Latest News and Comment from Education

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

5-21-14 Seattle Schools Community Forum Week

Seattle Schools Community Forum:





Portables Usage in Oregon and Washington State
Earthfix and Investigate West had an excellent series, with data and graphics, on the use of school portables in Oregon and Washington State.InvestigateWest sent a survey to the 20 largest school districts in Oregon and Washington about its portable classroom use, policies and perspective. The survey asked each district how many portable classrooms it has and what percent of its total classrooms a

Math Adoption: Food for Thought
The Tampa Bay Times published this article in March 2014 about math textbooks not aligning to Common Core standards.As with much of Common Core, the issue is - what's the rush?  Meaning, many of these textbooks do not fully (or even by half) align with CCSS because they had to rush into production in order to get them out for consideration.  A lot of this "alignment" is WILL have to happ
Math Adoption Threatens Math Waiver Schools Experiencing Success
A letter from the Schmitz Park PTA was sent this week to the Board, the Superintendent and other district officials:Dear Seattle Public School Board Directors and District Staff,On behalf of the Schmitz Park PTA, we write this letter in opposition to the Math Adoption Committee’s recommendation to implement the enVision Math Program as the new math curriculum for all elementary schools in Septembe


Wilson-Pacific; DPD Comments due Today
The City of Seattle Department of Planning and Development deadline for receiving comments is today, May 21st on the Wilson-Pacific project about zoning requests from SPS.  Consider writing to them about any issue of concern: traffic impacts, loss of open space, and/or height.Here's a link to comment via e-mail, include the project #3015479, the address 1330 N. 90th and your mailing address. The D

What's going on at Highland Park?
Highland Park is an elementary school at the south end of West Seattle. The attendance area, between Roxhill's and Concord's, is bordered by Highway 509 on the east, by White Center on the south, and by Delridge on the west. The school report says that the school population is 78% FRL, 27% ELL, and 14% SpEd. Only 33% of the third graders passed the state reading proficiency test last year. You kno
5-20-14 Seattle Schools Community Forum Week
Seattle Schools Community Forum: Spectrum is DeadA reader sent in this letter - from View Ridge's principal, Terri Skjei - and frankly, it's all I need to believe that Spectrum is dead. But the letter also makes me wonder about this slow death. What is the point? A few thoughts on the contents:1) quite calm and thoughtful, almost the epitome of "we want your input" except that there real