Our friend Jeff has a website we've mentioned before. Given the strikes at Evergreen and Camas and talk of striking at Battle Ground and other districts around the state we reached out to Jeff asking for an overview of the information he tracks. Following is that discussion with links to his website and data for your perusal. Note: Jeff does an annual update in December to capture the most current data published by OSPI. This data is entirely from OSPI. Jeff amalgamates and organizes it. So if someone claims the data is false refer them to Chris Reykdal the State Superintent of Schools. I have these charts already online for all 295 traditional school districts in WA plus most of … [Read more...]
Camas School District compensation data for teachers + admin + superintendent
Update: Sept 4th Here is a link to the Camas SD page that contains the negotiations updates: https://www.camas.wednet.edu/about-csd/budget-development/labor-relations/ They say a picture is worth a thousand words. The graphic shows the compensation information for the Camas School District going back to 2016. Please note the inflation line...have your earnings kept you ahead of inflation? Where is your money going and how much more can you pay? Compare Camas to Evergreen and Battle Ground. Here are links to the Battle Ground and Evergreen data sets so you can compare Camas' offer" Battle Ground School District – compensation history 2016-2022 (swweducation.org) … [Read more...]
Hoosiers Score Benefits from Private School Choice
This is going to be the first in a series of articles looking at alternative choices to public schools and outcomes. Do students going to private schools or charter schools or who are home schooled do better, worse or the same as their counterparts in public schools? We know that public schools have become more expensive that charter or private or home schools. Locally to highest spend per student in a local public school district is over $21,000/student/year. Private schools are less than 1/2 of that. Without further ado let's take a look at an article originally published in Education Next written by Patrick J. Wolf This week the sporting world turns its attention to Indiana as … [Read more...]
K-12 State Education Performance Rankings – The Real Truth
US News and World Report publishes annual State rankings that are widely used to assess performance in K-12. No one has ever challenged them...until now. In a major new report: Everything You Know About State Education Rankings Is Wrong: Minds and dollars are a terrible thing to waste. the authors have gone back to the drawing board and revisited the assumptions used by US News, and, in so doing, have come up with completely different data and results that turn the K-12 education world on its ear! You can read the article in the link above or you can read our summary of the major takeaways below: There's just one problem with the current US News narrative: Their rankings are riddled with … [Read more...]
The enduring power of print for learning in a digital world
In our ongoing effort to share information about ways to improve learning we offer the following article. We've shared information in the past that has suggested paper based learning and hand written notes (vs. using a computer or tablet) is superior. The information in the following article can be found at The Conversation.com and was written by Patricia Alexander and Lauren Singer. Today’s students see themselves as digital natives, the first generation to grow up surrounded by technology like smartphones, tablets and e-readers. Teachers, parents and policymakers certainly acknowledge the growing influence of technology and have responded in kind. We’ve seen more investment … [Read more...]
Two professors created a course on how to recognize bullshit
Attending school board meetings, reading some of the materials from the US Dept of Education and the claims about why it's good to gather data on children in schools and sell it to private parties....sometimes you need to call B.S.! Looking north to The University of Washington we find this story. Originally published on TheOutline.com. The author is Jon Christian. Evolutionary biologist Carl Bergstrom and data scientist Jevin West have proposed a seminar on information literacy they say will prepare students to parse the news media, scientific studies, and particularly ubiquitous (and often exaggerated) claims about the power of algorithms and big data, which is reflected in the … [Read more...]
Washington State Superintendent Candidate Positions Comparisons
The ballots are showing up in the mail and people are starting to vote. For those who consider education one of the cornerstones of our future in Washington State you have a choice to make. Two candidates who differ in various ways. Based on their responses to questions we bring you a list of nine (9) questions with the side-by-side responses to each in the candidates own words. No summary from us...just their words. If you don't want to scroll through the page here is the document as a pdf: ospi-candidate-position-summary-comparison-2016 We've set up tables for each of the questions with columns for each candidate. If the finance side of the equation is important to you then here are … [Read more...]
Education dollars versus education outcomes
From an article at Johnley.us - Author is John Ley As Washington state citizens enter the fall 2016 election cycle, one of the big issues discussed will be “how” the legislature will finish “fully funding” K-12 education. This is in response to the state Supreme Court’s McCleary decision, whereby the court said the state had not honored the constitutional requirement to amply provide funding for “basic education”. (How you define “basic education” should be a critical part of the discussion, but that’s for another day.) Shouldn’t the discussion truly be about improving the QUALITY of our children’s education? One overwhelming fact stands out — nearly one out of four of our children … [Read more...]
Science says parents of successful kids have these 13 things in common
From an article at Business Insider - Writers are Rachel Gillett and Drake Baer As we research reasons why children are (or are not) successful in school there are a number of factors that come into play. This article shares some thoughts on why parents play such a major and critical role. Give it a read and then tell us what you think. Good parents want their kids to stay out of trouble, do well in school, and go on to do awesome things as adults. And while there isn't a set recipe for raising successful children, psychology research has pointed to a handful of factors that predict success. Unsurprisingly, much of it comes down to the parents. Here's what parents of … [Read more...]
Many parents give new mind-boggling report cards an F
From a story at Philly dot com Even though this story hails from Philadelphia...check your local school district...you may find the same approach. Have you even looked yet? As a lawyer, Dennis Weldon has to make sense of tortuous legal papers. But a year ago, the Plumstead Township resident opened a nine-page document that left him flummoxed. It was his child's report card from Gayman Elementary School in the Central Bucks School District. Gone was the traditional A-B-C-D-F report from the teacher. Instead, parents were sent to their computers to click open a nine-page digital document with row after row of learning standards and success indicators for specific … [Read more...]
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