Seattle Schools Community Forum: Transportation Changes May Be Coming

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Transportation Changes May Be Coming:

Transportation Changes May Be Coming

by Melissa Westbrook

In starting this discussion, I will make a point about transportation in SPS that was made at the Work Session on the Budget.

Overall, SPS transports many more students than the average district does.  My understanding of that meaning is that many other districts do not provide transportation to schools outside of your neighborhood and the amount of transportation available to middle/high school students is far less in other districts.

I understand the concern about limiting transportation especially when so much has been provided in the past.  I also understand that it can be seen as a social justice issue when cutting off transportation makes it harder for some families to access programs.  But this is the way it is in most urban cities and students are still able to access schools via public transportation.  (I know in NYC that many students take the subway or bus - for an

Seattle Schools This Week

by Melissa Westbrook

This week starts the community meetings about the Strategic Plan.  I also received this info from a reader:

• Open Enrollment processing will be completed and information on next year's assigned students downloaded on Friday, April 12th.
• Information on assignments and waitlist status will be available to families beginning at Noon on Monday, April 15th.  You will be able to access this information on-line or by calling the automated phone line, 206-252-0212.
• Individualized letters will be mailed the week of April 22nd to anyone who submitted an Open Enrollment application.

Monday, April 1st
Strategic Plan community meeting at Eckstein Middle School from 6:30-8:30 p.m.  (Interpreters available in Spanish, Somali, Vietnamese, Amharic and Tigrigna)

Tuesday, April 2nd
Strategic Plan community meeting at Chief Sealth International High School from 6:30-8:30 p.m.  (Interpreters available in Spanish, Somali, Vietnamese, Chinese, Tagalog, Amharic)

Wednesday, April 3rd
Community meeting with Director McLaren from 9 am-10:30 am at Alki Elementary School.

School Board meeting starting at 4:15 p.m.  Agenda  

Saturday, April 6th 
Strategic Plan community meeting at Garfield High School from 10 am to noon.  (Interpreters available in Spanish, Somali, Vietnamese, Chinese, Tagalog, Amharic and Tigrigna)

College Bound Scholarship Conference
University of Washington
Mary Gates Hall
9:00am-12:00pm
Check in begins at 8:15 a.m.

All College Bound Scholarship students (and parents) in grades 9-12 are encouraged to attend.

At this event students and parents will:

• Learn about the steps you need  take to access your College Bound Scholarship.
• Learn about financial aid, other scholarship opportunities  and the  college admissions process.
• Explore tables at the college and youth services fair.

Light refreshments will be provided. Giveaways and prizes available for students!

Contact:Krista Rillo
College Bound Scholarship Counselor
klrillo@seattleschools.org
(206) 252-0075

Missouri Education Watchdog: Bill Gates Promises More Money for Accelerated Common Core Implementation

Missouri Education Watchdog: Bill Gates Promises More Money for Accelerated Common Core Implementation:

Bill Gates Promises More Money for Accelerated Common Core Implementation

by stlgretchen

 

Teachers, don't worry that your accountability will be based on assessments not yet written to be taught from curriculum not yet available and tests mandated to be taken on computers that are non-existent.  Bill Gates wants you to buy into his vision.  He's "here to help you".  It's sort of like "it's for the kids".  Fromfoundationcenter.org:

 

Gates Foundation Seeks Proposals to Accelerate Common Core Implementation Across Teacher Networks

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is accepting proposals from organizations, primarily those that consider themselves to be networks of teachers, to support implementation of Common Core 

50 ways adults in schools ‘cheat’ on standardized tests:

50 ways adults in schools ‘cheat’ on standardized tests

Posted by Valerie Strauss on March 31, 2013 at 2:51 pm

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Here’s a list of 50-plus ways that schools manipulate standardized test scores to make the results look better than they actually are. They were compiled by the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, or FairTest, a nonprofit dedicated to ending the misuse of standardized test scores, and were taken from actual cases documented in government and reports. You can learn more here about the misuse of tests.

Pre-Testing
Fail to store test materials securely
Encourage teachers to view test forms before they are administered
Teach to the test by ignoring subjects not on exam
Drill students on actual test items
Share test items on Internet before administration
Practice on copies of previously administered “secure” tests
Exclude likely low-scorers from enrolling in school
Hold-back low scorers from tested grade
“Leap-frog” promote some students over tested grade
Transfer likely low-scoring students to charter schools with no required tests
Push likely low scorers out of school or enroll them in GED programs

California Father | @califather Califather all spiffed up and ready to stream Occupy the DoE! #edchat #soschat #uoodc13

California Father | Educating Sullivan:

califather on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

• ON DEMAND
• ABOUT OCCUPY THE DEPT OF ED
• HOW TO CHAT

Chesar Chavez, Jesus Christ, and Commitment to Eradicating Poverty [To The Foolish] | The Jose Vilson

Chesar Chavez, Jesus Christ, and Commitment to Eradicating Poverty [To The Foolish] | The Jose Vilson:

Chesar Chavez, Jesus Christ, and Commitment to Eradicating Poverty [To The Foolish]

by Jose Vilson

I’m Feeling Lucky

Dear critics of Google’s choice for their Google Doodle of the Day:
What part of “serving the poor” is not aligned with today, a celebration of Jesus’ renewal and purpose in life?
In no way am I saying Cesar Chavez is Jesus, but are Chavez’s (and Dolores Huerta, by the way) works not aligned with the auspices of serving the poor and helping the needy? While Jesus worked with the Peters and Josephs in his congregation, Cesar worked with the Jesuses, Joses, and Pedros in the fields of California’s wine gardens in his day, but that’s besides the point.
Because I’m a Catholic of Jesuit upbringing, let me pull out my handy-dandy Bible and give you a few quotes from the New Testament to jog your memory:

Luke 4:16-21. And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and as was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read… “The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He appointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are downtrodden, 

City College of San Francisco (CCSF) fights back against the corporate raiders and enemies of education

City College of San Francisco (CCSF) fights back against the corporate raiders and enemies of education:

City College of San Francisco (CCSF) fights back against the corporate raiders and enemies of education

by Danny Weil

Recently, students, faculty and community supporters rallied to save the City College of San Francisco (CCSF), once known as a “junior college” or “community college” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ohmyNueU94&feature=youtu.be).  However, the names ‘junior college and community college” no longer find resonance in the snaky plans of the privatizers who are threatening the CCSF with corporatization and extinction.

The CCSF has 1,600 faculty that serve over 85,000 students.  For years it was thought to be a progressive stepping stone for students of color, disabled students and working class students to a humane and intellectual education.  This has now all changed.

For while the attention of much of the progressive community in the last ten years or so has focused on standards and the horrific, No Child Left Behind, the Gates-Duncan plans for K-12 school closures, school militarization plans and Race to the Top, Wall Street privatizers and philanthro-pirates like the Bill and Melinda Gates

James Mersotis of The Lumina Foundation

Foundation along with the Lumina 

New York Times Easter Puzzle: Too Many Effective Teachers | InterACT

New York Times Easter Puzzle: Too Many Effective Teachers | InterACT:

New York Times Easter Puzzle: Too Many Effective Teachers

by David B. Cohen

The New York Times has a front-page story on teacher evaluation, and the connundrum faced by reformers who came up with misguided attempts to use test scores and cut scores and all manner of quantification and formulation in their efforts to find the “bad teachers.” But now, it turns out their systems aren’t working as intended.
A couple of quick reactions here. First, as Randi Weingarten suggests in the story itself, perhaps there aren’t as many underperforming teachers as the reformers think. Still, based on anecdotal evidence from colleagues around the country, I think teachers should admit the percentage of teachers who need an exit plan is higher than 1-2%.
There’s also a quote from a principal who says she could identify a certain number of teachers on her staff who were ineffective, and yet the test score formulation had them coming out of the process labeled “effective.” A lesson for reformers there perhaps? The problems with test scores cut both ways. If you want to empower administrators, don’t tie their hands this way. I’m in favor of empowering administrators to do a better job of evaluation. Make sure they have the time, training, and resources to offer so that they can do a better evaluation 

Google Doodle: Cesar Chavez | Photos - ABC News

Google Doodle: Cesar Chavez | Photos - ABC News:

Google Doodle: Cesar Chavez

Cesar Chavez Day is celebrated on March 31 in California, Colorado and Texas.

 

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Google's doodle honors Latino labor leader Cesar Chavez. Chavez was bron on March 31, 1927 and died on April 23, 1993. He co-founded the National Farm Workers Association along with Dolores Huerta. The association would later become the United Farm Workers union. Cesar Chavez Day is celebrated on March 31 in California, Colorado and Texas. (Google)

Asimov’s “Cult of Ignorance” and Education Reform? – @ the chalk face

Asimov’s “Cult of Ignorance” and Education Reform? – @ the chalk face:

Asimov’s “Cult of Ignorance” and Education Reform?

by plthomasedd

What does an essay by science fiction giant Isaac Asimov in 1980 have to do with education reform in 2013?
Writing in Newsweek (1980, January 21) in the cusp of America’s shift into the Reagan era of conservatism that included the roots of the current education reform movement built on accountability, standards, and high-stakes testing, Isaac Asimov declared the U.S. “a cult of ignorance,” explaining:

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

While science fiction (SF)—a genre within which Asimov is legendary—is often misread as prediction (SF is 

School vouchers don't work | Arkansas Blog

School vouchers don't work | Arkansas Blog:

School vouchers don't work

Posted by Max Brantley on Sat, Mar 30, 2013 at 5:15 AM

You just have to follow Diane Ravitch if you live in this land of Stepford legislators who accept pronouncements from the Billionaire Boys Club school reform lobby as holy writ. If a Walton says it — or somebody paid by the Waltons — it must be so. There is another side.

Speaking of the Waltons:

They finance a school up at the University of Arkansas's Walton branch campus in Fayetteville dedicated to churning out support for the BBC's anti-union, pro-voucher, pro-charter, pro-obsessive-testing political movement.

So it's interesting to read Ravitch's conclusion that school vouchers don't work when her opinion is based on research by Patrick Wolf of the Walton think tank at UAF (he gets an endowed chair, thanks to Walton money, in "school choice," if that gives you any idea what he's expected to favor). Ravitch:

Now that 17 states have authorized vouchers to “save kids from failing schools,” it 

Daily Kos: 40 Years After Watergate, It's Almost Impossible to Hold Government Accountable

Daily Kos: 40 Years After Watergate, It's Almost Impossible to Hold Government Accountable:

40 Years After Watergate, It's Almost Impossible to Hold Government Accountable

by rss@dailykos.com (teacherken)

is the title of this piece by Michael Winship.   I am linking to an Alternet version of the piece.
It is written in the context of a recent conference on Watergate with many important participants present.  Winship had himself been a journalist at the time.  to give a quick sense of his attitude, let me quote the following:

Yet make no mistake — for all the general hilarity (and remember, to many, Richard Nixon had been the butt of jokes for decades before; Watergate was just the ultimate punchline), this was a true constitutional crisis. The abuse of presidential power was staggering, from the soliciting of illegal corporate campaign contributions used for hush money and delivered by bagmen, to the illicit actions of the aforementioned plumbers — an operation, by the way, that traced its roots all the way back to the early months of Nixon’s first term. Combined with the ongoing tragedy of Vietnam — including the secret bombing of Cambodia and the violent squelching of antiwar protest — Watergate shook the public’s confidence in government as it hadn’t been since the bleakest days of secession and the Civil War.

The problem is that we seem forgetful.  The efforts made to prevent another such crisis have long been eroded, 

Poison seeds: The bitter harvest of the APS cheating scandal | Get Schooled

Poison seeds: The bitter harvest of the APS cheating scandal | Get Schooled:

Poison seeds: The bitter harvest of the APS cheating scandal

by Maureen Downey

In 2009, the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education featured Atlanta’s Parks Middle School on its annual bus tour of high-achieving schools, and I joined the visit. I arrived early in my own car, beating the bus and getting a chance to chat with students for an hour.
The enthusiastic students expressed pride in their school, which was decorated with banners announcing its awards and distinctions. And there were many.
In 2006, Parks Middle made adequate yearly progress and surpassed Atlanta Superintendent Beverly Hall’s even more ambitious targets. That same year, the percentage of eighth-graders who passed the math section of the CRCT rose from 24 percent to 86 percent. In 2008, Parks earned national accolades after becoming Atlanta’s only middle school to meet all its academic targets.
Over the weekend, I dug into my old files — a box in my closet — for my notebook from Parks. Among the quick 

Louisiana Educator: Parents and Educators Object to LDOE Takeover Policies

Louisiana Educator: Parents and Educators Object to LDOE Takeover Policies:

Parents and Educators Object to LDOE Takeover Policies

by Michael Deshotels

Please click on this link to view an open letter written to New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu, Steve Barr and the Oprah Winfrey Network by the John McDonogh advisory committee. I believe this advisory committee is made up of dedicated community leaders who would like to see a much better future for the students of John McDonogh High School. Their letter expresses legitimate concerns about the unfair negative depiction of the school by the Mayor, and more recently by the OWN network. The advisory committee members also object to charter operator Steve Barr using incorrect statistics to attempt to show false progress since he took control of the school. My opinion is that this entire incident is just one of many examples of the misuse of at risk students by non educators and con men who wish to profit personally at the expense of the students.

Another Good School Closed As a Result of Misguided Reforms
The following is a letter by the highly qualified principal of Delmont Elem in the EBR school system who is appalled to see her school closed by her local school system because of the threat of a takeover by the State Recovery School District. This is the same RSD that allows non educators like Steve Barr to take 

Is Scientology Sneaking Into Classrooms?:

Is Scientology Sneaking Into Classrooms?

Applied Scholastics, a teaching method explicitly linked to L. Ron Hubbard, has put a group of Phoenix charter schools in the hot seat.

Actor Tom Cruise attends the grand opening of Applied Scholastics International's new headquarters on July 26, 2003, in St. Louis, Missouri. Applied Scholastics is an international teacher training centre utilizing the learning methods developed by L. Ron Hubbard. (Photo: Getty Images)

Scientology could be creeping into the curriculum at a group of charter schools in Phoenix, Arizona.

At the encouragement of the superintendent Robert Duffy, many of the kids at the six schools, which serve 1,000 students, are taught using Applied Scholastics, a teaching method researched and developed by Scientology founder, L. Ron Hubbard.

This can pose a serious problem for the schools, and for Duffy.

Although charter schools are privately run, they are publicly funded and under the First Amendment, public schools are required to be neutral concerning religion in all of their activities.

The ACLU Legal Bulletin, The Establishment Clause And Public Schools, explains that "the Supreme Court has long held that the Establishment 

Sunday read. | Fred Klonsky

Sunday read. | Fred Klonsky:

Sunday read.

by Fred Klonsky

Photo: Fred Klonsky. Anna Maria Island, Florida.
No matter what they do, how they measure it or what scheme they put in place, the results keep coming back showing that we’re pretty damn good. And they act surprised when even their stupid data keeps saying that.
But that doesn’t keep them from doing away with tenure.
Data collecting, Big Brother and the crazy Glenn Beck. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
The rich and powerful are just like us except they’re rich and powerful.
Michael Madigan’s $98 million dollar gift to UNO’s charter scam is now under investigation.
I suspect that Emanuel and his allies see these closures as the last chance for a knockout blow. For nearly a decade, the true believers in accountability thought that they had the teaching profession on the ropes. But, even inside their bubble, it is now clear that teachers are fighting back. If market-driven “reformers” don’t put us away quickly, their exquisite vision for data-driven schooling will unravel. So, across the nation, the mass closings of traditional public schools are their last assault on an education system which did not appreciate their theories.
I suspect that these “reformers,” secure in their ignorance of urban realities, still believe that their opponents are to blame. Had educators welcomed enough rookies willing to gut it out and to “put children first,” the short term