From the Seattle Public Schools News Release....
Chief Academic Officer Carla Santorno is pleased to announce the appointment of Ms. Anna-Maria de la Fuente as Math Program Manager. In this role, Ms. de la Fuente will lead development of an aligned math curriculum for our system, one of the key strategies in our “Excellence for All” Strategic Plan. Ms. de la Fuente official start date in this role is September 1, but she will be collaborating with us over the summer.
Ms. de la Fuente has been the Seattle MESA (Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement) Director for the past eight years. Based at the University of Washington, MESA is a K-12 pre-college program aimed at helping underrepresented students achieve their full potential in mathematics, engineering and science. During her tenure with MESA, Ms. de la Fuente led development, funding, implementation, and evaluation of new programs, including a ninth-grade bridge math transition program now operating at five Seattle high schools. Prior to joining the MESA staff, she taught mathematics, MESA, and Language Arts at Rainier Beach High School for eight years, and also served as the mathematics department chair. She has 20 years of teaching experience at the secondary level; and has also worked as a Pre-Calculus instructor in partnership with the University of Washington College of Engineering and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Ms. de la Fuente earned a B.A. degree from the University of California at Berkeley, and an M.A. degree in Education from Stanford University. She is enrolled in the University of Washington’s Leadership for Learning doctoral program, and will earn her Ed.D., focused on mathematics leadership and equity in 2009. In 2007, Ms. de la Fuente was awarded the Washington Association of School Administrators (WASA) Doyle E. Winter Scholarship for Administrative Leadership. She is also a member of the steering committee for the Seattle Transition Math Project, aimed at engaging high school and community college math teachers in implementing the new College Readiness Standards.
We want to take this opportunity to thank Rosalind Wise for her deep commitment to students and teachers, and to her leadership in implementing EveryDay Mathematics across our system.
----------------------------------------
Ms. de la Fuente will lead development of an aligned math curriculum for our system.... Aligned with what?
She is also a member of the steering committee for the Seattle Transition Math Project
This is a significant improvement as Seattle TMP is a connection to teacher and student reality, which has been missing in the SPS Math Central administration for quite sometime.
Dan,
ReplyDeleteHow did the court case go yesterday?
T^2
"She is enrolled in the University of Washington’s Leadership for Learning doctoral program, and will earn her Ed.D., focused on mathematics leadership and equity in 2009."
ReplyDeleteSeems like this program is a fuzzy math brain wash machine.
"B.A. degree from the University of California at Berkeley, and an M.A. degree in Education from Stanford University"
Wonder when she was at these places and who she studied with. Major influential fuzzies at both places.
Probably worked closely with Marcia Davidson, former chair of Washington Schools Alliance and Boeing Ed. Division (Achieve Standard) now at Sopris West (LETRS) subsidiary of Cambrium Learning spinoff from McGraw-Hill
ReplyDeleteI'd say firmly in the reform trenches if she's getting her Doctorate in Leadership from UW and everything else that goes with it - Achieve Inc and the Dana Center.
"Achieve and the Dana Center share the goal of ensuring that all students graduate from high school prepared to meet the challenges of postsecondary education and the workplace," said Achieve president Michael Cohen. "We know that higher-level mathematics courses are the gateway to success and that schools, districts and states need tools to ensure that all students have access to and can succeed in rigorous mathematics courses. It is our hope that this new resource will help fill that need."
http://www.achieve.org/NewsStatement
They're creating two standards, not one.
'Excellence for All' is the reformer's standard for something less than a high school diploma, but more than a GED.
Here's Cohen's commentary on Obama and NAFTA published in the NY Times yesterday (7/25/08).
ReplyDeletehttp://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/author/macohen/
Achieve Inc is projecting the NAFTA guidelines onto OSPI's own stupid attempts at reforming public education - the two themes are privatization of school services and reforming school finance with standardized testing.
The ADP track is part of finance reform - the everybody else track -instruction is based on changing values and behavior, not post-primary education.
What reformers will not acknowledge are the what ifs (for instance):
1. Students find reform curriculum juvenile and boring.
2. Parents are unable to understand school edicts or comprehend the open-endedness of poorly worded and questionable assignments.
3. Teachers find the reform curriculum unworkable for students preparing for college or attempt to criticize the curriculum publicly.
14 ways you know you are dealing with a fascist government
1. Nationalism - flags and rednecks
2. Disdain for human rights
3. Unifies national opinion with aggressive rhetoric against outside enemies.
4. Military supremacy
5. Sexism - pornography and media
6. Controlling mass media
7. National security
8. Religion intertwined w/gov.
9. Corporate power protected
10. Labor suppressed
11. Disdain for intellect.
12. Obsession with crime
13. Cronyism and corruption (unfettered)
14. Fraudulent elections.
What makes this socialist government so despicable is its flagrant openness and downright clumsiness in carrying out poor policy. Its like greed were an inverse of political IQ.
For instance, most countries have some form of national security - they also have a national identity system.
Its very hard to have national security when everyone uses a state-issued driver's license for identity purposes. This creates a substantially, large overhead if you want effective national security.
Do not confuse conspiracies with social movements. This is a radical social movement pure and simple. It is radical in a conservative sense, more like medieval philosphy.
When rhetoric doesn't match the results, then you have cognitive dissonance and then public paralysis and that's how you start jacking up expenses - more meetings, more travel time, more ineffective curriculum, etc...government parasistes. US has a bad case of bureaucratic flatulance (cryptic dysentary)
ReplyDeleteI encountered De La Fuente when I subbed at Rainier Beach HS in Seattle about 10 years ago; I later got to see her in action teaching a College Prep Math lesson and was dazzled. Her students were totally engaged, and they adored her.
ReplyDeleteI next encountered her when she was one of the panelists at the big math forum that Sally Soriano organized at SPS in...2005? She and Lani Horn were both talking about fidelity of implementation....it became clear that she's dedicated to inquiry based math. That seems to be the focus of MESA math.
She seems to be a skilled leader, and, having been a high school math teacher, we can hope she has a reasonable understanding of math content.
I encountered De La Fuente when I subbed at Rainier Beach HS in Seattle about 10 years ago; I later got to see her in action teaching a College Prep Math lesson and was dazzled. Her students were totally engaged, and they adored her.
ReplyDeleteI next encountered her when she was one of the panelists at the big math forum that Sally Soriano organized at SPS in...2005? She and Lani Horn were both talking about fidelity of implementation....it became clear that she's strongly committed to inquiry based math. That seems to be the focus of MESA math. It's not clear to me whether that focus might be balanced with a disciplined approach to mastering skills.
She appeared to be a skilled leader, and, having been a high school math teacher, we can hope she has a reasonable understanding of math content.
And you recall visiting a classroom 10 years ago where this teacher taught? So what was the curriculum at RBHS 10 years ago (College Prep math?) and you remember watching a teacher using inquiry-based teaching with what CPM? (Is that so?)
ReplyDeleteSo what do you recall about fidelity of implementation? Are you currently teaching and what textbook are you using currently? Do you like what you teach?
Reform is a sword of lead in a scabbard of ivory.
If you are content with your lot then live wisely and the world will go on without you...
ReplyDeleteLive with the lame, then you will learn to limp.
The bear wants a tail and cannot be a lion.
The axe forgets what the tree remembers.
Fear the doctor, not the disease.
Learn how to hold an eel and you will go far.
Dear Blowing smoke out of a tailpipe,
ReplyDeleteThis is what I gathered -
Rainier Beach HS
College Prep Math?
Inquiry Based Learning
Mesa Math
10 years ago
and... lets hit the affective domain...dazzled, totally engaged, and adored her.
Other than name dropping, nothing in your story connects, it fails in the face of logic, I remain unconvinced, especially since you qualify it all by saying you were a substitute. So take that comment back to your group of mental midgets and see if you can massage the story a little bit more.
signed,
Even more skeptical
Dear Even More,
ReplyDeleteYour skepticism is well founded as we have yet to see much in the way of positive progress produced by UW in regard to improving math in the SPS or elsewhere.
Now the question becomes will Seattle define the required necessary skills at each grade level that students should be learning?
SPS have announced the new Math Program director and there are new state math standards. Thus there can be no more excuses as to why SPS is unable to address board policies in regard to required necessary skills found in
D44.00 and D45.00
We can then watch for the successful interventions.
I am a former MESA student and a friend of Anna Maria De La Fuente. Seattle Public School's couldn't have picked a better person for the job!
ReplyDelete