Expansion of a Failed Experiment .. Seattle Style

Porter et al. won a legal appeal in Superior Court on 2-4-2010 of the Seattle School District's adoption of "Discovering" math texts for high school use. The Superintendent decided to appeal that decision in Washington Appeals Court. I maintain this appeal was unwarranted and a waste of funds when the School Board should have been remaking the adoption decision using "all the evidence" as ordered by Judge Spector. This kind of decision-making and expenditure of funds on appellate court action is yet another reason to vote against the next Seattle School levy.

Take a look at effect of the "Discovering" math adoption.

Three years of the "IMP" inquiry/discovery approach at Cleveland and Garfield (through 2009) were very damaging to students classified as "Black" Students and also "Limited English". I pointed out that the SPS had together with the UW run two unmonitored damaging experiments on students for three years.

The Superintendent and the Board then decided to expand that "failed experiment" to all Black and Limited English students through out the District for School Year 2009-2010 and beyond.

Here are the results:

2008 (2009) 2010 for Black students’ pass rates:
Ballard: 25.0 (14.3) 26.9
Cleveland: *6.3 (*12.7) *5.7
Franklin: 17.4 (12.9) 16.7
Hale: 34.5 (33.3) 28.9
Ingraham: 13.0 (13.7) 5.4
Garfield: *22.5 (*29.8) *16.7**
Rainier B: 21.6 (*15.6) *3.9
Roosevelt: 31.0 (32.4) 28.1
Sealth: 28.8 (17.9) 10.2
W Seattle: 17.3 (15.2) 6.1

* UW NSF project assisted year
** AP Magnet

2008 (2009) 2010 for Limited English Speaking students’ pass rates:
Ballard: 16.7 (17.2) 11.8
Cleveland: *4.8 ( *0.0) *3.3
Franklin: 23.5 ( 9.4) 13.2
Hale: none
Ingraham: 35.5 (12.0) 3.0
Garfield: *0.0 (*16.7) *0.0**
Rainier Beach: none*
Roosevelt: 46.4 (15.8) 6.7
Sealth: 11.4 ( 6.3) 0.0
W Seattle: 19.0 (12.5) 6.7

===========================================

Would competent leaders be using "District Funds" on outside legal counsel in an attempt to continue this wreckage?

Note: If instead of appealing the Board had remade the "Adoption Decision" and then quickly restarted the adoption process, perhaps a second year of "Discovering" could have been avoided.

The real question is why was this rigged skewed process that produced the "Discovering" recommendation validated by Sherry Carr, Steve Sundquist, Peter Maier, and Cheryl Chow with "yes" votes for the adoption? Michael DeBell, Harium Martin-Morris, and Mary Bass voted "NO".

Unfortunately Harium did back the Superintendent in her decision to appeal Judge Spector's ruling that the adoption was done in an "arbitrary and capricious" manner.

Why do the class of 2007 (Carr, Martin-Morris, Maier, Sundquist) not understand that "Exclusion of Evidence" is not allowed in decision making. Just because the Superintendent thinks excluding evidence is her "right" does not make it "right".