Seattle Schools Community Forum

I have about 4 threads in the hopper but it's a beautiful day and I'm going out. If you have something on your mind, here's the time and place to say it.

It occurs to me that Judge Julie Spector has ordered the Board of Seattle Public School to re-do their review of the adopted textbooks and take another vote on whether or not to adopt. Given the current makeup of the Board, I think there is an excellent chance that the vote would go 4-3 AGAINST the adoption. If so, that would immediately cut off any appeal or "other actions" by the District to oppose this decision. So let's encourage our Board members to take prompt action on the judge's order and immediately review the adoption again. And let's contact Director Patu and Director Smith-Blum and seek their votes.

I try to check in with the News and Calendars section at SPS every day. Oh call me crazy but I just think, "Golly, there might be some news there I can use or even better, my readers." Usually, major disappointment. So is there really so little going on at SPS? Nope, it's just a failure of the SPS Communications department. Let's look at the content that is there right now. - old story about Transition Plan from Jan. 20th - Open houses - still good information but no links and no mention of tours - levies - okay, still topical - STEM Open House...on Jan. 23rd. Way down within this topic is information about Open Enrollment. Not much help to those who would skip that topic. - Memorial Stadium meeting on Feb. 2nd - guess what? I actually missed that one. Would have gone to that meeting - National Board Certification - good stuff but still, a little old - some info on district-wide performance management. Not really helpful because (1) the teachers are going to...

The district clearly thinks it is still right: "Seattle Public Schools followed an extensive process in adopting these materials, which were thoroughly vetted by a diverse group including mathematicians and teaching professionals." But the judge thinks your vetting was not good enough. The tone in this press release is pretty unbelievable but I'm thinking the district is so sure they will win on appeal, that they don't care. Now, of course, the district still has to go on teaching math. That doesn't stop because this case was decided. So what does it mean? I'm not a lawyer and I really don't know. Here's my guess. What it seems to do is direct the Board to do it over. If the judge believed in the process but thought it wasn't thorough enough, he probably wouldn't have used words like "capricious and arbitrary". So it's back for review. However, here is an interesting turn of phrase by the district in their press release:...

From KUOW: Last year Seattle Public Schools picked new, ‘inquiry-based’ math textbooks. Yesterday a King County Superior Court judge ordered the Seattle School District to review its choice of the ‘Discovering Math’ series of textbooks. Do you have a kid in school that’s using the new math books? What’s your experience with inquiry-based math education? Call our listener feedback line now at 206 221 3663 or email conversation@kuow.org We’re talking math today at 12:40 pm on KUOW 94.9 Seattle. Note: I put this in as a service to our readers, not for KUOW. Their education coverage since Phyllis Fletcher left has not been good. There is a decided lack of interest in these issues and it's quite puzzling.

As many of you may know, on Fridays, KUOW does a weekly news roundup at 10 a.m. They get an assortment of pundits, usually someone from the Times (Joni Balter), someone from Crosscuts (Knute Berger) and someone from the Stranger. I had anticipated that the panel would mention the levies this week (given the election is Tuesday and that KUOW has done virtually no coverage of the election on any of their shows). Now, with the two court rulings on education coming down today, basic education funding and remand of the high school math adoption, I'm thinking they might spend a lot more time on it. (Who knows, they love to go on and on dissecting Mike McGinn and/or the tunnel, so maybe not). It could be a lively discussion and you can call in, 543-KUOW. (Note: these people are not the greatest on SPS; they tend to get a lot wrong but it might be worth it.)

From the Whaaat?!? file: "The court finds, based upon a review of the entire administrative record, that there is insufficient evidence for any reasonable Board member to approve the selection of the Discovering Series." Conclusions of Law: 1) Court has jurisdiction under RCW 28A.645.010 to evaluate the Board's decision for whether it si arbitrary, capricious, or contrary to law; 2) The Board's selection of the Discovering Series was arbitrary; 3) The Board's selection of the Discovering Series was capricious; 4) this court has the authority to remand the Board's decision for further review; 5) any conclusion of law which is more appropriately characterized as a Finding of Fact is adopted as such, and any Finding of Fact more appropriately characterized as a Conclusion of Law is adopted as such. It is hereby ordered: The decision of the Board to adopt the Discovering Series is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion." WOW!! And Boo...