Sunday, August 3, 2008

Letter to the editor - Spokesman Review

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Letters to the editor
Bergeson's claims ridiculous

CLICK HERE

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

And here we have a similiar coi that occurred in the last race for superintendent. Both Rossi and B. were key personnel wrt I-728 and I-732.

http://saveseattleschools.blogspot.com/2008/01/i-728-and-dino-rossi.html

"Despite the outpouring of public support for the initiatives(I-728 and I-732), Dino Rossi, as Senate Ways and Means chairman, wrote a budget that suspended both initiatives for two years. The will of the voters was ignored.

Today, Rossi boasts about that budget on his Web site and on the campaign trail. As a result of that budget, class sizes stagnated and educators lost $680 million in salaries

B. might be a monster, but Rossi was certainly the hand that fed it.

In 2005 Seattle spent $8,999 per student Spokane also did not make AYP although they spent $7,790 ( yet their students came closer to making AYP )

That is a perfect example of how the input-driven funding model is failing to mesh with output-driven administrators following The Plan.

The funding goes where it churns the most - graft begets graft.

http://www.schooldatadirect.org/

http://www.sao.wa.gov/LocalGovernment/Schools/6414.pdf

Differences in district spending

http://www.k12.wa.us/Research/pubdocs/pdf/I728.pdf

• Districts in ESD 121 (Central Puget Sound) spent proportionately more on professional development

• Districts with 76-100% of students receiving Free and Reduced Price Lunch spent proportionately more on extended learning for students
and less on K-4 class size reduction

dan dempsey said...

About Spokane...
Student Demographics
Enrollment
October 2006 Student Count 30,132

Ethnicity (October 2006)
American Indian/Alaskan Native 3.9%
Asian 2.4%
Black 4.4%
Hispanic 3.8%
White 80.3%
Special Programs
Free or Reduced-Price Meals (May 2007) 42.2%
Special Education (May 2007) 14.7%
Transitional Bilingual (May 2007) 3.4%
Migrant (May 2007) 0.0%
Other Information (more info)
Unexcused Absence Rate (2006-07) 0.4%
Annual Dropout Rate (2005-06) 7.9%
On-Time Graduation Rate (2005-06) 63.8%
Extended Graduation Rate (2005-06) 67.8%

about Seattle...
Student Demographics
Enrollment
October 2006 Student Count 46,097

Ethnicity (October 2006)
American Indian/Alaskan Native 2.2%
Asian 22.3%
Black 21.8%
Hispanic 11.4%
White 42.4%
Special Programs
Free or Reduced-Price Meals (May 2007) 40.5%
Special Education (May 2007) 12.7%
Transitional Bilingual (May 2007) 11.0%
Migrant (May 2007) 0.7%
Other Information (more info)
Unexcused Absence Rate (2006-07) 0.7%
Annual Dropout Rate (2005-06) 15.0%
On-Time Graduation Rate (2005-06) 44.7%
Extended Graduation Rate (2005-06) 48.6%

Check ethnicity and on time graduation rates....

Now if we only had some type of actual testing for knowledge... but NO we have the almost worthless WASL.

So here are Spokane Scores minus Seattle Scores from WASL pass rates 2007

Spokane - Seattle
Grade Level Reading Math
3rd Grade -1.00% 2.00%
4th Grade 0.20% 0.90%
5th Grade -5.60% 0.50%
6th Grade 5.90% 8.20%
7th Grade -3.40% 0.60%
8th Grade -2.50% -0.10%
10th Grade -0.50% -2.10%

Writing
4th grade -10.00%
7th grade -3.20%
10th grade 1.20%

Science
5th grade -5.10%
8th grade 4.60%
10th grade 9.80%

Not a whole lot of WASL differences between Seattle and Spokane

Spokane is a Science winner but otherwise ????

Anonymous said...

These are comments directed at the rhetoric, not school districts. The finance reform created by the WASL is output (data) driven, but fails because schools by necessity must address other factors like schools, teachers, and students. Part of the necessity for using output v. input are for instance the differences between running a traditional high school v. an online academy which by definition has lower expenses, but still results in a student receiving a diploma.

Concerning enrollment at an academy, which district gets paid for the enrollment if Spokane students uses an online academy run by k12.com in Steilacoom. You see what I mean, this looks like a mess and a windfall for online schools.