Gifted Education, Part One - Seattle Schools Community Forum

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Gifted Education, Part One:

Gifted Education, Part One

(You didn't think I'd be able to say everything in one post, did you?  Part Two will have me talking about what I hear and saw at various events and what direction I think the district will take.)

As I gather up my thoughts from the Work Session on Advanced Learning,the two-day Equity and Gifted Education Summit at UW and more reading/research, I come away with three main thoughts.

1.  Is there such a thing as a child who is gifted academically?  

I ask this question because it felt to me at the Equity and Gifted Education summit that there were clearly some people in the room that didn't believe that.  Not a large group but there were enough to make me notice.

Or, they may believe it but think that under no circumstances should any child go to any kind of self-contained classroom including AP classes.

I ask this question because of the huge pushback that Advanced Learning - and in particular, HCC - gets at this blog. Is that the case for some readers?  

Of course, it then begs the question of gifted versus bright?

From Education.com:

All gifted children are considered bright, but not the other way around – a concept parents of bright children have a hard time understanding, explains Andrea Mishler, who’s been a Gifted and Talented (GT) teacher for nine years. The fact that their child gets straight A’s, but does not qualify for the GT program leaves them frustrated and scratching their heads. Mishler’s district doesn’t look at grades when deciding who is eligible for the GT program. “Sometimes gifted children are such perfectionists, they won’t Seattle Schools Community Forum: Gifted Education, Part One:

 

How exactly did the Department of Defense end up in my child’s classroom? | Seattle Education

How exactly did the Department of Defense end up in my child’s classroom? | Seattle Education:

How exactly did the Department of Defense end up in my child’s classroom?

You cannot fully understand what is happening with Future Ready school redesign, 1:1 device programs, embedded assessments, gamification, classroom management apps, and the push for students in neighborhood schools to supplement instruction with online courses until you grasp the role the federal government and the Department of Defense more specifically have played in bringing us to where we are today.

In 1999, just as cloud-based computing was coming onto the scene, President Bill Clinton signed Executive Order 13111 and created the Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative or ADL.

Section 5 of that order set up “The Advisory Committee on Expanding Training Opportunities” to advise the president on what should be done to make technology-based education a reality for the ENTIRE country. The intent was not only to prioritize technology for “lifelong learning,” but also shift the focus to developing human capital and in doing so bind education to the needs of industry and the economy.

Representatives of Cisco Systems and Jobs for the Future co-chaired the committee. Others around the table included the e-learning industry, student loan financiers, educational testing companies, human resource managers, labor market analysts, universities, community colleges, chambers of commerce, city government, and a futurist. George Bush incorporated Clinton’s work into Executive Order 13218, the 21stCentury Work Force Initiative, the following year giving the effort a bipartisan stamp of approval. The Obama administration continued this push for online learning in the National Broadband Plan, which contained an entire chapter on digital education, as well as through a variety of 21st century school redesign efforts like ConnectEd, Future Ready Schools, and Digital Promise.

ADL began as an electronic classroom for the National Guard and later expanded to serve the entire Defense Department. In 1998 the government decided to use it for ALL How exactly did the Department of Defense end up in my child’s classroom? | Seattle Education:

The Next Big Thing – Have You Heard

The Next Big Thing – Have You Heard:

The Next Big Thing

Barely had Massachusetts voters cast the last *nay* vote on raising the charter cap, aka the Last Big Thing, than the Next Big Thing was sweeping the Bay State. I speak, of course of the zones of empowerment, that suddenly have everyone who is anyone talking. The experiment in school turn around-ing underway in Springfield, headed up by education reformer magnate Chris Gabrieli, is now in its second year and has already put up impressive numbers. No reader, not the measurable results that were the occasion for the takeover. I mean *buzz* as they say in the biz. There’s Boston Globe sage Scot Lehigh singing the Empowerment Zone’s praises. Now here’s Chris Gabrieli singing his own praises. Here’s Governor Baker giving the EZ a shout out and proposing a statewide expansion. Here’s the Globe editorial page echoing the Governor’s call. Now here’s the front page of the Globe reporting on the growing momentum behind the Empowerment Zone crusade. Oh, and here’s Representative Alice Peisch, fresh off her turn as lead flog-stress for the Last Big Thing, filing the *enabling legislation* that will empower the growth of zones across the land.

Empower failure

Close readers of all of this positively positive press will notice an, um, curious omission. Why is there no mention of whether the Empowerment Zone is actually doing the thing that was zoned to do: rapidly accelerate achievement, meaning test scores, at the EZ’s eight schools? You didn’t miss anything; there has been no rapid acceleration. When Governor Baker cited *positive results* in his State of the State address he was venturing into the land of, if not alternative facts, extremely wishful thinking. As Gabrieli conceded in a letter he sent to *interested parties,* *none of our schools reached our two-year goal of 50 median SGP in both English Language Arts The Next Big Thing – Have You Heard:

Take Action NOW: Support Arab Students and Families in SFUSD - SF Public School Mom

Take Action NOW: Support Arab Students and Families in SFUSD - SF Public School MomSF Public School Mom:

Take Action NOW: Support Arab Students and Families in SFUSD

Our district says it cares about Arab students. Nonetheless, when it comes to resourcing schools to support them in meeting the needs of students and families… Lately, I’m hearing *crickets*.

After the election, Arab students came to my daughters’ school in tears, literally. They asked why the president hated them and their families. With a Muslim Ban, they are right to be fearful. They and their families are under attack. Now, more than ever we need to show students and families we have their backs.

And it will take more than safety-pin posters, and flowery letters to do this.

Standing up and with Arab families…

The Arab Resource Organizing Center (AROC) is an Bay Area organization dedicated to serving Arab families. It is currently under attack by an anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, Israel interest group. As a result, SFUSD has declined to renew its contract with them, thus leaving hundreds of families without much-needed support in our schools.

Supporting Arab students and families, also means supporting school staff. Our counselors, teachers and support staff are at wit’s end trying to mediate typical student conflicts and support students’ academic and emotional needs. Imagine how much harder that is when NO ONE ON STAFF speaks Arabic? Small incidents escalate, kids and families learn they are in their own, and misunderstandings by non-Arab students grows.

What Allyship really means…

I’m challenging SFUSD leadership to put its money where its mouth is. District leaders don’t get a cookie for just SAYING they care about Arab families. True allyship means standing up and with marginalized folks when it matters most–when it’s uncomfortable, when it disrupts the status quo, when it challenges power and privilege.

Join me in calling on the district to renew the MOU with AROC. Please take a minute today to contact our SFUSD representatives and ask them to renew AROC’s Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) so they can support Arab youth during this Take Action NOW: Support Arab Students and Families in SFUSD - SF Public School MomSF Public School Mom:

Education Reform Musing | tultican

Education Reform Musing | tultican:

Education Reform Musing

I have done a lot of whining about “corporate education reform” and the “test and punish” theory of education reform and “standards based” top down education. I am in full agreement with the conclusion Kristina Rizga’s reached after her four years’ study of Mission High in San Francisco, “The more time I spent in classrooms, the more I began to realize that most remedies that politicians and education reform experts were promoting as solutions for fixing schools were wrong.”

However, I am tired of being Debbie Downer. So, I will share my thoughts on a positive path of improvement for education in America.

Democracy and Local Control

Never let foreigners decide how and what should be taught in your kid’s school. By foreigners, I mean anyone that has never been in the school and lives more than 50 miles away.

Reed Hastings of Netflix was such a heartfelt liberal that he even joined the Peace Corps. He taught mathematics in Africa. Yet, in 2000, this once liberal crusader used his vast wealth to lift the cap on charter schools in California. Today he may be even more infamous for telling the California Charter Schools Association that elected school boards are anachronisms and should be replaced by non-profits running charter schools.

This is the problem with the uber-wealthy and their political assets controlling education. As statistics expert Gene Glass wrote “success in business has proven to them that their circle of competence knows no bounds.” It is my firm belief that the wisdom of the masses expressed through democratic processes is far superior to the dictates of any one of us including political titans and the billionaires.

In 1891, at the NEA gathering in Toronto Canada, Francis W. Parker of Chicago Education Reform Musing | tultican:

Hip-hop group: DeVos is bad for the inner cities - CNNPolitics.com

Hip-hop group: DeVos is bad for the inner cities - CNNPolitics.com:

Hip-hop group: Betsy DeVos is bad for the inner cities

Washington (CNN)The Black Opera has a message for new Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos: There should be no poor schools.

"We've seen what's going on with DeVos right now and what she stands for as far as education is definitely not going to be a positive for the inner cities," Jamall Bufford, a member of the hip-hop duo, told CNN. "We need money to go into these public schools and not more money taken away."

DeVos, an advocate for school choice, believes that parents -- not the government -- should be able to choose where to send their children to school, but public school advocates fear DeVos will steer funds away from public education.

Related: More artists and athletes get political

"If confirmed, I will be a strong advocate for great public schools," DeVos said during her confirmation hearing last month. "But, if a school is troubled, or unsafe, or not a good fit for a child — perhaps they have a special need that is going unmet — we should support a parent's right to enroll their child in a high quality alternative."

CNN has reached out to the Department of Education for comment and have not yet received a response.

Protesters briefly blocked DeVos as she tried to enter Jefferson Middle School Academy, a public school in southwest Washington, DC, on Friday morning before subsequently entering to meet with students and faculty.

The group's members, Bufford and Magestik Legend, grew up in Michigan — the former in the suburb of Ann Arbor and the latter in downtown Detroit, but their public school experiences were vastly different.Hip-hop group: DeVos is bad for the inner cities - CNNPolitics.com:

The man arrested at Friday’s protest of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s visit - The Washington Post

Protester arrested outside D.C. school is Afghan refugee - The Washington Post:

The man arrested at Friday’s protest of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s visit

The man arrested at Friday’s protest of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’s visit to a middle school has been identified as a 32-year-old who lives in Northwest Washington and faces charges of assault on a police officer and failure to obey a lawful order.

Bilal A. Askaryar has been freed from the D.C. jail and has a hearing scheduled March 17 on the misdemeanor charges. His family is from Afghanistan, and he and his parents fled the country in 1990 as the Taliban’s influence grew.

Askaryar said he was too afraid to talk publicly while facing criminal charges; his attorney did not return a call seeking comment. Askaryar’s father, who lives in San Francisco, confirmed his family background, which his son described in detail in a first-person essay for NPR in January.

His father, Homayon Askaryar, an engineer at a pharmaceutical company, said he was proud of his son but did not want to discuss the specifics of the case. He said his son “wants to protect education for the future kids. . . . Better education gives a better life.”

Askaryar was among several protesters who confronted DeVos, controversial for championing charter schools and taxpayer-funded vouchers for private schools, outside Jefferson Middle School Academy. A small group forced her to retreat into a government vehicle as one protester shouted “Shame.”

[Refugee describes for NPR fleeing Taliban in Afghanistan]

D.C. police said that as DeVos was driven away from the blocked entrance, Askaryar and others blocked the driveway. Police said protesters were warned several times to allow the vehicle through. An arrest affidavit says Askaryar and others “got violent and started pushing and shoving the police officers.”

At one police, police said Askaryar said “no” to an officer’s request that he move. The affidavit says a police body camera captured him pushing a police sergeant and an officer. DeVos got into the school through a different entrance.

n his account for NPR, Askaryar describes his family’s escape, how his father hid money in clothing, and how “We weren’t looking for a better life, we were just looking for a life.” He told of the trip through India, Pakistan, China and then the United States, where he, his parents and Protester arrested outside D.C. school is Afghan refugee - The Washington Post:

Teacher plans to shame mayor, SRC, superintendent with I-95 billboard

Teacher plans to shame mayor, SRC, superintendent with I-95 billboard:

Teacher plans to shame mayor, SRC, superintendent with I-95 billboard

Coming soon to I-95, if a city teacher has anything to say about it: a billboard calling out Mayor Kenney and Philadelphia School District leaders.

Donations are streaming in to crowd-fund a giant reminder that Philadelphia teachers have not had a contract for nearly four years and have gone five without a raise.

George Bezanis, a teacher at Central High School, is taking aim at the people he feels are most responsible for the lack of a contract for the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers -- a “calamity,” he said.

“As each month passes with no agreement in sight, Philadelphia loses more and more great educators to other surrounding districts. It is the over 100,000 children in the district, however, who suffer the most because of this lack of a stable workforce,” Bezanis wrote in his online plea for donations to place the billboard.

Two days after starting a GoFundMe campaign online, Bezanis had raised well over $1,000. He needs $5,000 to pay for a piece of prime billboard real estate -- a sign on I-95 near the Center City exit -- for four weeks, beginning soon.

“Welcome to Philadelphia, where we don’t value our public school children,” the billboard would read. It would include photos of School Reform Commissioner Bill Green, Superintendent William R. Hite Jr., and Kenney.

Hite and the SRC are naturals, Bezanis said. But Bezanis said he holds Kenney just as responsible. The mayor recently said he would not seek any significant new tax increases this year. With Republicans firmly in power in Harrisburg and firmly opposed to significant new money for Philadelphia, that leaves the city to help get the contract settled, Bezanis said.

“The only thing that could possibly help us solve our budgetary crisis was if Kenney was going to get some money,” Bezanis said. “He‘s billed himself as a public education person, and he needs to be called out on it.”

The School District, while in relatively healthy financial shape at the moment, projects Teacher plans to shame mayor, SRC, superintendent with I-95 billboard: