Seattle Schools Community Forum

The Washington Education Association has filed a challenge to the ballot title and summary for 1240, the charter school initiative. A hearing is set for tomorrow morning in Thurston County Superior Court. I don't know that the judge will actually rule on it tomorrow (Friday is the day the judge hears all motions so I don't know if there will be time.) The judge must rule within five days (and undoubtedly will be asked to hurry it as they need as much time as possible to get signatures). I will gently point out that if time was the issue, the supporters should have made the decision to get this filed much, much sooner. They have no one to blame for themselves for this short window of time. From the News Tribune comes their coverage. This is a funny story for me as yesterday, I traveled to Olympia to file a challenge as well. I was not successful. It is a Kafkaesque tale to be sure and a reminder that while we have laws, we may not always be able to access them as regu...

One, the recommendation from the Advanced Learning Task Force Committee about APP elementary north will be posted sometime today by Bob Vaughan (head of AL).   It seems there have been personal issues and traveling and time commitments that led to the delay of this information. Update:  It appears I did not get full information about this appointment; I am waiting for confirmation from the district. Two, it appears that the district has a new Budget Manager, Joe Paperman.  Interestingly, Mr. Paperman was a volunteer on the Audit & Finance Committee (and well-liked by Sherry Carr).  How this turn of events came to be, I don't know but I was told by parents who attended the A&F meeting yesterday that this was announced.

Several of you have pointed out this hilarious/ridiculous story about the Gates Foundation and its funding of a study at Clemson on what is being called the "Galvanic Bracelet Grant." Turns out there are two grants; one for Clemson for almost $500k and one to the National Center on Time and Learning for about $620k.   This is supposed to be measure student interest and teacher effectiveness.  Turns out the person who usually writes grant descriptions for the website got it wrong on the Clemson one.  From The Answer Sheet at The Washington Post: The original description of the Clemson grant said: Purpose: to work with members of the Measuring Effective Teachers (MET) team to measure engagement physiologically with Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) bracelets which will determine the feasibility and utility of using such devices regularly in schools with students and teachers. The new description of the grant’s purpose will say: Purpose: to conduct a pilot st...

From our friends over at the Seattle Education blog , comes news from a column in the Huffington Post by Leonie Hamison, " Will Our Federal Government Renounce Their Proposal to Increase Class Size ". The Obama administration has proposed that in next year’s education budget, 25 percent of the funds to reduce class size or keep teachers on staff be diverted to a competitive grant program to create and expand “new pathways” to teaching — e.g. to help fund organizations like Teach For America. That would mean a cut of more than $600 million that, if approved, would lead to even larger classes in schools throughout the country next year. Senate Appropriations Committee will have its say on this issue next week when it considers the FY13 Labor, Health and Education funding bill. Recently, a group of corporate education reform groups, let by 50-CAN and joined by other organizations including Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst and Teach for America, sent a letter to Sen...

 What's on your mind?  To quickly note: from Diane Ravitch's blog , beware of any education petition at Change.org.  Michelle Rhee's group, Students First has numerous "education" petitions there (which you may or may not support).  However, what happens if you sign one is that makes you a member of Students First.   This is how they expand their numbers without you ever knowing.   K-5 STEM Meet & Greet When: Wednesday, June 13th from 6-8 PM Where: Madison Middle School (3429 45th Ave SW) Who: Enrolled families, interested families (kids too!), community members, and partners What: Meet the faculty and staff and get an update on K-5 STEM Fall 2012      

One of the ten policies that the Curriculum and Instruction Policy Committee is scheduled to review and revise at their June 25 meeting is the Advanced Learning Policy, now called Highly Capable Student Programs policy, D12.00. I don't really believe that the C & I Committee will actually put ten policy revisions on their agenda, so it is likely that this policy will not, in fact, be discussed that day. Here is the current policy: D12.00  The policy was suspended on January 29, 2009. Also on that day the Board voted to direct the superintendent to review the policy and recommend revisions. Despite this direction - made by a vote of the Board - the superintendent never took any action. That alone, by the way, was sufficient grounds for dismissal with cause. The Board never reminded the superintendent that they directed her to take this action; it was one more case of the Board's timidity. Nevertheless, the Board is finally getting around to revising this policy, just t...

The School Board had its retreat on Saturday, June 2nd.  I attended most of it.  I have to say it was a bit annoying for them to choose a downtown hotel to meet in as 1)who paid for that? and 2)it means that you have to pay for parking.  Not so encouraging for the public. They had a couple of facilitators who were low-key and kept things on track.  There were several members of the public, one Alliance person and Brian Rosenthal from the Times.  All the Board members were in attendance along with Superintendent to-be Banda.  DeBell was seated next to Banda which is where DeBell usually sits (next to the superintendent).  I'm thinking President DeBell will have a very different relationship from the one he enjoyed with Enfield.  They were quite close. The facilitator had the Board fill out index cards with their "hopes and fears" for the retreat.  (I hate this kind of facilitation but apparently it helps draw people out.)  What seemed...