that the Standards - all of the Standards - are meaningless because neither the State nor the Districts have a "then what". Education is a human endeavor. That means, among other things, that it is going to have a broad diversity of outcomes. Since there is only one outcome that we deem as positive (student ...

So I'm browsing a local conservative website (always interesting if not funny). There was this discussion about education and they referenced Dino Rossi's website. Below is his education brief. Now as someone who wouldn't vote for Dino Rossi (I had something very funny to say here but alas! I know I'd offend someone out there), I was a little surprised. Naturally, if you read between the lines there is a lot to wonder and worry about. But I wouldn't have thought he would be against the WASL or want to allow qualified people to teach (in areas needed) without having to take a year+ to get certified. (I also didn't know that there could be districts with less than 180 teaching days a year.) However, I did hear Dino shining through in his statement on WASL reform: "As governor, I alone would lead discussions with the legislature on how to best improve it." Dino as decider. "When it comes to education, I have one simple test: What is in the be...

This question is just for the parents of kids in the Seattle School District this blog. If you (as a K-12 public school teacher) had a magic wand, what 3 things would you change about public education in Seattle?

From an ASCD conference presentation by Jay McTighe as reported in the Education Update (January 2008): "...Applying what students know through real-life circumstances --- like purposeful writing, scientific investigation, and issues debates --- is not the same as test-prep drilling. Overreliance on test preparation can stand in the way of meaningful learning and does not actually lead to better performance on the test. In fact, McTighe likened teachers' obsession with test preparation to an athletic team that concentrates only on performing 'sideline drills' --- practicing and testing discrete skills in a decontextualized way --- rather than playing the actual game, which requires putting all the skills and knowledge together in an authentic and contextualized way." "We need to connect assesment practices to learning goals. If what is assessed signals what is important to learn, then how it is assessed signals how it should be learned. We want kids to use k...

So there were two articles of interest in the PI today. One is about the UW's efforts to get the state to buy into their plan for a renovated Husky stadium at a cost of $300M. They want half from the state and say they can raise the other half. Frank Chopp, speaker of the house, thinks it's a good idea. What the angle for SPS? "And the stadium is used for more than just football, lobbyists argue. More than 100 community events were held at the facility last year, and renovation proponents say they'd like to see even more community use. "One of the things we would like to do is have a Friday-night high school football game of the week at Husky Stadium," Evans said." Here's what Chopp said: "It can be used for a lot more than just Husky football. They are talking about a series of high school football games. If you have ever been to Memorial Stadium in Seattle, it's in pretty bad shape." Thanks Frank. Memorial Stadium isn't the ...