Wednesday, November 17, 2010

My TfA letter written to Seattle School Board

Here is the letter:
http://www.box.net/shared/v6ag0l6exj


Here are excerpts from the letter.

If this TfA action is for the benefit of Seattle's students then closing of the achievement gaps is the only possible reason provided for bringing provisionally certified teachers with very little training into classrooms.

Please note that the CAO disclosed that the District has no centralized plan for effective Interventions.

The average of All students and the average of most every ethnic group declined on the 4th grade and 7th grade OSPI annual test of Writing. The District is completely failing to serve the needs of far too many students in writing. Is "Writer's Workshop" being examined as a possible cause?

Math scores are still abysmal in grade 4 and getting worse for many groups of educationally disadvantaged learners.

The Board's decision to illegally approve the non-competitive bid NTN contract, in which the Superintendent and CAO misinformed both the Public and the Board with the bogus action report of 3-12-2010 is further evidence of the disregard for so many educationally disadvantaged learners in the District.

Project Based Learning and Problem Based Learning have been devastating for most educationally disadvantaged learners in mathematics.

The District had NO Community engagement of the TfA contract. The vendor’s engagement can hardly be the District's engagement.

Note: the filing of the evidence in the NTN appeal apparently lacked the Actual Anderson memo sent to the Board. This memo was obtained through public records requests.

The Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson should be fired with cause for the misleading action reports she and her CAO produced in regard to the proposal to have the Board approve the NTN contract. The Action Reports used on 2-3-2010 and the 3-12-2010 Action Report used on 4-7-2010 each had serious flaws that would mislead any member of the public that read them. The 3-12-2010 Action report was fraudulently produced by referencing a memo as sent to the board, when in fact the memo sent to the board was NOT referenced in construction of the memo.

The Board might also begin thinking about the District's defense in various class action lawsuits about the disparate impact on members of various groups of the failed education practices of Seattle Schools.

Tonight is an opportunity to begin to end experimentation on Low Income and Special Education students. Do NOT miss it. Reject the obviously discriminatory TfA contract proposal.

Why only marginally prepared provisionally certified teachers for low-income schools, when both low-income and non-low-income SPS schools lack Highly Qualified Teachers in the same ratio 1 out of 200?


Sincerely,

Danaher M. Dempsey, Jr.

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