Seattle Schools Community Forum:
Seattle Schools Community Forum
Talking about Teaching Math
First, a link to a great interview in the NY Times with Liping Ma, a former teacher and principal in China, who writes about the differences in how China and the US teach math. Important reading if you care about math instruction (thanks to reader Dan Dempsey).The writing below is from a member of the SPS math committee who does not want to be named but wanted to give input on what is happening w
Friday Open Thread
Interesting news about the necessity of dental X-rays for kids from the Los Angeles Times. The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting that Chicago Public Schools is making computer science a core subject. In the next three years, every high school will offer a foundational computer science course, and within five years, CPS plans to be the first urban district offering kindergarten through eighth-grade
Fighting the Good Fight
It's nice to see that more and more people - especially educators - are rising up to fight back against ed reform that does not work.John Kuhn, is the superintendent of Perrin-Whitt School district in Texas, and gave a rousing speech - back in 2011 - that's a bit of a foretelling of what educators are finally understanding. From the speech:The poorest Americans need equity, but our nation offers t
DEC 24
U.S. Government Reports on Santa Claus
For all American kids:NORAD, the Northern American Aerospace Defense Command, has this Santa tracker. Santa IS on his way (apparently over Mount Everest at this time - thank goodness he dresses for the weather).From Wiki: NORAD Tracks Santa is an annual Christmas-themed entertainment program, which has existed since 1955,[1] produced under the auspices of the North American Aerospace Defense Comm
DEC 23
Washington State Charter School Applications to be Posted Monday
From The News Tribune:The state Charter School Commission received 19 applications from 18 organizations hoping to launch the type of alternative public schools that already exists in most other states.Also Monday, teams of experts hired by the state commission will start poring over the extensive applications, which include details such as curriculum and instructional models, background informati
Seattle Schools Looking for New Tech Director
SPS is looking to hire a new Director of Project Management (basically a tech director) with a fairly wide-ranging salary (from $94k to $142k annually).
I'm From the West; How about You?
Fun quiz that you and your family might enjoy (especially if you and your partner are from different places in the country) - from the NY Times, a dialect finder. What I found interesting is that I hesitated in a couple of places because words/phrases I used in my childhood, I don't always use now because I live somewhere else. But soda is always soda to me.
DEC 22
Potpourri of Parenting Stories
No "This Week in Seattle Schools" today. Instead a round-up of stories - happy and sad - about parenting.Let's go with happy first (and you can skip sad if you want to).What to do over the holidays (unlike the Times, I'll try to give you the free/low-cost stuff):visit the Gingerbread Villlage at the Sheraton, 1400 Sixth Avenue. Donations accepted for Juvenile Diabetes. Free.Seattle Cent
DEC 20
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. Dornsuperintendent@k12.wa.us(360) 725-6004 I promise to write a wrap-up of the Operations Com