UPDATE: Banda's First Year Reflections Seattle Schools Community Forum: SEA Rep Council Res on Center School Teacher

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Seattle Education Association Rep Council Resolution on Center School Teacher:

Banda's First Year Reflections

by Melissa Westbrook

Dear Seattle Public Schools community:

As the 2012-2013 school year draws to a close, I want to thank you all for welcoming me in my first year as your Superintendent. It has been a pleasure to get to know the schools and community and learn about the ideas and concerns each of you have. My conversations with educators, students, families, staff and community members have provided insight for changes and priorities, both for this year and for the future. 

Throughout the year we’ve celebrated successes and addressed challenges. The 2,900 students graduating from high school this year are a visible reminder that our primary purpose continues to be ensuring that students graduate prepared for college, career and life.

We are building for the future

Our enrollment continues to increase, with more Seattle families choosing to send their children to Seattl

New Procedure for Advisory Committees

by Charlie Mas

The superintendent has issued new procedures for advisory committees. This new procedure distinguishes between "Advisory and Oversight Committees", "Task Forces and Focus Groups", and "Working Groups, Teams, and Planning Committees". The new procedure offers significantly less transparency than the previous procedure.

Just Wondering

by Melissa Westbrook

Sitting at the Executive Committee Meeting and wondering:

- if the district is a partner in the new Seattle Teacher Residency program and the first year costs are $50k and escalate up to $1M by year 5 (it's part of Strategic Plan for teacher development), why do we need TFA at all?  Why complicate things if our district and its partners are creating home-grown talent from outside of schools of education?

- wondering why, if Jane Addams has a planning principal and planning team, Wilson-Pacific doesn't have a team.  Apparently Chris Cronas, principal at Wedgwood, is the planning principal for W-P middle school but I haven't heard anything about outreach to parents. That middle school will open at John Marshall for 2014-20115.  Should parents with students assigned there get to give input just like JA parents?  (Note: just because Mr. 

Seattle Education Association Rep Council Resolution on Center School Teacher

by Melissa Westbrook

From SEA:

The Seattle EA Rep Council passed the following resolution on Monday, June 10:

Whereas, a teacher at the Center School has been served with an administrative transfer for teaching an anti-racist curriculum that the District deemed to be inappropriate, on the basis of the complaint of one parent, and for not 'forbidding' students in his class from organizing in his defense; and

Whereas, SPS has unfairly made this a matter of personnel discipline rather than a question of age appropriateness of curriculum with the effect of stifling discussion of this very serious matter, and

Whereas, any other teacher may now be called to account for teaching anything controversial, based on a similar complaint of a single parent, having already sent a chilling effect on teaching around other controversial 

The push back against Malloy, Pryor, Vallas and Moales grows - Wait, What?

The push back against Malloy, Pryor, Vallas and Moales grows - Wait, What?:

The push back against Malloy, Pryor, Vallas and Moales grows

by jonpelto

When it comes to the ongoing attempt to keep education reformer extraordinaire Paul Vallas in place as Bridgeport’s superintendent of schools, Governor Malloy and his commissioner of education, Stefan Pryor, seem oblivious to their legal responsibilities.  What makes the situation even more incredible is that Malloy and Pryor are actually flouting the very law they wrote to allow Vallas to slide into the position without the certification he would have otherwise needed.

Meanwhile, not only is Board of Education Chairman and Mayor Finch ally, Kenneth Moales, Jr. a willing accomplice in Malloy and Pryor’s scheme, but Moales is engaged in his own anti-democratic efforts by bullying and berating fellow members of the board, as well as pushing for a change in the rules to limit the minority from even being heard.

Yesterday, The Connecticut Post weighed in with a “must read” editorial about the lawsuit challenging the effort to skirt the law to keep Vallas in a job he isn’t qualified to hold

One Teacher's Perspective: Voucher Schools: Inherently Unequal

One Teacher's Perspective: Voucher Schools: Inherently Unequal:

Voucher Schools: Inherently Unequal

by Imagine Wisconsin

This week's take on the latest school voucher plans in Wisconsin comes from State Senator Tim Cullen.

Last week, I expressed my extreme disappointment when the budget-writing Joint Finance Committee voted along party lines to create a statewide unaccountable school voucher program.

Make no mistake – this plan creates two separate school systems in Wisconsin, both paid for by taxpayers.

In 1954, late Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Earl Warren said, “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” His words hold true today.

While the agreement creates a 500-student cap during the program’s first year and a 1,000-student cap in subsequent years, the cap could be lifted in the future or may be line-item vetoed by the governor. The ultimate goal of voucher supporters is not to open the voucher program to 500 or 1,000 students, but an unrestricted expansion of vouchers.

Beyond PISA: How the U.S. Ranks Internationally on Five Key Education Issues | NEA Today

Beyond PISA: How the U.S. Ranks Internationally on Five Key Education Issues | NEA Today:

Beyond PISA: How the U.S. Ranks Internationally on Five Key Education Issues

by twalker

By Kathy Tuck and Tim Walker
When the 2010 Program of International Student Assessment (PISA) results were released two years go, the news media and many politicians held them up as evidence that U.S. students were falling badly behind their counterparts in nations such as Finland, South Korea, Canada and Singapore. The somewhat alarmist coverage obviously didn’t consider relevant data that could provide valuable context for these scores. For example, little consideration is ever given to the cultural and demographic factors that define school systems in top-performing nations and in the United States. Not doing so paints, at best, an incomplete and distorted picture of how U.S. students actually stack up internationally, and it obscures the real issues that need addressing in our schools.
Recently, researchers at the National Education Association reviewed data from a multitude of sources to assess how the United States compares with high-performing nations in a number of key educational areas: face-to-face instruction time, equity in teacher pay, public perception of teachers, and impact of immigration. What they found was a more complete but more complex portrait, one that goes beyond the international “test factor” to compare specific aspects of education that are shaped by the norms and values of societies and, to a large extent, form the core of education systems. Through such comparisons, a clearer picture emerges of how particular countries that score well on international assessments differ from the United States and other nations.
Below is just a summary of some of the experts’ findings. You can find the complete report with sources here.

6-12-13 @ THE CHALK FACE knows SCHOOLS MATTER

@ THE CHALK FACE knows SCHOOLS MATTER:

Improved School Safety Requires a Balanced Approach

by John Thompson

It speaks well of the UCLA Civil Rights Project that in addition to their own research they commissioned scholars from the Consortium of Chicago School Research and equally great institutions to analyze what schools can do to better support students. The Consortium has a long history of placing quantitative and qualitative evidence in a longitudinal […]

Solidarity and My Name: Some Thoughts

by plthomasedd

I have written about this before at this blog: John Proctor, in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, nearly bends to signing a false confession, but then has a moment of clarity and proclaims: “Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am […]

Duncan Embraces of “Personalized Learning” and Company Curricula

by Jim Horn

As corporate education has made the 10-hour work day the gold standard for the segregated K-8 test camps that behaviorally neuter poor children, a different kind of high school is being promoted that will loose the “career ready” as soon as they can pass the tests required to set them upon a career at WalMart. […]

If any doubt remains…

by plthomasedd

The compromise argument that Common Core is revolutionary, but a high-stakes testing moratorium is needed appears to be gaining traction. But this is simply a concession to the very real fact that Common Core is destined to benefit only the standards and testing market being created by this Brave New World of Common Core. If […]

6-11-13 @ THE CHALK FACE knows SCHOOLS MATTER

mike simpson at Big Education Ape - 10 hours ago

@ THE CHALK FACE knows SCHOOLS MATTER: [image: gears] Ban Suspensions as Alternatives Are Implemented by John Thompson I very much respect Daniel Losen and the UCLA Civil Rights Project, so I was taken aback by his statement on NPR regarding the question of whether a single suspension could send a secondary student of color down the pipeline to prison. Losen replied that even one such incident is “associated” with a doubling of […] Do We Need Another Edu-Proclamation, or Do We Need Resistance Strategies to End High Stakes Tests? by Jim Horn Every few weeks it seem that another gr... more »

Ed Notes Online: Candi Peterson on Washington DC Union Election

Ed Notes Online: Candi Peterson on Washington DC Union Election:

Candi Peterson on Washington DC Union Election

by ed notes online

Liz and Candi

I'm not in a position to sort out what is happening in the Washington DC teachers union. I could recount some history but just don't have the heart or strength to rehash it. I do know that Candi's blog played a major role in fighting the wicked witch of the Rhee. Candi and Nathan Saunders were both in LA with us in 2009 and in Chicago in 2011. And then things fell apart. It's just plain sad.

See Candi's blog when she announced she was running.

WTU 2013 Election- The Best Kept Secret in Town?

WTU's Secret 2013 Election

By Candi Peterson

Vote Davis Slate for WTU

 Liz Davis /Candi Peterson

WTU Can Be Better!

The recent Washington Teachers' Union 2013 presidential election was the 

DFER names Bill Thompson, Christine Quinn and Anthony Weiner as the three most palatable candidates to focus their support around

by ed notes online

Bill de Blasio has “offered the least support for issues of concern to education reform advocates,” perhaps a reference to the public advocate’s public spate with influential charter school leader Eva Moskowitz.... Gotham Schools

Hmmm.. The UFT and DFER both showing love to Bill Thompson. 

Fathers on Family Leave Blog Carnival « MomsRising Blog

Fathers on Family Leave Blog Carnival « MomsRising Blog:

Fathers on Family Leave Blog Carnival

by Mark Anthony Neal

Father’s Day is a great time to reflect on the joys, struggles, challenges and epiphanies that come with fatherhood. I’m honored to introduce this MomsRising.org Blog Carnival that focuses on the early days of fatherhood – Fathers on Family Leave, with revealing stories from dads about their introduction to fatherhood.
Like me, there are other fathers for whom the arrival of their children was revelation to the important demands of child care. However, I had the privilege of paid family leave – a privilege that seems to bestowed by chance in this country. Based on data the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 11 % of private firm workers and 16% of state and local government employees have access to any paid family leave at all. Only 40 % of workers have access to unpaid, job-protected leave, but many can’t afford to take time away from work without pay, and far far too many parents struggle with absolutely no job-protected leave, paid or unpaid. To be in this in an even more apparent context, the U.S. remains the only industrialized country without a paid family leave policy.
As you read our stories, you will understand why researchers state that paid family leave can improve breastfeeding rates, increase earnings for women and reduce costs for for recruitment and retraining.  Keep the conversation going by leaving comments and sharing the posts.

Brandale Randolph, Project: Poverty
Fathers have become unicorns

Peter Walz
Investing in families pays off

Scott Kurashige, University of Michigan
Real Nurturing Leave

Adam Sotak, Democracy North Carolina
An Organizing Dad

Mark Anthony Neal, Duke University
Marvin, Tammi, Misha and Daddy

Jared Make, A Better Balance
Supporting LGBT Workers and Their Families in Times of Need

Stan Kimer, Total Engagement Consulting
The Evolving Role of Men Regarding Work and Family Leave

Kevin Rogers, Action North Carolina
Unanticipated rewards

Charlie Dotson
FatheResponsibility

David Leonard, Washington State University, Pullman
Priorities? America’s Family Values

AUTHOR, Center for American Progress
Odd Man Out. Why isn’t anyone else taking paternity leave?

Grant Dotson
Family leave and self-employment

Brady Bogenreif
It takes tim

LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 6-12-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all:

On School Reform, Indiana Newspaper says”The Worm Is Turning”

by dianerav

The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette points to signs that the corporate reform movement is losing steam. Indiana is an epicenter of school privatization and teacher-bashing, yet even there the movement seems to be lagging. The epic defeat of state superintendent Tony Bennett was one clear indication of public opposition to his reforms. The failure of efforts to strip power away from his successor, Glenda Ritz, is another.
More signs of the movement’s weakening:
*The rebellion against the Common Core;
*The widespread criticism of state testing;
*The activism of grassroots groups like the Northeast Indiana Friends of Public Education, and its leader, Phyllis 

The Color of School Closures

by dianerav

Whose schools are closing? Is there a pattern?
Take a look at this graphic.
Tweet it. Share it.
And think about it. What is going on?

Local School Boards Are Under Siege, and So Is Democracy

by dianerav

David Lentini is a lawyer and school board member in Maine. I am always happy to read his informed comments. In this one, he responds to an earlier post that explained that the radical group ALEC is trying to bypass and extinguish local school boards in their pursuit of privatization.
Lentini writes:
I’ve been sounding this alarm for a long time now; it’s good to see other, more expert, commentators reaching the same conclusion.
Still, as a school board member I also fear there are many ways boards will disappear ALEC or no. Too many boards are under siege trying to balance state and federal budget cuts, increasing child and family poverty, 

Is It Fair to Move the Goal Posts?

by dianerav

In some states that are besotted with accountability, the policy leaders are convinced that students will do better if the tests get harder every year.
Florida and Texas immediately come to mind.
Would basketball players get better if the basket were raised 6″ every year? Would football players score more 

Robert D. Shepherd: Beware the Social Engineer and His Abstractions

by dianerav

Robert D. Shepherd has had a long career as an author, curriculum developer, and textbook editor. But more than that: he is a remarkably independent thinker. Here are some of his latest reflections on the Common Core:
“Ideas matter. In part, the faculties of education schools and state and local education administrators have brought the current education deform movement upon themselves by imagining that it’s a simple matter to derive and then apply, in the human sciences and humanities, generalizations of the kinds that are the goal of 

 Diane in the Evening 6-11-13 Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all:

Missouri Education Watchdog: Lamar Alexander Educational Plans Then (1989) and Now (2013). Same or Different?

Missouri Education Watchdog: Lamar Alexander Educational Plans Then (1989) and Now (2013). Same or Different?:

Lamar Alexander Educational Plans Then (1989) and Now (2013). Same or Different?

by stlgretchen

Lamar Alexander's thoughts on revamping No Child Left Behind, 2013 from The Foundry and  No Child Left Behind: Alexander Unveils Rewrite:

Senator Lamar Alexander (R–TN), ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, has just introduced a proposal to “fix” No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

While restoring excellence in education will require more than a fix to the bureaucratic law—states should be allowed to opt-out of NCLB entirely—Alexander’s Every Child Ready for College or Career Act would improve upon existing statute in several ways.

Notably, it would allow states to make their Title I dollars portable, giving children the option to use funds at any public school of choice. Title I portability is a good goal, but it should also include the option for children to use their share of funding at a private school of choice as well.

Other improvements to Title I include the elimination of “Adequate Yearly Progress,” the well-intentioned but inappropriate federal goal of universal student proficiency in math and English by the 2014–2015 school year. The proposal maintains the requirement for states to set challenging content and achievement standards (defining levels of content mastery at 

UPDATE: Malloy at “conference” in Chicago hanging out with major education reform advocates… - Wait, What?

Malloy at “conference” in Chicago hanging out with major education reform advocates… - Wait, What?:

When it comes to our state’s economy, our elected officials are our own worst enemies…

by jonpelto

With a state-economy ranked 50^th in the nation, one would think that Governor Malloy and our elected officials who drop their economic development strategy that relies on corporate welfare to lure hedge fund companies and other corporate giants to move or stay in Connecticut.

But in the legislative session that just ended, Malloy and the majority decided to stay the course and, in the process, throw Connecticut’s hospitals under the bus.  Despite the rhetoric from the Malloy Administration that the massive cut to hospitals would have no impact, policymakers knew the consequences and turned a blind eye to the fact that the new state budget would lead to the loss of hundreds of Connecticut jobs.

The CT Mirror summarized the situations when they listed Connecticut’s hospitals as one of the biggest “losers” during the recent session.  The CT Mirror wrote:

Malloy at “conference” in Chicago hanging out with major education reform advocates…

by jonpelto

The Hartford Courant headline reads, “Malloy In Chicago Talking Education,” while the CT Mirror headline informs readers that, “Malloy in Chicago to lead NGA education forum.”

The CT Mirror explains, “Gov. Dannel P. Malloy will be in Chicago on Monday and Tuesday to help lead an education forum for the National Governors Association.”

The Courant’s take on the trip is that, “Malloy will join U.S. Sec. of Education Arne Duncan, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad and North Carolina Gov. James Hunt at the event, which lasts two days. Among the topics to be discussed “building coalitions to accelerate momentum and results” and “developing and supporting effective teachers and leaders” and “reallocating resources to improve achievement and attainment.”

However, undoubtedly those descriptions were provided to Connecticut media outlets by Malloy’s press operation because it turns out they left off a few important facts…such as the truth.

What wasn’t included in the material provided to the Connecticut media was that the 

Daily Kos: June 12, 1776 - a date all Americans should know

Daily Kos: June 12, 1776 - a date all Americans should know:

June 12, 1776 - a date all Americans should know

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

because on that date, the Virginia Convention, which among other things had directed its delegats to Philadelphia to declare the colonies free of Britain and which had drafted a constitution for what would be the newly independent state, adopted the Virginia Declaration of Rights, largely drafted by George Mason, who later as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention would refuse to sign the document because it lacked a bill of rights protecting the people.
One can read the entire text of the document in several places, including HERE.
There are 16 "sections" listing the rights to be protected.  Below the fold I will examine doue, one of which explains to me why the the Supreme Court was wrong in the Heller decision, the other three of which are specifically relevant to the immediate times in which we find ourselves.
It is worth noting that many of the rights can clearly be traced back to other documents, perhaps as far back as the Magna Carta in the case of the right of trial by a jury of one's peers found in Section 8, and in many cases either in the Petition of Right of 1628 and/or the English Bill of Rights.  In other words, these were assumed - not only before Jefferson but well before the disputes with England stemming from what we call the French and Indian War - to be the rights of all Englishmen.
Let me first note the beginning of the document:

A declaration of rights made by the representatives of the good people of Virginia, assembled in full and free convention; which rights do pertain to them and their posterity, as the basis and foundation of government.

 Jefferson did not write in a vacuum  that the purpose of government was to preserve rights.  Nor was this original to Mason, who could easily find the notion in the work of John Locke.  This idea of the purpose of government is also relevant in the times in which we find ourselves, and I will return to it in time.

Michael Kirst, father of new school funding formula, looks back and at the work ahead | EdSource Today

Michael Kirst, father of new school funding formula, looks back and at the work ahead | EdSource Today:

Michael Kirst, father of new school funding formula, looks back and at the work ahead - by John Fensterwald

by John Fensterwald

It was the morning after the evening of the last revision, and the father of the Local Control Funding Formula looked upon all that the governor and Legislature had made, and declared, “Hey, not bad.”

Michael Kirst

Michael Kirst is relishing the all-but-certain passage later this week of the comprehensive school funding reform that he co-designed. That was five years ago, and, after many twists and iterations, the final version, negotiated over the weekend by Gov. Jerry Brown, Assembly Speaker John Pérez, D-Los Angeles, and Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, ended up quite like the one published in April 2008. The framework – with base funding, a supplemental grant for every low-income student and English learner, and extra dollars again to districts with the highest concentrations of those targeted students – was in the paper that Kirst co-wrote with former California Secretary of Education Alan Bersin and then Berkeley Law Center professor and now state Supreme Court Justice Goodwin Liu.

“It is extremely rare in policy analysis that 80 percent of what you recommend is put into law,” Kirst, a professor emeritus at Stanford, said Tuesday. “Usually you hope policy makers will consider half or less.”

But in this case, paternity won’t end with conception. Kirst, who’s also president of the State 

Adult ed, regional occupational centers, partnership academies get reprieve - by Susan Frey

by Susan Frey

Once-threatened programs that prepare high school students for careers and adults for jobs or college appear likely to get at least a two-year reprieve under the compromise budget plan negotiated between legislative leaders and Gov. Jerry Brown. Under the compromise, districts that currently have adult education programs or are involved in regional occupational centers, which provide hands-on...