Wednesday, July 31, 2013

UPDATE: Seattle Schools Community Forum: Common Core Roundup

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Common Core Roundup:



Roosevelt Teacher Named Finalist for National Language Teacher of the Year
Taeko Tashibu of Roosevelt High School in Seattle, who is a Japanese language teacher.  Congrats to Ms. Tashibu!  From Ed Week:According to the ACTFL, the Language Teacher of the Year takes on the role of spokesperson for the language-teaching profession, promoting the importance of teaching foreign languages and cultures. The current LTY is Noah Geisel, a Spanish teacher at East High School in De
Seattle Council PTSA News
Want a job with the SCPTA interfacing with SPS staff?  Here you go.  (I would actually be swell at this job but they would never hire me.)They need folks to represent most areas of the city.Do you have an interest in issues that go beyond your local school and affect children throughout the district? If so, we need you! Transportation, capacity, family engagement and district policies are just a f


Quarterly Program Placement report due today
Today is July 31st, the due date for the quarterly program placement report.I was recently reminded of an email I sent to the Board at the end of January in which I asked about the status of the program placement process and the equitable access framework - both of which were overdue then. I was reminded of that email because I just saw it among the documents sent to Linda Shaw of the Seattle Time

Common Core Roundup


The fight is still on in many states over Common Core.  New wrinkles have emerged like all kinds of products "aligned" to Common Core and being pushed to states.

First (and thanks to Dan Dempsy) is a YouTube video from Ben Swann on the issues around Common Core.   This is the best, most distilled down information on CC I have ever heard.  Recommended.

Think CC isn't linked to DOE money?  I'll let Diane Ravitch tell you what happened to Georgia:

A few days ago, Georgia announced that it was dropping out of PARCC, theCommon Core testing consortium funded by the U.S. Department of Education. State officials said the state could not afford the technology or the cost.

The U.S. Department of Education was swift to respond. It wrote Georgia to warn that it is withholding $10 million from the state’s Race to the Top funding. Maybe the timing was a coincidence. Maybe not. 

The state says it needs more time to fix its educator evaluation system before it can be implemented, but the Feds insist that Georgia must start evaluating teachers and principals based on test scores without further delay.

New York State is the first state to have a real bill against the use of Common