UPDATE: Seattle Schools Community Forum: Ed Reform Collapsing Under Its Own Weight - Part One, Assessments

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Ed Reform Collapsing Under Its Own Weight - Part One, Assessments:

Keeping Up with Language Usage (Do Keep Up)

from Seattle Schools Community Forum by Melissa Westbrook

First up today, it was the use of the word "illegals", then it seems "whom" may be on its way out and now the NY Times weighs in on language with this op-ed "Those Irritating Verbs-as-Nouns."

Today the Associated Press (via the Huffington Post) sent out a style guide to reporters about using the term "illegals, illegal immigrants and undocumented immigrants."

From the AP Stylebook:

illegal immigration Entering or residing in a country in violation of civil or criminal law. Except in direct quotes essential to the story, use illegal only to refer to an action, not a person: illegal immigration, but not illegal immigrant. Acceptable variations include living in or entering a country illegally or without legal permission. 

Added To Board Meeting Agenda: RIFs

by Melissa Westbrook

Just added to the School Board meeting agenda today is an Introduction item to allow for "Authorization for a Reduction in Force" by Human Resources.   From the item (red mine):

The District is projecting some budget and program changes for the 2013-2014 school year that will not allow it to maintain its current level of programs and services. In order to maintain expenditures within a level of anticipated revenues, it is necessary for the District to make changes to programs and services and possibly complete a reduction in force of certificated staff. Therefore, it is necessary to give timely notice to people in certificated and classified positions that those positions are being eliminated. For certificated staff, these notices need to be delivered on or before May 15, 2013. 

Seattle Schools Named for 2012 Achievement

by Melissa Westbrook

From OPSI:
A total of 381 schools are receiving Washington Achievement Awards for 2012. Award-winning schools were notified today via email by State Superintendent Randy Dorn and State Board of Education Chair Jeff Vincent.

The Washington Achievement Awards, now in their fourth year, are sponsored by the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction and the State Board of Education. Award winners are selected using the state’s Achievement Index and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) Flexibility Waiver.

Washington’s School Achievement Index rates all schools according to specific outcomes and indicators from 2010 to 2012. The five outcomes are student performance in statewide assessments in reading, writing, math 

Twelve Districts May Be Charter Authorizers

by Melissa Westbrook

From KING-5 news:

A dozen Washington school districts have sent letters to the state Board of Education indicating intent to authorize charter schools starting in 2014, beating a Monday deadline.

The twelve districts include Bellevue, Battle Ground, Eastmont, Highline, Kent, Naselle-Grays River Valley, Peninsula, Port Townsend, Sequim, Spokane, Sunnyside and Tacoma.

Kent, Spokane and Tacoma are the second, third and fourth largest districts in the state.  (Note: Spokane and 

Ed Reform Collapsing Under Its Own Weight - Part One, Assessments

by Melissa Westbrook

There has been many, many news stories out this last month that all lead me to believe that ed reform is starting to collapse.  Is it anywhere near full-collapse?  Nope and that's because there is a lot of money to be made so it will not go without a fight.  But the signs are all there.

Let's start with assessments and the posterchild that is Atlanta.  (But close on its heels is Rhee's D.C., Texas and Florida.)

What is this all about?  It's about a superintendent who wanted to make money for herself and for the administrators and teachers in her district, make a "name" for herself and the kids be damned.

Today the first suspects in the Atlanta cheating scandal turned themselves in.  There are 35 educators who 

Public Schools, Private Agendas: Parent Revolution – Hot Ideas for a Cold Economy – The Frying Pan

Public Schools, Private Agendas: Parent Revolution – Hot Ideas for a Cold Economy – The Frying Pan:

Public Schools, Private Agendas: Parent Revolution

by Gary Cohn on April 2, 2013

 At first glance, it is one of the nation’s hottest new education-reform movements, a seemingly populist crusade to empower poor parents and fix failing public schools. But a closer examination reveals that the “parent-trigger” movement is being heavily financed by the conservative Walton Family Foundation, one of the nation’s largest and most strident anti-union organizations, a Frying Pan News investigation has shown.

Since 2009, the foundation has poured more than $6.3 million into Parent Revolution, a Los Angeles advocacy group that is in the forefront of the parent-trigger campaign in California and the nation. Its heavy reliance on Walton money, critics say, raises questions about the independence of Parent Revolution and the intentions of the Walton Family Foundation.

(See interactive infographic, left, for donations from 2009 through March, 2013.  Sources: Parent Revolution; foundation tax returns; foundation grant reports.)

While Parent Revolution identifies the Walton Family Foundation as one of several donors on its Web site, the full extent of contributions from the Walton foundation and other donors hasn’t been publicly known until now. Information supplied to Frying Pan News by Parent Revolution and publicly available tax records show that a total of 18 separate foundations have given more than $14.8 million to the group since its founding in 2009.

Other multimillion dollar contributors include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation ($1.6 million); the Laura and John Arnold Foundation ($1.5 million); the Wasserman Foundation($1.5 million); the Broad Foundation($1.45 million) and the Emerson Collective Education Fund ($1.2 million), founded by Laurence Powell Jobs, the widow of former Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

But the Walton Family Foundation is by far Parent Revolution’s largest benefactor, 

Letter to the Sacramento County Board of Education: Just Say No to the Fortune School Charter Revision | The Sacramento Coalition to Save Public Education

Letter to the Sacramento County Board of Education: Just Say No to the Fortune School Charter Revision | The Sacramento Coalition to Save Public Education:

Letter to the Sacramento County Board of Education: Just Say No to the Fortune School Charter Revision

by Kate_Lenox

published by Kate_Lenox on Tue, 04/02/2013 - 1:07pm

Dear SCOE Board of Trustees:  It has come to our attention that the Fortune School will be coming before the SCOE board to ask for a material revision of its charter. It is proposing a new school in Elk Grove School USD more than three miles from the "children's zone" identified in the original petition for a school location. Not only does this seem to go against its stated mission of locating in areas where the students in most need of their service reside, the location was approved by SCOE with no notification to Elk Grove USD.  As stated by President Geeting in the SCOE minutes,  the Fortune Charter School must come before the SCOE board to ask for a new charter for its third school due to a state decision about charter funding. We believe that the Fortune school should go before the individual districts where the schools are to be located to petition for  their charter.

The recent court decision on the Aspire schools supports this. The decision, while pertaining to a statewide charter, is analogous to this situation.  The Fortune School did not prove that they could not achieve their goals through locally chartered schools. They simply made that claim in their original petition and it was not disputed by SCOE. The countywide benefit they claimed is more for their ease of operation than for the students they plan to serve.  Students could as easily attend a Fortune School chartered by the district it is located in.

The SCOE board should not approve this material revision of the Fortune charter. The Fortune school should not undermine the intent of  charter school law by going directly to the County Office of Education for their charter.  Individual districts have the right to hear these petitions and make the determination.  Please see the link to the court decision below.

http://www.edsource.org/today/wp-content/uploads/Chart-StatewideBenefit-...

Thank you,

Kate Lenox, Secretary

Sacramento Coalition to Save Public Education

Rally and Teach In at Serna Center Thursday, April 4th 2013, 4:30 to 5:30 pm

Atlanta school cheating indictments: Your questions, answered. By Dana Goldstein

Atlanta school cheating indictments: Your questions, answered.:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

What You Need to Know About the Shocking Cheating Indictments in the Atlanta Public Schools

By Dana Goldstein

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Posted Tuesday, April 2, 2013, at 3:07 PM

 

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The Atlanta indictment alleges a top-down conspiracy.

Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images

A March 29 grand jury indictment details the shockingly sick culture of adult cheating that existed within the Atlanta public schools under former superintendent Beverly Hall, who resigned in disgrace two years ago. A one-time “Superintendent of the Year” who earned $580,000 in performance bonuses, Hall allegedly fired skeptics and whistle-blowers and protected the jobs of the very same principals and teachers known to have held “erasure parties” to change students’ standardized test answers from wrong to right. Here are some of the biggest questions this scandal raises for national education reform:

Is Atlanta an isolated case? The extent of the top-down malfeasance under Beverly Hall may be unprecedented, but as I report in this Slate piece, there is reason to believe that policies tying adult incentives to children’s test scores have resulted in a nationwide uptick in cheating. An investigation by the Atlanta Journal Constitution found 196 school districts across the country with suspicious test score gains similar to the ones demonstrated in Atlanta, which statisticians said had only a one in 1 billion likelihood of being legitimate. A 2011 study by USA Today of test scores from just six states found 1,610 instances in which gains were as likely to be authentic as you are likely to buy a winning Powerball ticket. Absent independent, local investigations of suspected wrongdoing—which are rarely conducted—we simply cannot know the full extent of the cheating, which makes it difficult to assess whether the United States ought to continue down the road of tying teacher and administrator pay and job security to kids’ standardized test scores.

Do scores on other tests show Atlanta schools improved under Hall, despite the cheating? When the scandal first made national news in 2011, Hall claimed that because 

On the Atlanta Cheating Scandal

by Dana Goldstein

I've written a new explainer for Slate on the indictments of 35 Atlanta educators for inflating students' test scores: What does it tell us about national education reform? For previous coverage of my thoughts on Atlanta and standardized testing more generally, see this 2011 piece.

The Common Core Reality that Florida Republican Senators Want to Ignore in Parent Trigger Fight | Scathing Purple Musings

The Common Core Reality that Florida Republican Senators Want to Ignore in Parent Trigger Fight | Scathing Purple Musings:

The Common Core Reality that Florida Republican Senators Want to Ignore in Parent Trigger Fight

by Bob Sikes

Susan Smith reminded senate republicans of something they don’t want to be reminded of  during yesterday’s Senate Education Committee hearing on Parent Trigger.  Florida’s implementation of Common Core Standards (CCS) has consequences which will come into play in the bill they say is just about “giving parents a seat at the table.”
Referring to a presentation at a recent Florida Council of 100 summit, Smith, the president of the Democratic Progressive Caucus of Florida, testified to the reality that CCS will increase the number of failing schools in Florida. Sponsor Kelli Stargel’s tsk-tsk  that only 25 public schools would be affected by Parent Trigger is one of the half-truths she and proponents have been using. University of Illinois at Chicago professor Timothy Shannahan predicts that the PARCC tests which go with CCS implementation will have as much as a 75 percent failure rate, a number sure to produce countless more failing schools in Florida.
Stargel is either unaware of clear potential for future school failures or she purposefully is omitting the danger. 

Will Charter Schools Survive The Charter School Movement?

Will Charter Schools Survive The Charter School Movement?:

Will Charter Schools Survive The Charter School Movement?

by Jeff Bryant

America’s education polices are brimming with contradiction. Schools, we’re told, need more standardization, but parents need more choices, which standardization precludes. Teachers need to be held to more accountability, but entry into the teaching force needs to be easier with fewer qualifications.

This kind of contradiction applies to one of the more contentious ideas often equated to school “reform” as well – charter schools.

Just as states across the country are ramping up efforts to increase the number of charters, loosen government regulations of these schools and transfer accountability responsibilities from local boards and education administrative bodies to charter enthusiasts, proponents of charter schools are calling for tougher oversight of these schools that would result in many more of them being closed down.

If all that seems at cross-purposes to you – and potentially, a colossal waste of time and money, not to mention a risky experiment on our children – then you simply do not understand the guiding principles of what has become known as the “charter school movement.”

The existence of charter schools is, of course, nothing new. But the creation and expansion of charter schools is now being referred to as not just an idea for creating better schools 

In Pictures: Rahm & others announce “and justice for…” | Reclaim Reform

In Pictures: Rahm & others announce “and justice for…” | Reclaim Reform:

In Pictures: Rahm & others announce “and justice for…”

by kenpreviti

Bill Moyers dares to speak truth to power and us all – even the most deluded of us all.
“Bill reports on the hypocrisy of ‘justice for all’ in a society where billions are squandered for a war born in fraud while the poor are pushed aside. Turns out true justice — not just the word we recite from the Pledge of Allegiance — is still unaffordable for those who need it most.” As a matter of fact, it’s not only the poor, it is also the middle class, who are being denied justice in a country ruled by money and the few who control most of it.
Read and view it HERE.
Since equal access to education is a basic premise for all that America stands for, denial of this is where Rahm Emanuel and his ilk nationwide are guiltiest of un-American activities.

How do we know Rahm and his democratic and republican cronies are selling America to the highest bidders? Using rigged test scores and making insane rules for public schools sets the stage for what?

His millionaire and billionaire appointees to the Board of Education close schools in which areas to rid themselves of the risk of paying fair taxes to alleviate the poverty which is at the heart of the school/student failure problem?

These school board members, past and present, inflict a “those versus our” morality of what is right for those children is not what we deem right for our children. Penny Pritzker, Ellen Alberding and Rahm send their children to good schools as other children attend schools with no libraries, nurses, art, music, P.E., or even recess in the 

The Wonders of Promoting School Involvement From Spanish Speaking Parents | NewsTacoNewsTaco

The Wonders of Promoting School Involvement From Spanish Speaking Parents | NewsTacoNewsTaco:

The Wonders of Promoting School Involvement From Spanish Speaking Parents

by NewsTaco

By Esther J. Cepeda, NBCLatino
CHICAGO — Something bordering on the miraculous happened at my community high school the other night: The parents who speak only Spanish were included and respected in a meeting in a way that did not turn the whole thing into a big, fat mess.
In the past, the school district’s well-intentioned efforts to include non-English-speaking parents in assemblies had turned them into long, plodding exercises in maintaining focus through short bursts and long pauses.
A presenter would impart a message in chunks and a translator would repeat the information in Spanish. Invariably, the English speaker would go for way too long without breaking to let the translator catch up. Then the Spanish information would stream out, sometimes too quickly to understand.
The crowd would get shifty and exasperated because both audiences were waiting to hear the portion that was for them. The presentations would take twice as long as they would have in a single language, and some parents left agitated.
When piling out of the gymnasium or auditorium, it was not uncommon to hear loud complaints of English-only 

Common Core Presentations and Omissions | InterACT

Common Core Presentations and Omissions | InterACT:

Common Core Presentations and Omissions

by David B. Cohen

Diane Ravitch (Jan. 2012; photo by the author)

Still thinking over the presentations I attended at the recent ASCD Conference, I was struck by some other recent blog posts about the Common Core standards transition. There’s been a recent back-and-forth exchange of posts debating a number of issues relating to the CCSS, involving Marc Tucker, Diane Ravitch, and Stephen Krashen. Tucker just posted in EdWeek his “Last Round…” in that exchange, and from his post, you can follow plenty of other links to additional stages in the debate. I went through a similar exchange with Dr. Krashen and Dr. Paul W. Thomas here at InterACT, beginning when I posted about my willingness to use Common Core implementation as a vehicle for more teacher leadership, despite concerns about the standards and the possible testing regimen ahead of us. (And again, you could use that link as a jumping off point for a whole host of 

Dear 8th Grader: You Have a 3% Chance of Getting Ready for College « The Core Knowledge Blog

Dear 8th Grader: You Have a 3% Chance of Getting Ready for College « The Core Knowledge Blog:

Dear 8th Grader: You Have a 3% Chance of Getting Ready for College

by Lisa Hansel

What are the odds that an eighth grader in a high-poverty school who is far behind academically will catch up? You know the odds are low, but single-digit low? According toresearch from ACT, catching up in high school is rare—if by “catching up” we mean getting poorly prepared eighth graders ready for college by twelfth grade. An eighth grader in a high-poverty school who is far from meeting ACT’s college readiness benchmarks has just a 6% chance of catching up in reading—in science and mathematics, that student has a mere 3% chance. What about catching up before high school? Not likely. A fourth grader in a high-poverty school who is far behind has just a 7% chance of catching up in reading by eighth grade and an 8% chance in mathematics.

For some readers, the obvious conclusion is that the schools need to get better at closing the gap. But the ACT’s report also has findings for all schools, the top 10% of all schools, the top 10% of low-poverty schools, and the top 10% of high-poverty schools. All of the results on catching up are depressing.

Once gaps exist, we certainly have to do everything we can to close them. At the same time, we must start earlier to prevent these enormous gaps from opening up. The path to college begins in preschool.

And, by the way, after preschool, children should go to kindergarten. Why do I state the obvious? While many of us have been chattering about Obama’s universal preschool plan, ECS has just reminded us that some kids do not have access to kindergarten. Across states, access to high-quality kindergarten is so unequal that it “perpetuates, if not