See these Seattle Times articles here and here for more information.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
More good news . . .
See these Seattle Times articles here and here for more information.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Not yet dead . . .
I learned yesterday and had confirmed today that the charter school legislation may not yet be dead in Olympia this year. Even if it does not resurface in some legislative way it appears likely in this Seattle Times article that reformers will take it directly to the people. There is growing frustration on both sides of the aisle that this is a needed reform in our state.
The leaders said they prefer to work with lawmakers on a compromise that would allow for at least a handful of charters — public and free but independent schools that use unconventional techniques. But resistance from the Legislature's controlling Democratic Party has made that increasingly unlikely as the session nears its conclusion.
"Because the teachers union and (Democratic) leadership won't consider lifting Washington's ban on charter schools, there are some rumblings of an initiative," said Lisa Macfarlane, state director of Democrats for Education Reform, a political-action committee.
Even though the issue has been rejected three times by voters in our state, many in the reform movement believe that the timing is right. In a recent study conducted by the Washington Policy Center, 60% of those contacted said they strongly or somewhat support charter schools and 25% said they strongly or somewhat oppose charters. When asked about charters that serve low-income and minority children in urban areas the support was even greater. The data is being used by reformers to support their position. Below is an excerpt from a Policy Center release on February 23rd.
"We often hear that people in Washington don't want charter public schools. These findings show just the opposite," said Paul Guppy, Vice President for Research at Washington Policy Center. "Washington has been called an education reform backwater. It appears support for lifting the ban is growing as people learn about how charter public schools in other states are achieving amazing results for children, even in some of the country’s toughest urban neighborhoods," Guppy added.
As one might expect, WEA responded to the news with a different analysis.
But the state teachers union, which opposes charters, pointed out that the 400-person telephone poll didn't define charters or give any facts about their success rate; instead, it said only that most states allow them.
"There's no way this classic push poll accurately reflects what Washington voters think," said Rich Wood, a spokesman for the union, called the Washington Education Association.
Though I don't believe that charters are necessarily the answer to the achievement gap, I think that we will see something this session or it will go to the public where millions will be spent to support passage by the reform community that will include people on both sides of the political aisle. Knowing that there are now 41 states that allow charters in various formats and that it is another of those "options" being pushed by the Obama administration leaves us in a different situation than we experienced in past attempts. For me, however, this is simply the background for what I see as a much bigger issue at the state level involving some major democratic fundraisers growing disillusionment with the party's stance on education reform and a belief that WEA wields too much influence in Olympia. More on this in my next post.
The leaders said they prefer to work with lawmakers on a compromise that would allow for at least a handful of charters — public and free but independent schools that use unconventional techniques. But resistance from the Legislature's controlling Democratic Party has made that increasingly unlikely as the session nears its conclusion.
"Because the teachers union and (Democratic) leadership won't consider lifting Washington's ban on charter schools, there are some rumblings of an initiative," said Lisa Macfarlane, state director of Democrats for Education Reform, a political-action committee.
Even though the issue has been rejected three times by voters in our state, many in the reform movement believe that the timing is right. In a recent study conducted by the Washington Policy Center, 60% of those contacted said they strongly or somewhat support charter schools and 25% said they strongly or somewhat oppose charters. When asked about charters that serve low-income and minority children in urban areas the support was even greater. The data is being used by reformers to support their position. Below is an excerpt from a Policy Center release on February 23rd.
"We often hear that people in Washington don't want charter public schools. These findings show just the opposite," said Paul Guppy, Vice President for Research at Washington Policy Center. "Washington has been called an education reform backwater. It appears support for lifting the ban is growing as people learn about how charter public schools in other states are achieving amazing results for children, even in some of the country’s toughest urban neighborhoods," Guppy added.
As one might expect, WEA responded to the news with a different analysis.
But the state teachers union, which opposes charters, pointed out that the 400-person telephone poll didn't define charters or give any facts about their success rate; instead, it said only that most states allow them.
"There's no way this classic push poll accurately reflects what Washington voters think," said Rich Wood, a spokesman for the union, called the Washington Education Association.
Though I don't believe that charters are necessarily the answer to the achievement gap, I think that we will see something this session or it will go to the public where millions will be spent to support passage by the reform community that will include people on both sides of the political aisle. Knowing that there are now 41 states that allow charters in various formats and that it is another of those "options" being pushed by the Obama administration leaves us in a different situation than we experienced in past attempts. For me, however, this is simply the background for what I see as a much bigger issue at the state level involving some major democratic fundraisers growing disillusionment with the party's stance on education reform and a belief that WEA wields too much influence in Olympia. More on this in my next post.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Friends of the Cedar River Watershed . . .
Thanks to Crystal for the information that allows me to use the older Blogger interface - it feels much better.
Friday morning at our Rotary meeting the program was a presentation by two Tahoma students Jayaram Ravi and Conner Hammond representing the Friends of the Cedar River Watershed. I have attended their longer presentation for two years and have been very impressed with their work as were the Rotarians on Friday.
These students represent 13 school districts and 27 cities comprising the Cedar River Watershed. From that group a youth leadership team of 22 students was formed to produce a series of short videos focused on the health of the watershed and sustainable development in the watershed communities. The videos are intended for use in classrooms and to inform others in and outside the watershed. In an effort to inform policy makers, they recently presented to a group of legislators in Olympia. You can read more about the project here on their web page.
Overview
The Watershed Report integrates Friends of the Cedar River Watershed’s fourteen-year history of successful project management while significantly amplifying our reach through TV, the internet, the classroom and student-led presentations to local decision-making bodies. The pilot for the 2009 Watershed Report received a private screening before 150 community leaders at the Flagship REI Store on June 29, 2010. On August 17 of that same summer, members of our student team traveled to Ecotrust headquarters in Portland, Oregon, to receive an award for watershed films sponsored by the Whole Watershed Restoration Initiative. The Watershed Report is featured each year on 19 public access channels.
The videos are all student produced and feature the 22 students from the leadership team. I encourage you to visit the site and view some of them. They are short, with most of them in the two to three minute range. Below is one of the videos focused on schools, featuring Jayaram discussing our district's curriculum. As in other areas, we are viewed by many as a leader in preparing young people to experience their environment with the tools necessary to understand and embrace the challenges we face.
The vision behind this work is Peter Donaldson. Even though he is absent from the screen, his passion for supporting youth and teaching us and policy makers to view the environment systemically can be felt in each of the videos. He is very supportive of our work and has collaborated with us on a number of projects and recently with the city of Maple Valley on a storm water retention curriculum. We look forward to a continued collaboration as we engage our young people with their community at the local regional, and international level.
Check out the videos, our students play a prominent role.
Friday morning at our Rotary meeting the program was a presentation by two Tahoma students Jayaram Ravi and Conner Hammond representing the Friends of the Cedar River Watershed. I have attended their longer presentation for two years and have been very impressed with their work as were the Rotarians on Friday.
These students represent 13 school districts and 27 cities comprising the Cedar River Watershed. From that group a youth leadership team of 22 students was formed to produce a series of short videos focused on the health of the watershed and sustainable development in the watershed communities. The videos are intended for use in classrooms and to inform others in and outside the watershed. In an effort to inform policy makers, they recently presented to a group of legislators in Olympia. You can read more about the project here on their web page.
Overview
The Watershed Report integrates Friends of the Cedar River Watershed’s fourteen-year history of successful project management while significantly amplifying our reach through TV, the internet, the classroom and student-led presentations to local decision-making bodies. The pilot for the 2009 Watershed Report received a private screening before 150 community leaders at the Flagship REI Store on June 29, 2010. On August 17 of that same summer, members of our student team traveled to Ecotrust headquarters in Portland, Oregon, to receive an award for watershed films sponsored by the Whole Watershed Restoration Initiative. The Watershed Report is featured each year on 19 public access channels.
The videos are all student produced and feature the 22 students from the leadership team. I encourage you to visit the site and view some of them. They are short, with most of them in the two to three minute range. Below is one of the videos focused on schools, featuring Jayaram discussing our district's curriculum. As in other areas, we are viewed by many as a leader in preparing young people to experience their environment with the tools necessary to understand and embrace the challenges we face.
The vision behind this work is Peter Donaldson. Even though he is absent from the screen, his passion for supporting youth and teaching us and policy makers to view the environment systemically can be felt in each of the videos. He is very supportive of our work and has collaborated with us on a number of projects and recently with the city of Maple Valley on a storm water retention curriculum. We look forward to a continued collaboration as we engage our young people with their community at the local regional, and international level.
Check out the videos, our students play a prominent role.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Still struggling . . .
 |
| edweb.tusd.k12.az.us |
President Obama so far has granted waivers to 10 of 11 states that applied. Washington's reform efforts haven't been the strongest — nor the weakest. But this state, with new legislation, is poised to meet a key request of the Obama administration to strengthen the teacher-evaluation system in public schools. We've earned a dose of flexibility.
So, with the recent Senate change to the evaluation process requiring the use of student assessment data in three areas, we meet one of the federal government’s requirements to qualify for waivers and future federal dollars also tied to this requirement. How much of the change to the process was driven by the need to support teacher growth and how much by the need to meet federal waiver requirements? I’m trying to suspend my assumption, but it gets more difficult when I read things like this. I guess I’ll need to accept that both reasons are drivers for this reform and that both MAY be valid. That will take some more reflection on my part, but I’m open to considering it.
What do you think? If we want to be positioned for federal dollars in the future it makes little sense to not align with the requirements for waivers and grants. I guess a little more transparency on the part of the policy makers related to the purpose for the evaluation revisions would be appreciated by me.
State budgets emerging . . .
With the help of some
good news this month when the Economic & Revenue Forecast Council released
its update of projected revenue for the remainder of the
biennium, the budget gap in Olympia is shrinking. For the first time in 15 quarters (almost four
years), the revenue forecast was positive with estimated revenue for the
biennium increasing by almost $100 million. Adding to this good news is an estimated
reduction in caseload costs bringing what was an expected $1.5 billion deficit
down to about $1 billion.
With this as a backdrop,
the House Democrats yesterday released their budget that did not include a
sales tax increase. According to Ross
Hunter, House Ways and Means Chair, the tax increase, however, is still a
possibility.
Although the House plan
balances the budget without asking voters for a sales-tax increase, Hunter did
not rule it out. No decision has been made yet, he said.
In this budget K-12 comes out far
better than was expected earlier this year.
Through accounting gimmicks used in the past, the state realizes savings
by delaying our June apportionment payment to the first day in July, pushing
the expenditure into the next biennium.
They will also delay levy equalization payments and reduce the
equalization rate beginning in August 2013 from the current 14% to 12%. This is good news for us as earlier budget
possibilities included cutting the entire amount. If you are a budget nut and want more detail
you can find it here and a related Seattle Times opinion that calls the budget irresponsible because it pushes the problem into the next biennium.
In contrast to this budget, the House
Republicans earlier released their Education First budget. This is a concept that was first shared in
2006 and now seems to have more backing including some support from democrats. It would require that the legislature develop
an education budget first, before looking at other needs in the state. They use the state constitution and recent
court ruling to support this proposal. It
did not, however, have the votes to get out of committee. You can read about this budget proposal on
the Washington House Republican site here.
I will share more details as we learn
more. We now wait for the Senate’s
budget release next week and the negotiations that will follow between the two
houses and the Governor. Perhaps we
should add the recent State Supreme Court ruling on funding to the good news
that may have been in the back of legislators minds as they crafted their
budget. Other than the equalization
reduction there may be little push back to this proposal. Even that would not result in big issues as
levy equalization is arguably not part of basic education.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Not the answer . . .
Daniel Pink, author of Drive, a book about motivation, posted on the problems with merit pay for teachers. Basically, he says it won't work providing eight reasons why. I follow Pink 's blog and have read his books Drive, A whole New Mind, and Johnny Bunko. He has studied the research and is someone with credibility in the field and someone that should be influential in the merit pay debate.
Why are there so many that continue to pursue this approach when the research suggest that it will not succeed? Below are two of Pink's eight reasons that particularly stand out for me, but I encourage you to read all of them on his post.
1. Some rewards backfire. Fifty years of social science tells us that “if-then” rewards – that is, “If you do this, then you get that” – are great for simple, routine tasks and not so great for complicated, creative tasks. Since teaching is creative and complex rather than simple and algorithmic, tying teacher pay to student performance (especially on standardized tests) flies in the face of the broad evidence.
7. Teaching isn’t investment banking. I find it peculiar that we single out teachers for “if-then” pay when we wouldn’t consider it for other public servants. Should we pay police officers based on how many tickets they write or whether the crime rate in their district drops? How about compensating soldiers based on whether our borders have been attacked or how many of their colleagues have been injured or killed? Would legislators, who are behind much of the bonuses-for-test-scores push, ever agree to hinge their own pay on whether budget deficits rose or fell?
So, what does Pink see as the answer?
4. There’s a simpler solution. My own solution for the teacher pay issue, which I’ve voiced many times both in writing and in speeches, is to strike a bargain: Raise the base pay of teachers – and make it easier to get rid of underperforming teachers. Not only is this approach more consistent with the evidence, it’s easier to implement and doesn’t require a new bureaucracy to administer. (To her credit, Michelle Rhee launched some efforts to move in this direction.)
Sounds like a simple idea that I can support. Speaking of underperforming teachers you might want to see a summary of the evaluation bill passed last week in the state Senate intended to support teacher growth. It can be found on the LEV site here. A couple of the points are below.
- Prevents unsatisfactory new teachers from receiving tenure. New teachers rated unsatisfactory in their third year would be ineligible to obtain tenure, remaining on provisional, year-to-year status.
-Removes unsatisfactory veteran teachers from the classroom. Teachers with more than five years of experience who are rated unsatisfactory for two consecutive years must be issued a notice of nonrenewal.
Why are there so many that continue to pursue this approach when the research suggest that it will not succeed? Below are two of Pink's eight reasons that particularly stand out for me, but I encourage you to read all of them on his post.
1. Some rewards backfire. Fifty years of social science tells us that “if-then” rewards – that is, “If you do this, then you get that” – are great for simple, routine tasks and not so great for complicated, creative tasks. Since teaching is creative and complex rather than simple and algorithmic, tying teacher pay to student performance (especially on standardized tests) flies in the face of the broad evidence.
7. Teaching isn’t investment banking. I find it peculiar that we single out teachers for “if-then” pay when we wouldn’t consider it for other public servants. Should we pay police officers based on how many tickets they write or whether the crime rate in their district drops? How about compensating soldiers based on whether our borders have been attacked or how many of their colleagues have been injured or killed? Would legislators, who are behind much of the bonuses-for-test-scores push, ever agree to hinge their own pay on whether budget deficits rose or fell?
So, what does Pink see as the answer?
4. There’s a simpler solution. My own solution for the teacher pay issue, which I’ve voiced many times both in writing and in speeches, is to strike a bargain: Raise the base pay of teachers – and make it easier to get rid of underperforming teachers. Not only is this approach more consistent with the evidence, it’s easier to implement and doesn’t require a new bureaucracy to administer. (To her credit, Michelle Rhee launched some efforts to move in this direction.)
Sounds like a simple idea that I can support. Speaking of underperforming teachers you might want to see a summary of the evaluation bill passed last week in the state Senate intended to support teacher growth. It can be found on the LEV site here. A couple of the points are below.
- Prevents unsatisfactory new teachers from receiving tenure. New teachers rated unsatisfactory in their third year would be ineligible to obtain tenure, remaining on provisional, year-to-year status.
-Removes unsatisfactory veteran teachers from the classroom. Teachers with more than five years of experience who are rated unsatisfactory for two consecutive years must be issued a notice of nonrenewal.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Oh, yes they did . . .
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We took fifteen wrestlers to the tournament and ten of them placed in the top 8. Below, are the names of the boys representing our high school and the place they took. We had two state champions Joey Palmer and Aaron Davis with Davis pinning his way through the tournament. It was AWESOME to watch.
106 Todd Link (8)
113 Sam Schuessler
113 Tim Whitehead (2)
120 Cruz Velasquez (4)
126 Jesse Vaughn 2nd
126 Steve Hopkins (2)
132 Gabe Boynay (4)
132 Joey Palmer (1)
145 Tanner Mjelde (5)
152 Dan Haniger
170 Garret Autry (3)
182 Austin Perry
195 Matt Hopkins (4)
220 Aaron Davis (1)
285 Ed Torres
See more pictures and quotes from the wrestlers on this Maple Valley Reporter site.
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