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Title : Science Updates for Seattle Schools
link : Science Updates for Seattle Schools

Science Updates for Seattle Schools

Once again, I have to shake my head.  (At this rate, Linda Blair will have nothing on me and many days, I do feel like my head is going to go around and around, trying to take in all that this district's dysfunction has to offer.)

(Yes, I just said the district is dysfunctional which is something I have denied for a long time.  No more.  And this thread is just the start.)

Updates on the ongoing Science adoptions:


Apparently at Ballard High, students are "piloting" this curriculum, Physics Thru Reasoning. 

A teacher who retired had been asked to come back to Ballard to fill in for the new teacher who was unexpectedly yanked from the class under not-great-circumstances (I know no details but it was not because the teacher could not teach.) 

The returning teacher, to get up to speed, asked the students about what they were being taught (nothing to do with the new teacher).  Their answers are telling.  The students were asked about what they did the first 100 days in class - take data, make graphs on Excel, test/engineer a device you made, using curve-fitting or slope analysis to analyze data and find patterns, etc. Thirty-eight students gave answers.  Most of these students are in AP Calc.

Also to note is that there is this push to get aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and yet, if you read the students' comments, there's not much alignment with this physics curriculum. 

- The material is easy and we don't do experiments.
- Over and over, "not challenging" "boring" 
- I don't think this material adequately prepares me for a college-level class.
- The majority of the students said they finished the classwork with more than half of the class time left.
- "No math in this class."  "The math in this class doesn't come close to what I know how to do."
- Are you still excited about physics?  Not so much but I'm hopeful. 
- Would you recommend this class to a sibling?  "I wouldn't recommend it to my worst enemy." "Yes, because it would be an easy A."
- "It wasn't as hands-on as I thought it would be."
- "I learned this vocabulary in middle school."

The two statements that made me laugh (boy, I love high school kids so much):
-  I'm a math god. 
- I try not to pass out in class.

Note to Mary Margaret Welch on Physics Thru Reasoning - that would be a hard no. 

• At community meeting on Saturday with Directors Burke and DeWolf, apparently there was a discussion about the Amplify curriculum. Somehow, thru many waivers, it has, become the de facto SPS science curriculum at middle schools (I believe Eckstein may be the only one NOT using it.) The Board voted NOT to endorse Amplify and yet somehow, it is being widely used.

• Former director Sue Peters had a white paper from Amplify used to support sales of Amplify, which,  contained within it quotes from Mary Margaret Welch, head of Science for SPS,  about how great Amplify is.  Kind of odd given Amplify isn't an district-wide approved curriculum.
• As well, Peters reported SPS received a large donation from “ an anonymous billionaire” to purchase Amplify stuff. Amplify is now owned by the Steve Jobs' widow, Lauren Powell Jobs.  

Again, write to the Board and tell them to pull rank - their role is to approve curriculum.  If they need to change the policy to reflect that there can't be over a certain percentage of schools that get waivers to use other curriculum, so be it.  spsdirectors@seattleschools.org

thus Article Science Updates for Seattle Schools

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