Seattle Urban League Backs High Standards = WASL

[arthurhu@ATTBI.COM]

Does anyone truly believe that everyone can meet standards?
Well, it's law now.

" and the notion that every child can meet standards, "

z62\doc\web\2002\12\mindy.txt
jkelly@urbanleague.org <mailto:jkelly@urbanleague.org>
mindycameron@earthlink.net

jkelly@urbanleague.org <mailto:jkelly@urbanleague.org>
mindycameron@earthlink.net

What the heck is it with you education - media complex types and
"standards"? Why are you blindly jumping on the "standards based
reform" bandwagon that is the official GW Bush education legislation?
Aren't you supposed to be critical of conservative agendas?

And how did an African American leader get to be talked into
supporting a WASL test that fails nearly all blacks and Hispanics, let
alone failing above average whites and Asians? Can it possibly be
reasonable to question the standard when kindergartenders are expected
to write stories about "mathemematical communication", 4th graders are
supposed to solve problems straight out of 9th grade textbooks, and
10th graders are required to pass a test that not even college
students pass just to get a diploma?? Why the heck are we failing
above average kids who have mastered the basics, instead of
concentrating on achievable goals for the bottom 50% who truly can't
read or write at a reasonable grade level? Why are we wasting so much
time and money "reforming the system" when we should be spending time
and money simply teaching?

What would it take to convince you that "Standards Based Education" or
"Outcome Based Education" as it was originally known when ESHB 1209
was crafted by Marc Tucker's NCEE is actually the most destructive
movement to education and most harmful to our kids today?? Does a test
have to flunk 100% of kids before people realize something is wrong
with the standards and the people promoting them, not the kids?

When we're talking about a test that declares 70% of high school
students and over 90% of black students to be failures just because
they can't factor a 2nd degree polynomial or write a detailed critique
of research paper, this is simply educational genocide, not raising
the bar.

Arthur Hu 425-354-6478 Kirkland WA arthurhu@attbi.com

JAMES KELLY BACKS "HIGH" WASL STANDARDS
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Wednesday, December 04, 2002 - 12:00 a.m. Pacific
Mindy Cameron / Guest columnist
A pitch for stability in Seattle schools
Kelly [president of the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle] is ..
adamant about staying tough with standards. To those who suggest
standards should be relaxed, he says simply: "The bar has been raised;
get over it."

It has been painful to watch events unfold in and around the Seattle
School District. I wince with every new headline, wondering what the
$34-million mess means not just for the future of Superintendent
Joseph Olchefske, but for the fate of the district's ambitious reform
agenda.

So, I was surprised to learn about a meeting a few weeks ago in
Washington, D.C. People working in the trenches to reform public
education across America heard an upbeat story about progress in
Seattle's schools.

Upbeat? What about the accounting mistakes, miscommunication and
overspending that have some people calling for Olchefske's head?

Distance both hides and heightens reality. There is no hiding the fact
that right now the district has a major problem with both finances and
credibility. But the message delivered to the Public Education Network
conference in Washington, D.C., was about the other Seattle Schools
story ? a district remaking itself for the sake of the kids.

James Kelly didn't say anything in D.C. that he hasn't said back home,
but context is everything. Public-school advocates gathered far from
Seattle were focused on the long-range goal. And so is Kelly,
president of the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle.

"It's so easy to get sidetracked," he told me last week when I asked
about his remarks in the other Washington on behalf of reform efforts
in Seattle Schools.

"A lot of good stuff is going on," he said. "But it's hard to hear in
the midst of all this noise."

Last year, shortly after moving from Seattle to the Idaho Panhandle, I
found myself watching a small-town version of a noisy school
controversy. The top administrator here is a not an educator, a fact
that horrifies a certain segment of the community. Yet, here, too, the
district has advanced, including making modest progress in test
scores.

There's scant comparison between Sandpoint and Seattle schools, except
for one core reality: Whatever the size of a community, its schools
are a repository of hopes and dreams.

I think that has a lot to do with what a former superintendent, a
noneducator, once told me about running a large school district. It's
the hardest job there is, he said, harder than running a Fortune 500
company or state government.

That's not meant to excuse serious mistakes, but rather to call
attention to the larger context that hovers in the shadow cast by
Seattle's current situation, a situation fraught with opportunities
for bad outcomes.

The worst case is that Olchefske resigns or is forced out, the search
for a replacement does not go well, and reform efforts lose momentum.

Kelly is right when he repeats as a mantra, "Stability, stability,
stability. Stay the course. Improve our schools."

His message is especially noteworthy, coming from a community leader
whose core constituency, African Americans, is often critical of
public schools, and for good reason.

Kelly is not blind to the district's problems regarding race
relations, past or present. Olchefske, he said, has failed "to connect
with some in my community. He does not listen in a way that makes
people feel they have been heard and understood."

But Kelly is quick to move on from real or perceived failures. "This
is no time for finger-pointing and scapegoating. The real challenge is
to improve our schools."

A close look at performance trends and goals reveals the urgency
behind Kelly's "stability" mantra. Across the board, student
performance, as measured by now-required tests, is gradually
improving. But to meet the state's 2008 goal will require the
equivalent of a booster rocket in every school, for every child.

Kelly is equally adamant about staying tough with standards. To those
who suggest standards should be relaxed, he says simply: "The bar has
been raised; get over it."

It's a gutsy position for Kelly to take, and the right one. Too much
is going right in Seattle Schools for this financial crisis to throw
reformers like Kelly and, most important, the School Board, off track.


It matters not one whit to students, parents and teachers caught up in
efforts to transform Seattle's schools, but the truth is that those
efforts are being watched ? and cheered ? in places outside the
Northwest.

A nation committed to standards-based public education, and the notion
that every child can meet standards, needs how-to examples. The
Seattle School District is poised to play that role, but only if it
remembers Kelly's mantra: stability, stability, stability.

Mindy Cameron's column appears alternate Wednesdays on editorial pages
of The Times. She is writing a short history of Seattle Schools under
the auspices of the Seattle Alliance for Education. E-mail her at
mindycameron@earthlink.net or write her c/o The Seattle Times, P.O.
Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111.



Copyright © 2002 The Seattle Times Company

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