Where Do We Go From Here

Privatization is about making a profit, whether it’s utilities, war or education.

In states where access to public water has been privatized, the average cost of water to the public is 30% higher. The cost of handling waste water is on average 60% higher in those states.
No bid contracts or lack of contracts with private enterprise during the Iraq war and little or no oversight by the government caused cost overruns to soar.

We have so little money for education in this country that I wonder sometimes what private companies are thinking when they establish charter schools. Do they honestly believe that there is a profit margin in public education to be garnered?

Schools are underfunded as are all other institutions and agencies that are under the umbrella of the Federal government with the exception of the military/industrial/corporate complex. Funding for Federally mandated programs such as our public schools have dwindled over the last sixty years due to the fact that in the 1950’s, 80% of all taxes were paid by large corporations. Now, in 2009, that number has dwindled to 12-15%. The balance is paid by the middle class and we can only pay so much. With every tax cut and credit provided to large corporations, we lose, our children lose, valuable dollars that are desperately needed.

Meanwhile, there is a glut of money at the top and it has nowhere to go. All of those billions of dollars have instead gone to Wall Street and this phenomenon is partially to blame for the crisis that we have had to live through over the last 1 ½ years.

Institutions that are part of the public domain such as schools do not enjoy the capitol that was available 40-50 years ago. When I was attending public school in Los Angeles, we had new books every year, pleasant buildings that were clean, well lit and safe, nutritious hot meals at lunch, playgrounds with all of the equipment that one would need, physical education classes to keep us fit, art, music and well maintained grounds. This is similar to what a private school offers today. A student during that time received a good education and could go from a public school into any university. You didn't need to attend a private school to gain access into the best schools in the United States. You were on equal footing with your counterparts.

That is not the case now and it has to do with money. As Federal money has dwindled, municipalities and states have had to rely on property taxes, bonds and levies to fund education. Unfortunately, for many taxpayers who do not have children, public education is not a priority and school bonds and levies often do not pass. I saw this happen in California several times. Because of the state of public schools, many parents who can afford it, place their children in private schools which depletes the school districts of funds that would otherwise be allocated to those students and therefore the gap increases.

We have strangled our school system. There is overcrowding in the classrooms. A student from Franklin High School noted to the school board last night that one of her classes had 40 students in it and she said that the school needed more money. She went on to say that said nothing could get done in a class that large. There is also less time spent in class. Because of the decreased budgets, class time has decreased. There are now partial school days and more days off. This has put the onus on parents, if they are able to, to supplement the time through homework sessions and/or tutors. What is left in our school system are valiant and valued teachers and school staff who keep their schools together with small budgets, a vision and a lot of hope.

Then we have Arne Duncan, inculcated with the Broad philosophy, waving a carrot in front of a very hungry populace saying, you can have the money but first you have to do a few tricks. What he wants for a relatively small amount of money is to have all states allow charter schools.

But charter schools are not the answer. Charter schools do not provide equality of access to all as is the mandate of public schools. Will charter schools meet the needs of the poor and the marginalized as is mandated by the Federal government for all public schools? No, not when a charter school can expel a student if they do not perform well on a test. These are public funds that are to be used to provide for all, not just a select few.

Teachers in charter schools have no protections that are provided by a union in a public school.
Pay is on average less and the hours are longer.

I was having a discussion the other day with some parents about charter schools and we all agreed that our children could benefit from that situation. We have the knowledge and wherewithal to either establish or select a school that would fit the needs of our children. We would have knowledge of the programs available, we would understand how to gain access to those schools, and our students would perform up to the standards set by the school. But that is not the case for all families. There are many families who do not have access to information to make these sorts of choices, maybe they do not speak English or have access to the Internet. Maybe, due to circumstances that they have little control over, there is not enough time or resources to ensure that their children will do well on a standardized test that determines whether they remain in a charter school. It is an inherently biased system towards those who have and therefore these schools should not be publicly funded.

Sometimes, when I read about these charter schools, I think that these global corporations that fund the Broad and the like are just wanting to train the cogs in the wheel, children who can have basic information drilled into them with no opportunity for developing perspective or creative thinking skills. You then have an even more divided social stratum, the unquestioning workers/soldiers and the ruling class.

The answer to the question as to where do we go from here is two tiered. First, there is the overall picture. The idea of a trickle down economy is a myth. It is apparent to all that the idea that people who have wealth will provide opportunities for others to also prosper is absurd and I would dare to say, manufactured by those with the greatest wealth. The only businesses that I have seen prosper from the wealth of others are businesses that cater to the wealthy such as yacht makers, luxury auto dealers and of course, the brokers.

The accumulated wealth of a few that has nowhere to go at the top needs to be reinvested in our country and in our future. Our future is our children. Good business practice is that you reinvest part of your profits. Corporations have made billions of dollars from the opportunities afforded to them by simply being in the United States. That money now needs to be reinvested in our children through the reinstatement of a tax structure that is equitable and no longer allows tax breaks and subsidies to oil companies and other large corporate businesses, a financial structure that demands oil companies who drill off of our coastlines pay for that privilege and end the tax breaks for the wealthy as instituted by our previous president, George Bush.

Because there has not been a significant investment in education over the last 50 years, businesses have had to look elsewhere for talent, to other countries where people have been more adequately educated. The shock for many was that they had to import talent. Microsoft is an example of that. Because of their awareness of the problem, the Gates Foundation has tried unsuccessfully to come up with an answer to the problem. Unfortunately there is no quick solution and actually they don't need to reinvent the wheel. The answer is before their eyes and in their own backyard, the alternative school system that has existed in Seattle for 40 years. The public educational system can work but it requires money to function and to function well as it did 50 years ago.

This gets me to the second and more quickly attainable tier.

Seattle has a rich and varied history of alternative school programs starting with Alternative School #1 (AS1) which was established in Seattle about forty years ago. When my daughter and I moved to Seattle, I discovered the alternative school program and was greatly impressed by what the school district had to offer. There are programs for students K-12 at various locations throughout Seattle. High schools such as Nova, have a track record of high test scores and placement in some of our best colleges in the country. There are waiting lists into each of these programs and the level of quality of the staff is outstanding.

These well established programs need to be maintained and supported. These schools provide an opportunity for all students to succeed, not just a select few. That is what Seattle has and other schools can be developed based on the proven track record of the original alternative school program structure. Governor Gregoire has stated this to Arne Duncan when pressed about charter schools. The state of Washington should receive the additional funding that Mr. Duncan is providing under the Race to the Top program because we have those programs in place. AS#1 established a charter with the public school system in the 1960's.

The answer can really be in your own back yard. What we already have is tried and true. The basic tenets of these programs can be used in developing new schools that can provide an even greater diversity for our students.

Dora Taylor

Seattle Public Schools: Budget Deficit

Notes from the Field

I sat in on the Audit and Finance Committee meeting today.

I was looking forward to hearing our CFO’s ideas on how the budget deficit could be rectified as he had suggested would happen in the school board meeting the night before. I was expecting some creative ideas that could be implemented, fat that could be cut, just about anything to get us back on our feet and boy was I amazed. Not impressed, just amazed.

Let me start at the beginning.

The people in attendance in the meeting were Maier, Sundquist, Carr, DeBell, Kennedy, our CFO, and a host of other folks from the district side who for the most part didn’t say a word but were there because….they needed to be there I suppose. Our tax dollars at work. There were eight of them at one point. The one person who was not in attendance was our superintendent and “CEO” as many liken her to be.

First the monthly reports were presented for September and October. I guess we’ll see November’s report sometime in the spring. There were a lot of numbers.

Something got picked up by DeBell about the 111 coaches that were part of the central administration costs. He asked how many were paid for by grants and maybe we could do something there to “help the debt”.

OK. A decent call. The district would get back to him on that by the end of the meeting. I didn’t stay until the end so I don’t know if that happened or not.

Another really hard question from DeBell, was the hiring freeze still in effect? Don Kennedy said that they would get into that later motioning to another person who later made a “presentation” to the board members. To make a long story short, that question never got answered. A simple yes or no would have been sufficient. Did Mr. Kennedy really not know? Hmmm.

Then DeBell asked about a $3M reconciliation that he had requested and had not received. Well, Mr. Kennedy would have to get back to him on that too.

I’m starting to wonder what this guy does all day. He certainly doesn’t prepare for his meetings, his big moments in front of the board. Or maybe they aren’t such big moments for him. Maybe he thinks that the board members will forget and move on just like with those rif numbers that DeBell asked for in two different meetings that were to substantiate the superintendent’s decision to fire teachers and staff. Another, hmmm.

Well, finally to the big anticipated moment that we had all been waiting for since the board meeting the night before, Mr. Kennedy’s ideas on how to rectify the deficit.

What we were handed was a copy of the PowerPoint that we had seen the night before. Everything was in really big letters, using an entire page for just a few words and not double sided. Boy, they sure do know how to save a buck downtown.

There was no new information, no breakdowns, just those numbers again in a really big font.

It was interesting that no one asked the obvious question. Why, when we are in a deficit, did the superintendent think that it was worth increasing the deficit by $9,284,000 (A number that you could see on the other side of the room on that piece of paper) in such a financially difficult time? Couldn’t the SAP have waited a bit? But that elephant in the room was never questioned about its’ presence.

The number for “Academic Assurances” was questioned by DeBell. How much would be on-going? Kennedy said that he would provide a breakdown…at another time.

I was thinking that one of the board members would have requested a breakdown for the SAP cost of $3,596,000 but no one did. Was I on another planet or was I the only one wondering where $3.5M goes to pay for the SAP for one year? I’m sorry, but in my profession, if a contractor comes to me with an invoice for $3M, I want a detailed explanation. Pronto.
So on page six in the largest font possible were five lines;

“Projected GAP” (shown just like that) $35,026,000

“New Student Assignment Plan” $9,284,000

“Budget Enhancements” (don’t you like that phrase?) 4,826,080

“TOTAL SHORTFALL” $49,136,080

By the way, on the bottom of every page were the words “Every student achieving, everyone accountable”. Hmmm

And now to the “Proposed Solutions” in huge letters on the next page.

“Delayering/Central Reductions” $6M (I kid you not)

And what is “delayering”? Well, first of all, it’s a pretty cool word don’t you think?

It is something that the Department of Finance learned about in a seminar, that hopefully was in town and not really in Texas, and it describes how many layers there are between the superintendent and the students. Well, fortunately in Texas there are only seven layers, which apparently is a good thing, and it also is in Seattle. Of course they will need to work further into that analysis but hey, doesn’t look like we need to cut any costs down here (meaning downtown).

The layers would be superintendent, CAO, directors, principals, assistant principals, teachers, students. I was wondering about all of the other people that surround each of these levels, like assistants for the superintendent and the staff for the CAO, but I guess that doesn’t matter. It’s a layering thing.

There was nothing about four day work weeks, a week off without pay each year or just plain layoffs, something that the rest of us have had to live through, just “delayering”. Fortunately DeBell and Carr did mention “furloughs”, which was a very nice way of putting it. Someone said that they would look into that. Who’s wants to put money on that actually happening?

Another term used by the presenter was “span of control”, yet another pretty cool term you can use at your next family gathering. It means that some managers might have two people who report to them and another manager might have 17 people who report to them. The number of mangers could be consolidated. OK. This is not rocket science. Just start culling through staff like the rest of us have had to and start the layoff’s.

Then came “WSS Cuts (Core staffing, Class Size, Weighting)” $6M

This meant free and reduced lunches, wouldn’t that be better than losing some of that bureaucracy(?) and discretionary funds. This would be up to each principal to figure out where they could, and would have to, cut their budgets. Don’t worry, we are all going to get to feel this pain. That is, everyone but out superintendent.

“Freeze on Purchases and Contracts” $3M

“Shifts to Grant Funding” $1M

“Translation Efficiencies” $1M

(That means having interpreters at all SPS meeting with the public. The proposal was to have them as requested.)

For some reason at this point someone from the district brought up the fact that they would look at summer school. No additional explanation was given.

“Reduced Extra-time/Overtime” $2M

“Non-essential Hiring Freeze” $2M

“Increased Revenue” $1M

Pay for play came up here, meal costs, rental of buildings and rental of instruments.

“Other Cost Savings” $4M

Mr. Kennedy would provide more detail about this (blah, blah, blah).

“Total Solutions=” $26M

Yeah right.

DeBell did bring up that in other countries there is a greater percentage of teachers as compared to school bureaucracy. He also suggested eliminating elementary school counselors and eliminating some security and replacing them with police officers.

Anybody ready to propose a state income tax?

But the best part was saved for last.

I was curious as to what the “Southeast Education Initiative” meant so I decided to stay for that presentation.

The handouts were distributed with great fanfare ( The Emperor’s New Clothes came to mind) and someone commented that it must have been written using invisible ink because there was nothing in the columns. No, Don Kennedy said, the columns would be “populated” tomorrow. So basically, that presentation was not quite ready yet. Oh well, maybe we’ll get that information when Don Kennedy finally gives us the analysis on the rif’s. The worst part, could it get any worse (?), is that DeBell said that the matrix didn’t include information that he had requested.

This entire presentation was sad.

In the real world, Mr. Kennedy would have been on the short list for folks to be laid off in the first round. But, he is the superintendent’s CFO who she brought with her from Charleston and her right hand man. He is apparently very influential and someone to be feared. What a sad state of affairs.

The board is working with one hand tied behind their backs with this guy. I just hope that they can free themselves of this and demand a real and professional accounting of our finances.

Dr. Goodloe-Johnson, Superintendent and CEO

Last night at the school board meeting, our CFO, Don Kennedy, made an announcement about our budget deficit for this year.

Instead of providing a blow by blow description I thought instead that it would be more interesting to read an exchange that I had with two people about the subject. It went as follows:

Me:

"OK. I have a question for everyone.

I was at the board meeting tonight. I did not give my testimony as intended but ceded my time to Chris Stewart who talked about how several of the schools receiving an award for most improved and recognized at the meeting tonight were alternative schools. It seemed more appropriate. I plan to testify about MAP in January.

Anyway, whenever I listen to our CFO talk, I learn something new and interesting. Tonight Don Kennedy talked about the budget gap this year. Last year the gap was $35M and this year it is $49M. Much of the difference is the SAP plan that for this year, for one year only, will cost us $9,284,000. There will be additional expense next year but I didn't note the projected cost. Kennedy included STEM in this amount. STEM cost $1,668,000 for the first year only as well. There will be additional cost next year for STEM. The central office budget made up the remainder. There was $4,391,000 for General Counsel and yet only $2,250,000 for math in the central office. I'm assuming that the lawsuits brought the counsel number up.

Kennedy said that they would come up with some ideas on how to decrease this gap in the finance meeting tomorrow which I plan to attend.

How could our superintendent cause so much pain to save $3M in closing schools and then turn around and spend $9M on the SAP when SPS already had a deficit that it couldn't close? And where was the board on this?

With such a deficit and such a big deal made about being over budget and having to rif teachers and close schools this year, how could our superintendent turn around and present a new SAP that just got us deeper into debt? Couldn't the new plan have waited until we were back on our feet financially?

This is not a rhetorical question.

Any thoughts?"


First respondent:

"Thoughts...Thoughts

MGJ and Kennedy were mum at the June 2009 School Board meeting when the board was looking for economy measures to reduce teacher RIFFING....Mum on the fact they were going to spend $10+ million on 111.5 academic coaches while the teacher RIF proceeded.

Money and these folks and plans ...I haven't a clue. {Ask Meg Diaz}"


Second Respondent:

"Dora - how does the nearly $50M cost incurred by injudicious closing of schools relate to the numbers you gave? Does the upward revised budget deficit reflect this? If not, where does this mistake show up in the numbers?

Am I naive to be astonished that this Sup is not being excoriated for the nearly $50 million school closure debacle? Is it fair to compare this mistake to the reasons that Olfshevske was induced to resign? After all, didn't the District have the demographic data BEFORE closures, that showed that too many schools were being closed?

When we compare the estimated savings for various decisions, the magnitude of suffering and hardships that decisions would cause, and the size of the annual District budget (now exceeding half a billion dollars), many of the biggest initiatives by this Sup (especially school closure, SAP) seem to me, on the balance like very bad ideas.Any thoughts on this?"


Me:

"Joan,

Good question about the money spent on closing and opening schools. That wasn't mentioned.

We have a budget gap of $49M as opposed to last year when the gap was $35M. That's a difference of $14M. $9M of that money was from the SAP and the STEM project at Cleveland.

Our superintendent might think of herself as a CEO but in my book, a CEO who spends money faster than we can make it should be fired, not given a bonus. That is unless you're head of AIG.

Interesting aside that the president of AIG is on the Broad board. Eli Broad has a financial connection with AIG. I believe that he sold some of the interest in his Broad/Kaufman company to AIG.

Anyway, I am digressing. The main point of this is, just like with the financial failure of this country, it's going to be the rest of us who take the brunt of our CEO/Superintendent's decisions by trying to figure out how each school will manage with even less money. Each school is now going to have to determine how they can cut back and still keep going. And if you don't believe me, ask your principals."

MAP Testing in Seattle

This is testimoney that I will be giving in front of the school board this evening regarding student assesment testing that wah recently instituted in Seattle.

You should have in front of you two documents, “An Open Letter to Arne Duncan” by Herb Kohl and “The Rise of Venture Philanthropy and the Ongoing Neoliberal Assault on Public Education: The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation” by Kenneth Saltman. Both documents can be found on the website Seattle Education 2010 and tie into what is happening within our school system in terms of MAP testing.

My attention was drawn to the MAP testing when I understood that kindergarten students would be tested on computers twice, maybe three times a year, to evaluate their academic progress, an idea that I find ludicrous at best. The MAP test which stands for Measures of Academic Progress is to be used to determine a student’s progress grades K through 9 and it is my concern that this narrow measure of academic achievement will be used in short order to evaluate a teacher’s performance which would be tied into the concept of merit pay. I have read Directors Sundquist and De Bell’s remarks in the press about how the superintendent’s raise is an example of what they would like to see follow in terms of merit pay for all teachers and by that I am greatly alarmed.

Not only is this test simply a snapshot of one day in the life of a student, a day that might be fraught with hunger, fear or general malaise, it is at this point a false representation of a student’s level of understanding of various subjects.

I have read and heard that the students already know how to manipulate the test so that they get easier questions and can finish the test more quickly. These students have learned that if a series of questions appears to be too difficult for a student, the questions become easier. This was to be a hallmark of this test, the ability for the software to adjust to the level of a student’s understanding of the subject matter.

This, as with any test, is not an accurate measure of a student’s ability and yet I could see it being proposed as a basis for the evaluation of a teacher’s performance as is happening in many parts of the country under the guise of determining “teacher quality” and instituting “performance pay” and “merit pay” as a way to reward teachers on how well their students can take a test on a narrow set of academic parameters.

With the MAP test used as well as the WASL, which many teachers already teach to narrowing their scope of academic understanding by the students of the subject, the idea of testing appears to be redundant and a waste of time and money.

Many of us are assuming that the $9M that the Gates’ Foundation provided to SPS for testing students was used to evaluate the MAP test and now administer it to our students. If that’s the case, wouldn’t that money have been better spent on decreasing the size of classes or providing additional enrichment programs for our students or keeping some of our schools open or our teachers in place last spring? I am not comfortable with the idea that the Gates Foundation provided this money because their emphasis is on student assessment testing and linking the results of those tests to merit pay for teachers. That is well documented and again information regarding that can be found at Seattle Education 2010.

As Herb Kohl states in his letter to Arne Duncan, “We have come far from that time in the '60s. Now the mantra is high expectations and high standards. Yet, with all that zeal to produce measurable learning outcomes we have lost sight of the essential motivations to learn that moved my students. Recently I asked a number of elementary school students what they were learning about and the reactions were consistently, ‘We are learning how to do good on the tests.’ They did not say they were learning to read.It is hard for me to understand how educators can claim that they are creating high standards when the substance and content of learning is reduced to the mechanical task of getting a correct answer on a manufactured test."

The War on Kids

I wasn't sure where to put this film. It doesn't fit into any category so we are showing this information as a post.

The movie is called "The War On Kids" and we think that it deserves our attention.

Who are the "Reformers" Really Trying to Help?

Seattle Times columnist Jerry Large writes a thoughtful piece today about the true causes of inequity in public education and the troubling aspects of the latest "education reform" agenda. He cites Gerald Bracey, the sensible public education champion and essayist who recently passed away in Pt. Townsend.

It's worth noting that if Washington state is allocated Race to the Top funding, whose total budget is $4.1 billion for the entire nation (of which only 10-20 states will be deemed worthy), it would amount to an estimated one-time-only infusion of about $200-400 million. That's better than a kick in the pants, as my grandpa used to say, but is it worth changing our laws, trampling the will of the voters and embracing flawed and failed "solutions" that may do more harm than good just to get this money? Why don't we instead invest in what already works in our schools and replicate that? If the Seattle school district has the money for 110 "teaching coaches" as SPS parent Meg Diaz's recent analysis showed, why doesn't it fund more actual teachers instead and lower class sizes?

Here's Large's article: "Red flags on the road to reform: Washington is trying to get some of the Race to the Top money the other Washington is dangling to entice states to conform to its ideas for improving education" by Jerry Large, Seattle Times, Nov. 16, 2009.

Here's my response:

Thank you, Jerry, for taking a closer and thoughtful look at the latest incarnation of "education reform." Bracey (RIP) was right: poverty is a major underlying factor that affects a child's chances at having a solid learning experience in school.

Rather than addressing this difficult issue of societal inequity, the "education reformers" are instead pushing privatization of a public resource (again -- see past efforts to privatize social security, push for vouchers, etc) with lots of strings attached, endless testing, and blaming teachers. They are also trampling over the rights of local school districts and states to decide what works best for them and instead demanding they change their laws and contracts – or else no Race to the Top funding for them.

In addition to the disturbing arm-twisting this approach represents, the "cure" that's being forced on schools districts and states across the nation by Pres. Obama and his controversial Education Secretary Arne Duncan, is false and politically motivated. Take a look at who is behind it, the pro-privatizing Broad Foundation of AIG billionaire Eli Broad, and all-computerized, pencil and paperless (and failed) "School of the Future" creator Bill Gates (“School of the Future: Lessons in failure How Microsoft's and Philadelphia's innovative school became an example of what not to do”. Such dubious education luminaries as Newt Gingrich and Al Sharpton have also jumped on the "education reform/close the achievement gap" bandwagon . That fact alone should raise another red flag -- or two.

Privately run charter school franchise operations like KIPP and Green Dot and numerous others, along with companies that manufacture and sell standardized tests to school districts, also make up this potentially lucrative industry with an agenda to privatize public education under the guise of helping underprivileged kids of color do better in school.

Aside from the surreptitious nature of what they are trying to do, the main problem is, their solutions don't work.

As the recent report by CREDO at Stanford University demonstrated, charter schools do not necessarily perform any better than public schools. In fact, 37 percent perform worse.

As for vouchers, that was the failed panacea and agenda of the Bush administration and others, which was to basically redirect public funding away from public schools and into private enterprises and mostly parochial schools. It was another angle of right-wing "faith-based initiatives." A boon for the religious types who support such typically Republican machinations, but the children left behind are those who can't afford private or parochial schools even with vouchers who are left in the public school system which is being systematically starved of funds.

In the process of "reforming" our public education system, the reformistas are breaking much that wasn't broken in the first place. (See the havoc wreaked in Portland recently, under a superintendent who was then hired by the Gates Foundation(!): “Hurricane Vicki -- The Gates Foundation hires Portland's former superintendent as its new head of education."

Here in Seattle our superintendent and school board this year uprooted a successful alternative high school (Nova) and put it in an inappropriate and seismically unsafe building (Meany Middle School), they split apart the successful (and highest scoring) elementary school in the district (Lowell) that served the district’s highly gifted and most fragile special needs kids, split apart the Accelerated Progress Program again at the middle school, now creating two separate but unequal schools at each level, they closed the naturally diverse elementary school (T.T. Minor) and moved its successful and popular Montessori program to another location (Leschi). Despite passionate pleas by the eloquent and sometimes fragile students of Summit alternative K-12 school, the district closed their school and sent them in various directions only to cobble together a K-8 in their building that hardly anyone wanted to attend.

Why?

In the process of closing and splitting schools and programs, guess which kids got uprooted and dispersed the most? Underprivileged kids of color -- the very kids our district and the education reformers like Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson claim to be most concerned about helping.

I would like to see a follow-up by the district on what happened to all the children who were displaced by the school closures. Where are all the children of T.T. Minor, the African American Academy, Cooper Elementary, Summit, Meany? How are they doing?

So one has to ask who these “reformers” are really trying to help.

And at what point does "education reform" become "education deform"?

It's not insignificant that Seattle's own school Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson is on the board of directors of the pro-charter Broad Foundation and on the board of the Northwest Evaluation Association from whom the Seattle school district bought its Measures of Academic Progress™ (MAP™) tests (which are currently being administered to SPS students as young as kindergarten age three times a year). Many in the Seattle schools community are troubled by these apparent conflicts of interest.

What’s more, do kids really need all this testing?

What do kids really need?

Smaller class sizes for starters. This is a key reason people who can, choose private schools. Here in Seattle kids are packed into classrooms of 25-30-plus kids, even though parents and voters have voted for funding to lower class sizes. Why? How many parents and teachers agree with our superintendent who has said that class size doesn’t matter? (Interestingly, the superintendent has chosen to send her own daughter to the New School/South Shore, which touts as one of its key features smaller class sizes.)

Kids need stability. And parents want predictability. And yet we have a school district that closes and opens schools senselessly and is now gerrymandering a new Student Assignment Plan that forces families into schools that the district has failed to make equitable or desirable.

This superintendent and school board closed 5 schools this year allegedly because enrollment was down and money would be saved -- and now they are asking to reopen 5 more starting next year because enrollment is up, and for a cost of $48 million. Meanwhile thousands of kids are being uprooted and shuffled around in this messy erratic process.

Equity. Why doesn't this school district distribute its resources fairly? Instead it is millions of dollars behind in basic maintenance on many school buildings, some of which are seismically unsafe or have broken heaters and undrinkable water, while it funnels $130 million or so into favored schools like Garfield High.

Here in Seattle we have many good schools and some that need attention. But this superintendent and board apparently do not know how to manage them. And the “reforms” being implemented under the leadership of this superintendent are making our schools weaker – not stronger.

Mayor-elect McGinn's idea of a mayoral takeover of the district is not the solution. In fact, this can lead to even less accountability, especially when you have mayors like Michael Bloomberg in NYC and Antonio Villaraigosa in L.A. who make executive decisions without public input aided and abetted by the privatizers like Eli Broad and Bill Gates. The LA school board with Villararaigosa’s backing recently handed over as many as 250 LA schools to private charter operators. (Also see: "Defend Public Education! No More Charters! Our Public Community Schools Are Not For Sale! Stop the Break Up of LAUSD!" http://www.bamn.com/doc/2009/090928-savepubliced-lausd.asp)

The solutions to improving our schools are in some respects simple:

Don't break what isn't broken. Superintendent Goodloe-Johnson said this herself during her hiring interview with the Seattle school district back in 2007:

"And one of her philosophies that she would bring with her to Seattle: ‘If it's working and it's not broken, then I'm not going to fix it.’"(Maria Goodloe-Johnson, April 10, 2007, West Seattle Herald)

Unfortunately she did not keep her word on this (see Nova, Lowell, APP, TT Minor, current student assignment plan, the end of fresh cooked lunches for middle and high schoolers, debate over lowering graduation grade to D average, etc.)

Fully fund public education. This currently isn't being done. Let's give our public schools a fighting chance to be good.

Channel more money directly into the classrooms and make cuts instead in Seattle Public Schools' bloated central administration (see: "Central Administration Efficiency in Seattle Public Schools”.)

Use solid curricula and texts -- and not the latest "reformers'" fad (such as "Discovering" math high school textbook -- which has already been rejected by the San Diego school district and many SPS parents -- and yet selected this year by our superintendent and board).

Invest in all schools equally.

Listen to what parents want.

Hire enough teachers to make smaller class sizes possible.

And how about this radical idea: Let’s teach our kids a love for learning and not just how to take a test.

Sue

Mr. Oki, A Primer on Tenure vs. Seniority with Teachers in the Seattle Public School System

After Mr. Oki's presentation, I wanted to get clear on the difference between tenure and seniority. Mr. Oki had mentioned tenure and the necessity of eliminating it from the Seattle teachers' contracts but it was my understanding that teachers in Seattle were not tenured.

So after a few e-mails to those who know more than I do on this subject, I got the skinny.

It goes as follows:

Seniority ensures effective teachers in the classroom

1. Eliminating seniority from the contract works against the goal of a high quality teaching staff. Studies indicate teachers are "learning the ropes" during their first five years on the job; thus it is illogical to suggest teachers in their early years of the profession are of the same quality as seasoned teachers. Therefore, in order to keep high quality teachers in the classroom, the less experienced teachers must be let go first, whenever conditions for a Reduction in Force exists.

2. Seniority makes it more difficult for employers to cover up an arbitrary, capricious or discriminatory layoff, safeguarding whistle blowers and anyone who speaks up regarding wrongdoing. Teachers often speak up at staff meetings and testify at school board meetings on the behalf of students. Without seniority, issues of student safety and a deeper understanding of student achievement might go unheard.

3. Seniority is not the same as tenure. K-12 teachers are not tenured, so unlike a judge or professor, they are not protected for life. Seattle teachers can be dismissed without reason in their first two years of teaching and thereafter can be dismissed as ineffective with two consecutive years of Unsatisfactory evaluations, which can include student performance as a factor.

4. Seniority does not preclude dismissals for ineffective teaching. In the recent district audit, McKinsey & Co. noted the district underutilized the dismissal mechanisms in the current teacher contract. This is due to principals who are unable or unwilling to do their state mandated job of teacher evaluation. The Superintendent evaluates the principal corps. (No Seattle principals were dismissed last year.)

5. The Union can not stop dismissals; they can only ensure workers have their due process protected. In the uncommon case of an ineffective teacher still in the classroom after the first two years, it is the principal who is responsible to insist on rigorous improvement plans followed by dismissal, if needed.

6. What is to stop a district from seeing the financial benefits of laying off the most experienced, ergo most expensive, teachers? What controls would otherwise prevent the dismissal of a teacher just prior to retirement eligibility?

OK, that makes sense.

Now, Mr. Oki, is there anything that you would care to retract?