Latest News and Comment from Education

Friday, December 20, 2013

12-20-13 Seattle Schools Community Forum

Seattle Schools Community Forum:





Yoo Hoo, Seattle Times and OSPI - See You in the New Year
I called and left a message for two different people at OSPI today to get a comment about OSPI signing an agreement with the Seattle Times for student and teacher data (it was November 13, 2013 to be exact).  No one called back.I called and talked to Jim Simon, who is the managing editor at the Times.  He's very busy, says that KUOW got it wrong on the personally identifiable student or staff-rela
Seattle Schools and Transportation
Apparently, I did not hear/understand Bob Westgard of SPS Logistics correctly yesterday in my reporting on coming changes in transportation. First, the total number of students that may be impacted is 1,000 with under 300 being students at Option schools. Second, the standardization of times are for ARRIVAL, not bell times. Here's the handouts:Transportation Service Standards 2014-2015Here's the s

Common Core Roundup
Hey, former Governor Mike Huckabee - remember him - says to FOX News recently "Common Core is dead."  Well, not so fast, Mike.The Girl Scouts  and the American Girl dolls series don't think so.  Why?  Because:The American Girl dolls, long a fun way for little girls to immerse themselves in play associated with American history and culture, have now met Common Core. A new American Girl do

Friday Open Thread
Seattle Schools running 2 hours late (but being parents, you already know that).I have seen no statement from the Seattle Times or OSPI on their student data sharing agreement to share Seattle students' data.  Nothing like a newspaper not reporting the news.   Want to let Randy Dorn at OSPI know?Randy I. Dorn superintendent@k12.wa.us (360) 725-6004  I promise to write a wrap-up of the Operations C
12-19-13 Seattle Schools Community Forum
Seattle Schools Community Forum: What Mayor Bloomberg Had To SayI had posted a link to a 5-part series at the New York Times that followed a young girl and her homeless family living in NYC.  It is devastating reading.Mayor Bloomberg weighed in.  Now, he has the biggest city in the country to run and I absolutely don't expect everything to work well particularly for the poor if only because that's