Seattle Schools Community Forum

I know someone who is now within the Sand Point boundaries. A group of these parents has organized and has a survey for parents who also live in those boundaries. They also have a Sand Point blog as well as a Yahoo group . Here is a link to the parent survey . It is live until midnight Thursday, December 3rd . Please urge parents you know in that area to participate. T here is also another survey for parents in the newly drawn boundaries for Eckstein. Here's info from the blog: "Sand Point Elementary will reopen in the Fall of 2010. We are a group of parents who live in the Sand Point Elementary attendance area. We have been exchanging ideas on the Sand Point Parents Yahoo Group, and we are organizing to ensure that our concerns are communicated. To that purpose we created the "Sand Point Elementary Community Input Survey", which emerged with the help of the McDonald Community Group, and from several in-person gatherings held over the last few weeks. P...

If you go to a Curricular Alignment community meeting - and I encourage you to go - the question you should be asking is this one: "We've tried this before without success. How will it be different this time?" There are four necessary supports for curricular alignment which are NOT in place. The people who are responsible for curricular alignment do not have control over these elements, so they can't make them happen. We have tried for years without success to establish these four necessary supports, but have never been able to realize them. So the central questions to curricular alignment will be "What will be different this time that allows us to do what we have never been able to do before?" Keep asking: How can we be sure that the students are learning the curriculum? If students who are working below grade level do not get any intervention, then they will not be ready and able to succeed with the grade level curriculum. There will be no vertical alignme...

[Here's a link to the Gates Foundation page with the links to each district.] Just an update on the Gates Foundation's new grants for studying how teachers are evaluated and how they get tenure. Here's an article from the NY Times. From the article: "The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on Thursday announced its biggest education donation in a decade, $290 million, in support of three school districts and five charter groups working to transform how teachers are evaluated and how they get tenure. A separate $45 million research initiative will study 3,700 classroom teachers in six cities, including New York, seeking to answer the question that has puzzled investigators for decades: What, exactly, makes a good teacher effective? The twin projects represent a rethinking of the foundation’s education strategy, previously focused largely on smaller grants intended to remake troubled American high schools. With these new, larger grants, the foundation is seek...

In this morning's Sunday Times (which has a big audience), he wrote about Dr. Goodloe-Johnson's bonus that was an introduction item to the Board last Wednesday. They vote on it in two weeks and what can they do? They negotiated the contract. I think they did this because they truly thought they were hiring someone who really was going to get things done. More on this in a minute. Danny referenced this blog and some of the posts about this issue. Happy to hear Danny checks in here sometimes. Here's what he said: "It's hardly a Goldman Sachs-style bonanza. It's no AIG outrage. But a plan to give the chief of Seattle Public Schools a pay-for-performance bonus — albeit only $5,280 — had parental jaws hitting homework tables around the city last week. " He gives some background: "I'm willing to take the heat on this," DeBell said. "Anytime you set goals and then attach money to them, it's going to shine a much brighter spotlight ...

There is a Yahoo group for Spectrum/APP which is largely inactive but I do, from time to time, get an e-mail from it. Here's what I received today: "Did you know that the Seattle School District says that " We anticipate that we will phase out the Spectrum program over time so that its closure will not affect current students." http://www.seattles chools.org/ area/newassign/ faq_advancelearn .html#al64 http://www.seattles chools.org/ area/newassign/ faq_advancelearn .html#al64 > (last question-and-answer) (The writer also said she had e-mailed the AL office but no answer. I'll try on Monday.) Okay, so here's the original Q&A: If a school loses its Spectrum program under this plan, what will happen to the students currently enrolled at that school and in that program? This situation will be addressed in the transition plan. We anticipate that we will phase out the Spectrum program over time so that its closure will not affect current students. It'...

I just wanted to bring everyone up to date on the Cleveland STEM program. I could have added this to the existing thread, but it's getting down there and harder for people to monitor. To recap - our family is interested in Cleveland STEM as a possible high school choice for our daughter, who is now in the 8th grade. I looked for information on the program without much success. Then, on Monday, November 9, I sent a message to the email address for the program, stem@seattleschools.org . I also got the number for the STEM hotline, 252-0046, and left a message there. No response. On Thursday, November 12, I sent an email to the principal of Cleveland asking for information. No response. On Sunday, November 15, I sent a follow up message to the STEM email address. No response. I wrote again on Tuesday, the 17th. I got a response to my message of the 15th from Dick Lee in the "Office of Partnerships" saying that either Princess Shareef or Susan Derse would "respond shorty...

State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Randy Dorn, is recommending that the legislature delay, yet again, the "pass the math test" requirement for high school graduation. See this news story in the Seattle Times. The Times, in this editorial , complains that this delay "lowers the bar". Instead of delay, they write that " The Legislature must exchange Dorn's plan for one that does something for students. A better effort would include more experienced math teachers and up-to-date textbooks. After-school tutoring, summer school and other ways are needed to give students more lesson time. Science must be injected into core curricula with all the teacher training and other resources required to place science on par with reading, writing and arithmetic. " Ah, the idealism of the Seattle Times. It's refreshing, if naive. They are, of course, correct. But so what? The legislature is not going to pony up any money to pay for these proposals. So after...