DREAMers Declare Undocumented Youth Mental Health Day

from RaceWire.org: the ColorLines Blog on Race and Politics by Jorge Rivas

PopoutImmigrant youth around the country are holding vigils as part of "Undocumented Youth Mental Health Day" in response to the imminent deportation of Yanelli Hernandez, a young undocumented immigrant who has attempted suicide while in detention. Hernandez is slated for deportation to Mexico today.

Last November, a DREAM Act-eligible youth named Joaquin Luna committed suicide because he was reportedly distraught about his immigration status. Activists say depression is common among undocumented youth and they're rallying to save Hernandez's life.
Hernandez was charged with a DUI last April--activists say that she turned to alcohol to deal with the depression that came with her immigration issues. She had attempted suicide first in 2009, and attempted suicide more recently in jail while incarcerated.

Luna's family has spoken out in support of Hernandez.

"I hope that ICE and the proper authorities find it in their heart to release her. She needs to be out, with her mother. Only a mother knows how to take care of her child, and also what it feels like to lose a child after we've try everything to keep them safe," Luna's mother said in a statement.
The National Immigrant Youth Alliance, which organized the nationwide vigils, also have plans to launch a 24-hr hotline in the future so that undocumented youth can reach out to fellow young immigrants. The plan is for the newly launched website, undocuhealth.org, to be a resource, and a way to address the very real mental health issues that come along with being young and undocumented.

"A lot of our very active DREAM leaders contemplated suicide or have dealt with depression, so it's a very real thing for us. We want people to know that if you're feeling that way, it's okay. There are other folks who can support you and help you," the National Immigrant Youth Alliance's Mohammad Abdollahi told Colorlines.com

"We are stepping up and identifying ourselves as undocumented, and also as survivors of depression.
We're coming out and saying it. It's a very taboo thing, and it's a very difficult thing to say, and if we never represent it, then other folks are going to feel they're doing something wrong or they don't have support."

For more information and resources visit undocuhealth.org/.

Sponsors Needed for Summer Meals Program

from OSPI - Communications

Sponsors Needed for Summer Meals Program: The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction’s (OSPI) Child Nutrition Services office is now accepting applications for sponsors of the 2012 Summer Feeding Programs for children.

Young Activists Plot the Future of the LGBT Rights Movement

from RaceWire.org: the ColorLines Blog on Race and Politics by Shani O. Hilton

A few minutes into a breakout session at last week's Creating Change LGBT equality conference in Baltimore, the presenter noted that more than 150 colleges in the U.S. have programs aimed at supporting LGBT students--but none of those schools are HBCUs.

Historically black colleges and universities, presenter Dominique McIntosh said, "are lagging behind in providing institutional support." While HBCUs have long been known for providing greater support for their students than majority-serving institutions, based on her research, she sees a different story emerging for students who fit outside of the dominant narrative of "black womanhood."

Recently, McIntosh, a professor at Smith College, conducted a focus group at a southern HBCU--she declined to say which to protect the anonymity of her subjects--and there she found that traditional themes of black womanhood like "resisting domination, respectability, and relationship to men," are being challenged by black lesbians and bisexual women, who, in addition to respectability, find "resisting stereotypes, and relationships to women" more important. These women also said traditional ideas of the positivity of sisterhood and "othermothers"--concerned female caretakers in the community--can be estranging and sometimes intrusive.

McIntosh's findings were fascinating, but of the 2200 registered attendees at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's annual conference, only about 10 sat in on her presentation.

A few doors down, dozens of young people attended a session on how to build a youth-led organization--of which there are only a few in the country. The presenter drew parallels between the National Women's Party (NWP) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), two successful youth-led organizations that found themselves frequently at odds with their more grown-up counterparts within the suffrage and civl rights movements.

Only a handful of youth-led LGBT organizations exist today. "We're a very small tribe," said Jason Landau Goodman of the Pennsylvania Student Equality Coalition. Most often, he added, larger, established LGBT advocacy groups bring in a youth voice as a token, or to represent the problems with mental health and bullying. Rarely is the resilience or proactivity of young people shown.
Audience members agreed. "Youth are portrayed as victims," one attendee said. Another added, "By the time you're no longer a youth, is when you'll have a say."

The session offered tips for creating a youth organization: fighting burnout and adultism, and recognizing privilege are key, said Goodman.

Perhaps a sign that young LGBT activists are hungry for help organizing, the conference attendees seemed to skew younger--though there were plenty of middle aged and older attendees--and they represented a wide range of racial diversity and gender identity. "Usually LGBT conferences aren't diverse at all," said Felipe Matos, a DREAM Act and LGBT activist.

And the sessions were pegged toward just about every intersection of LGBTQ identity. Of the 140 or so breakout sessions, caucuses, and open meetings on Saturday, 22 were explicitly about race. There were sessions about the black church, sex positivity and people of color, the history of Native Americans honoring "multiple gender traditions," how immigrant and LGBTQ communities can work together, and ways of reducing violence agains transgender and gender-nonconforming people of color.

The Saturday plenary session was devoted to international LGBT activism. Last week marked the one-year anniversary of the death of David Kato, a Ugandan teacher and LGBT activist who was murdered in his home after winning a lawsuit against a magazine that published his name and address--along with those of others the editors believed to be gay or lesbian.

There are positive things happening in Uganda though, activist Val Kalende told the audience. "Journalists come to Uganda and all they say is people are being arrested." But she says she's seen a "new breed of activism" in the wake of Kato's murder. "Now is the time to ask us what we need on the ground." While it's important to monitor things like the so-called "kill the gays" bill going before Uganda's parliament--it would criminalize homosexuality as an offense punishable by death or life imprisonment--supporting the activism that's happening in the country is critical.

On the domestic front, the National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC) was handing out statistics on black transgender people pulled from the results of a national survey conducted by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality. In the results, half of black transgender people in school reported being harassed, 27 percent reported physical assault, and 15 percent reported sexual assault. Twenty-one percent left school because of harassment. Six percent said they were expelled due to bias.

If one theme emerged from the people I spoke to at the conference, it was that "activating" the power of under-heard groups like people and youth of color is desperately needed. "The youth of color community doesn't feel like it has a voice," says Rodney Nickens, Jr., a senior fellow with the NBJC.
 "No one is hearing their perspective." For that, he says, Creating Change "has been phenomenal."

Sarah Audelo, the senior domestic policy manager at Advocates For Youth, an organization that promotes reproductive and sexual health for young people, agrees that young people, "and youth of color especially," aren't being heard. "I love that there is something" for youth to attend, but she adds, "I think the conference could be more intentional about how it brings youth of color together."

One suggestion? "We should have had some workshops to help youth of color organize," Audelo says. "We just expect them to come into the larger queer movement."

Helping students figure out which path to take in life

Helping students figure out which path to take in life: Today young people need help charting their path long before college.

Via Seattle Times. Follow link for full story.

White Center Heights students give feedback on new healthier school lunch options.

White Center Heights students give feedback on new healthier school lunch options.: White Center Heights students give feedback on new healthier school lunch options.

Via King County Food and Fitness Initiative. Follow link for full story.

Update on priority bills affecting homelessness

from United Way of King County Blog by Carol Wood

 

Join us on February 9, United Way Lobby Day, to advocate for these issues!

Document Recording Fee HB2048/SB 5952:
Summary: The document recording fee supports state and county approaches to preventing and ending homelessness ncluding housing vouchers, eviction prevention services, short-term housing assistance, and emergency shelter. The DRF bills extend the sunset of a $20 real estate document recording fee set to expire in 2013. The $20 fee will be extended for four years and a new temporary $10 fee (set to expire in 2015) will be added to compensate for fewer documents during the recession.
Status: This bill died in the final hours of the last session as the Senate ran out of time. The bill was reintroduced this session in the House and Senate, passed out of Senate Committee on Financial Institutions and Housing & Insurance and sent to Senate Ways and Means.

Housing Trust Fund:
Summary: The Housing Trust Fund is a capital fund that creates and preserves affordable housing in all communities across Washington State. The HTF leverages more than four times its funding from other sources and acts as a stimulus to the local economy by providing jobs. More than seventy percent of people served by Housing Trust Fund units make less than $17,540 per year, making it a vital resource in the fight to end homelessness.
Status: Thought before session to be an impossibility, the HTF is now part of a larger jobs bill package rolled out in a Wednesday press conference. Funding for Housing Trust would be $100 million.

Housing and Essential Needs (HEN):
Summary: Housing and Essential Needs (HEN) is a new program created last session and enacted in November 2011 in place of the Disability Lifeline cash assistance program. Instead of providing $197/month in cash assistance to all eligible clients who were disabled (physically and/or mentally) and temporarily unable to work, the HEN program supports housing costs for
some former DL-U clients who are eligible for Medical Care Services (MCS) because of their disability and are homeless or at risk of being homeless. The state allocation for HEN was less than half the allocation for DL-U cash assistance. Clients receiving medical care services are referred to HEN for evaluation and could be eligible to receive up to $400 in housing support as well as essential needs including bus passes.
Status: The program operates in all counties but with HEN being a relatively new program and not an automatic part of MCS, referrals are taking a while to build. With only a few months experience in running the program and smaller than anticipated expenditures, the budget for next year may be at risk.

Dealing With Less Money For Higher Education

Dealing With Less Money For Higher Education: Thursday, January 26 at 12:00 p.m. on "The Conversation"

Via the Conversation Newsletter. Follow link for full story.

The state Legislature needs to cut another billion out of the budget. How is higher education dealing with all the cuts? We talk to the chair of the House Higher Education Committee, the president of WSU and the chancellor of the Pierce Community College District.

School board tables talk about its power, votes to reopen school

School board tables talk about its power, votes to reopen school: Seattle School Board tables a proposal to define its power and votes to reopen a mothballed school to deal with overcrowding.


Via Seattle Times. Follow link for full story.

Student Voice and Student Engagement as Trojan Horses

from www.YoungerWorld.org by Adam Fletcher Sasse

 

I have a number of concerns about how I am seeing "student voice" and "student engagement" used in K-12 schools, education administration, and other settings that should benefit students to share their voices. One of the is the Trojan Horse Strategy. I call it this because in this approach educators and advocates give students a carrot by listening to their voices, when those same adults blatantly use student voice and student engagement to forward their political agendas without concern for what students are genuinely seeking.

The scariest part of the Trojan Horse is the growing pervasiveness to this approach. Too many schools, governments, and organizations are manipulating student voice to fit into their adult-driven, anti-authentic approaches to promoting particular education reform agendas.

Trojan Horse Parasites

By using the phrases "student voice" and "student engagement", educators, leaders, and advocates are implying their interest in listening to the unfettered opinions, ideas, experiences, and wisdom of students. However, their approach is similar to that of many companies that market to young people: Listening for profit. That's what many educators, leaders, and advocates hope to receive from student voice and student engagement programs: Profit. By continually uplifting the education reform agendas of adults and couching them in "student voice" and "student engagement", many people literally maintain or develop funding for their schools, or their versions of school reform. They continue to maintain or develop funding opportunities for their schools by using "student voice" and "student engagement". If that sounds greedy and parasitic, that's because it is.

Trojan Horse Authority

Most "student voice" and "student engagement" programs use anti-transparent responses to young people. This merely perpetuates the modus operandi of schools, which is to do to and for students, rather than to work with students. I conceptualized Meaningful Student Involvement precisely for the purpose of distinguishing this difference. Meaningful Student Involvement is contingent on student-adult partnerships throughout the education system. The approach advocated for by the vast majority of "student voice" and "student engagement" programs is adult-dictated, adult-agenda oriented, and ultimately will only benefit adults. These "student voice" and "student engagement" programs actually reinforce adult authority, which is antithetical to Meaningful Student Involvement.

Trojan Horse Vacuum

Ultimately, the approach of using "student voice" and "student engagement" to reinforce adults' preconceptions is the same for students as yelling into an empty well. Students speak into a vacuum where they don't know the outcomes of their contributions to educators, leaders, and advocates, and there is little or no accountability. Adults listen only when "student voice" and "student engagement" are needed, and engage students only when adults see it as necessary. Otherwise, there is little or no substantive student presence. The goal of all student engagement activities anywhere in schools should be to build the capacity of students to cause change within the education systems and communities to which they belong. Many "student voice" and "student engagement" programs actually negate students' abilities to cause that change by capturing "student voice" and "student engagement" and putting it into the hands of adults. This disengages, taking away the little authority that authentic "student voice" and "student engagement" should have. It alienates students from the process of whole school reform, and ultimately serves to extinguish any level of interest students may have in the first place.

These three approaches to "student voice" and "student engagement" have brought our schools to where they are now. By manipulating, tokenizing, and exploiting individual students' perspectives on any given topic in education, entire generations of young people have been disengaged from school reform.

The point of Meaningful Student Involvement is to re-engage students in their health of their schools and the education system.

As they stand today, the vast majority of "student voice" and "student engagement" programs only serve to help students learn about their lack of power, and reinforces the belief that the roles of young people throughout society are determined for them, and they simply need to accept what is coming down the line.

This is not what I am about, and that is what is wrong with many "student voice" and "student engagement" programs today.

Written by Adam Fletcher for CommonAction Consulting. It was originally posted at YoungerWorld.org. Contact us for more information by emailing info@commonaction.org or calling +1 (360)489-9680.

Engaging Policy Makers in Expanded Learning Opportunities

Via SOWA Live (So Alive!)

by Amanda Scott Thomas, Education Policy Director

 

On Thursday, January 12^th, School’s Out Washington (SOWA) was invited to present before the Education Appropriations and Oversight Committee for the House of Representatives in Olympia, Washington. Legislators got an overview of Expanded Learning Opportunities (ELOs), the Supporting Student Success-S3 Initiative as well as our work on the development of a new state plan for Afterschool and Youth Development (AYD). Legislators heard from SOWA staff and our partners Jonelle Adams of the Washington State School Directors Association and Jeff Soder from the Office of Superintendent of Public Instructions who spoke about their organizational interest and support for incorporating ELOs into our education system.

 

Passionate and committed education champion, Representative Kathy Haigh (35th District) and Chair of the Committee, spoke about the importance of quality in afterschool-programming that best supports Washington youth. Representative Sharon Tomiko-Santos (37^th District) commented on the importance of diversity amongst teachers and caring adults working with students. While School’s Out Washington is working to ensure equitable access to opportunity for all children and youth, SOWA recognizes that 55% of youth who are participating in afterschool and youth development programs in Washington State are youth of color; the 2012 AYD state plan will make field-level policy recommendations while highlighting ELOs as an educational equity strategy. Our work will showcase evidence-based programs that intentionally align activities and support for academic outcomes for children and youth, particularly youth of color, from low income families and those for whom English is a second language. The Legislative Work Session was another great stepping stone for Afterschool and Youth Development as an important element of effective and efficient education policy.

 

Resources:

• Jan 12 PowerPoint presentation
• ELO Policy brief.
• What do we mean by "quality" and what are we doing about it? Read the Quality Program Initiative Summary
• Additional SOWA Publications and Studies

For more information, contact: Amanda Thomas, Education Policy Director at 206-336-6922 or athomas@schoolsoutwashington.org.

Free workshops for filling out college-aid forms

Free workshops for filling out college-aid forms: High-school seniors can get free help through Jan. 31 filling out federal financial-id forms to pay for college.

Via Seattle Times. Follow link for full story.

Seattle teachers on furlough day protest against budget cuts

Seattle teachers on furlough day protest against budget cuts: Dozens of teachers turned out at six events across Seattle to show that education cuts are hurting education.

Via Seattle Times. Follow link for full story.

Promoting youth purpose: A review of the literature

Promoting youth purpose: A review of the literature:

Via New Directions for Youth Development. Follow link for full story.

Abstract

This article reviews the research literature on teaching and supporting purpose in adolescence and young adulthood. An extensive search revealed that most studies on youth purpose examine psychological correlates and neglect instructional and social supports. School is an effective context for fostering purpose, yet reported approaches for explicitly instructing for purpose are rare after the early 1990s, reflecting a trend away from a language of purpose as a discrete endeavor in education since at least the 1960s. Furthermore, research on the outcomes of early purpose instruction curricula is not present in empirical journal articles. Nevertheless, a concern for fostering youth purpose has not disappeared from education; rather, it is subsumed under approaches that foster more comprehensive positive student outcomes, such as character, civic engagement, and positive youth development. Key curricular approaches to these outcomes are therefore also reviewed and examined for insights into how purpose can be fostered.

Foundations Fail Youth By Design

Foundations Fail Youth By Design: To all the program officers cringing right now, I feel your pain.

Via YoungerWorld. Follow link for full story.

Across the United States and around the world, there has risen a particular class of nonprofit organization that insidiously, if inadvertently, promotes youth discrimination. Through their giving programs, organizational culture, and leadership structures, foundations fail young people by design, constantly and consistently.

Starting in 2000, I have worked with philanthropies of all sizes and in many capacities. My experiences speaking at regional, national, and international conferences; consulting family and corporate foundations; contracting as a writer, evaluator, and interim program officer have given me insights into the field I want to share here.

There are three major concerns I have with foundations that serve young people: 1) Authentic youth engagement; 2) The culture of philanthropy, and; 3) Sustainability.

From the largest to the smallest, there is almost no foundation in the US that authentically engages young people by design. Of the growing number of youth philanthropy programs in the 2000s, many have been eliminated in the current economic climate. Glowing reports throughout the decade touted their efficacy and sustainability. However, those reports were devoid the grim reality that while several foundations hosted youth-exclusive programs, few if any integrated youth throughout foundations. Youth-driven philanthropy was also youth-centered, and when foundations cut youth-centered giving, they cut youth boards, too. The remaining youth-driven, youth-centered foundation programs in the U.S. today rely on the beneficence of their foundation's regular governance boards to keep them intact. In such cases that their existence is secured by policy, youth are still segregated from adults. All of this severely hinders the authenticity of young people's engagement in philanthropy.

The second way foundations fail young people by design is through their cultures. There is no philanthropy in the U.S. that actively addresses the reality of adultism, which is bias toward adults. Adultism is pervasive in philanthropy, as adult-driven, adult-biased philanthropic priorities are supported by adult-driven, adult-biased research which drives adult-driven, adult-biased grantmaking, the performance of which is evaluated against adult-driven, adult-biased metrics. I can find no evidence of any foundation that employs youth in regular positions. The rarity of youth-driven decision-making in philanthropies further understates the cultural reality of philanthropy. However, the way those examples are touted goes beyond decoration and purely objectifies youth, dehumanizing their contributions and grossly under-estimating their capacities. And this is only in the formal structures of foundations. I will say little about the directors, administrative leaders, program officers, and contractors I have personally encountered throughout my career, aside from suggesting there is an inherent anti-child and youth inclusive climate throughout the entire field of philanthropy.

Which brings me to my third point about how foundations are designed to fail young people. By their very nature, these organizations perpetuate a social pattern of youth segregation that is only 100 years old. This is an unsustainable trend, one that is beginning to erode as our greater society begins to reconfigure its institutions to reflect a new and growing consensus about young people: It is absolutely vital that all children and youth become woven throughout the fabric of community, both for their sake AND ours. Their contributions to the cultural, educational, economic, and political well-being of democracy are beginning to take center stage, as evidenced by several fields including philanthropy. However, stagnation is not acceptable, now sustainable. With the evolving capacities of young people continuously demonstrating their essentialness to social transformation, surely no foundation can justify their continued segregation through the historic excuses of inability or lack of desire. And some aren't: I have heard more than one program officer say they have no interest in engaging young people as genuine partners in philanthropy. And I'm afraid that is indicative of the entire field, including boards of directors, consultants such myself, and many others. What makes this position truly unsustainable is the way foundations make it okay, even expect it of, their grantees. The organizations receiving money from foundations transmit this culture of age segregation almost unwittingly as their paternalistic funders refuse to revisit their apparent stance that young people are incapable. That is truly unacceptable, and clearly unsustainable.

Foundations fail youth by design- but there is a choice. And that's another post for a different day.

Written by Adam Fletcher for CommonAction Consulting. It was originally posted at YoungerWorld.org. Contact us for more information by emailing info@commonaction.org or calling +1 (360)489-9680.

Seattle Youth Media Workers Unite January 30

Seattle Youth Media Workers Unite January 30:

Via Digital Stoop. Follow link for full story.

As a person who deeply enjoys sharing the power of digital media with young people, it’s been an honor to work with the good folks at the Seattle Digital Literacy Initiative. They’re highly committed to teaching youth in the Seattle area about the importance of digital storytelling and how young people have more entry points into utilizing media today than ever before.

On January 30, the SDLI folks in conjunction with the forward thinking people at Brown Paper Tickets are putting on a Youth Media Educators Mixer at 7pm that is meant to get all of the various youth media teachers and facilitators around the area in one room to talk shop, share resources and get to know another. How often does that happen around these parts? Hardly ever. Possibly never. So if working with young people and teaching them anything from radio, audio, video, social media or anything media related gets you excited, then this event is for you. I’ll surely be there and look forward to meeting new people.

Please RSVP with Sabrina Roach, Brown Paper Ticket’s Radio/New Media Doer at sabrina@brownpapertickets.com or by phone at 206.218.6416.

Grant finding made easy!

Grant finding made easy!: Grant finding made easy!

Via King County Food and Fitness Initiative. Follow link for full story.

http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-ash2/373636_119012390980_204491020_q.jpg

SPARK Programs
Our grand finder tool is your best resource for locating national and state-specific grants for your physical education, after school, early childhood or coordinated school health program. Grants can be used for curriculum, teacher training, or equipment. http://bit.ly/wpJmvB

Family Engagement in Early Education: A Resource Guide for Early Learning Challenge Grant Recipients

Family Engagement in Early Education: A Resource Guide for Early Learning Challenge Grant Recipients:

Via HFRP News. Follow link for full story.

A curated list of journal articles, practical guides, webinars, and presentations for those interested in strengthening their early childhood education programs and partnerships with families.

Some ideas for large districts hoping to improve school breakfast participation.

Some ideas for large districts hoping to improve school breakfast participation.: Some ideas for large districts hoping to improve school breakfast participation.

Via King County Food and Fitness Initiative. Follow link for full story.


Spotlight: Breakfast-in-the-Classroom Success in Memphis City Schools Part 1 beyondbreakfast.org

Ideas on promoting social inclusion of teens with disabilities

Via the Globe and Mail (Toronto). Follow link for full story.

Child psychologist Anthony Wolf offers suggestions for easing social interactions among teens with Asperger's syndrome and other conditions that can cause social difficulties and their peers who do not have disabilities. Explaining potential difficulties to students without disabilities, ensuring that all children are including in various activities, and modeling inclusive and respective behavior are among his suggestions. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

Tell the Library about Afterschool

Tell the Library about Afterschool:

Via SOWA Live (So Alive!)

Billie Young, one of the founders of SOWA, asked us to spread the word about Seattle Public Library survey. Here are her thoughts:

"Here is a link to the Seattle Public Library survey. I want to encourage everyone to make your thoughts known.

And, here's a special plea ot my friends in school age care: please spread the word for folks to fill out the survey and make comments about afterschool in libraries. I've been hearing from my librarian friends that they are feeling intimidated by some of the especially older youth frequenting the library. As you know, libraries have had to be afterschool programs, though they are ill-equipped and inadequately staffed to do this work. What creative ideas do you have? How could School's Out partner with libraries and librarians? What could community members, organizations and afterschool programs do to help? Thanks for lending your creative brains to this question!"

A Fear of Students?

A Fear of Students?:

Via CommonAction. Follow link for full story.

I don't write this lightly. After all these years of teaching educators and education administrators about student voice, student engagement, and my frameworks of meaningful student involvement, I'm led to believe there's something more insidious behind the reluctance to not engage students as partners in learning, teaching, and leading in schools. I'm led to believe that there is a pervasive fear of students among adults in the education systems.

Sharing my frameworks, which focus on integration, efficacy, and sustainability for meaningful student involvement, I frequently have seen an almost knee-jerk reaction. Teachers and principals and counselors all recoil against the notion that students of any grade and any ability can be full partners with adults. They tell stories, collected from years of experience, about the incapabilities of learners. They focus on the few students who've routinely disappointed/upset/frightened them, and generalize across all their experience as if all students have this inability.

Education leaders, namely the building leaders, district and state administrators, and elected officials who guide schools, scoff when introduced to the notion of meaningful student involvement. And I'm talking about my decade-plus experience in small meetings and gigantic conferences, safe places and very public platforms. The reaction is almost always the same: No way!

To be fair, my advocacy for engaging student voice doesn't stop with student government, using technology in classrooms, or other tokenistic gestures. I am talking about the full-scale integration of students as partners in curriculum, classroom management, building culture, and educational leadership. I am challenging the dominant paradigm which is satisfied with the placated, suffocated segregation of students fro mainstream society, who in the meantime are suffering from inadequate skills and knowledge preparation for their future- not ours.

It's kinda ridiculous.

Our public schools are on the brink of whole scale irrelevance, and we're ignoring the very people who could fix the problem, the very people who are most affected: students themselves.

The fear of young people is a tricky phenomenon that positions students as the habitual "Other". This role makes them different and alien to adults. It's both dehumanizing and fetishizing, as adults see students as too foreign, too far out to support. This is why school levies are failing at a rate American society had never seen before. This is why the sneaky tendrils of privatization are reaching further into public schools than ever before.

Adults must reclaim our children and youth, not by insisting they be more like us, but by acknowledging their birthright, affirming their inheritance, and reinforcing our own support for them. We need educational campaigns that teach adults about our connectivity and caringness for young people, and how that's beneficial for all of society. We need social and cultural opportunities for young people and adults to work together to generate and transmit culture and society together.

We need to reclaim our futures, together.

Written by Adam Fletcher for CommonAction Consulting. It was originally posted at YoungerWorld.org. Contact us for more information by emailing info@commonaction.org or calling +1 (360)489-9680.

Survey data show South Seattle parents less happy with schools

Survey data show South Seattle parents less happy with schools: Some point to results as evidence of the work Seattle Public Schools has to do to improve student achievement in poorer parts of the city.

Via Seattle Times. Follow link for full story.

2012 Legislative Bill Summaries

2012 Legislative Bill Summaries:

Via Alliance for Education. Follow link for full story.

Two bills focused on education were introduced in the Washington State legislature yesterday. One centers on promoting instructional excellence, the other on transformation zones and charters. The Excellent Schools Now Coalition (of which the Alliance is a member) has endorsed the former and has not taken a position on the latter.

Summaries posted here for your convenient review...

Bill #1: A Bill to Promote and Support Instructional Excellence in Public Schools

The single biggest in-school factor affecting student success is the quality of instruction. Establishing policies that support and advance educators, based on professional evaluations of performance, will help ensure every student has the opportunity to achieve academic success and earn a family-wage job.

Washington is currently piloting an evaluation system for educators that will be completed in June 2012 and implemented statewide in the 2013-14 school year.

This legislation would put in place a system that uses the new evaluations to help determine school, classroom, and educator needs. Evaluation results would be used to identify professional development opportunities to support educators who need additional help and bolster the skills of high-performers.

By supporting educators who need additional help, and bolstering skills of high-performers, we hope to ensure improved educational achievement for every student.

Key elements of the bill include:

• Supporting teachers and principals by aligning professional development activities with individualized needs identified in their performance evaluation.
• Using multiple measures of student learning in the evaluations of teachers and principals.
• Allowing principals to hire and place teachers based on performance and skills match, as well as seniority.
• Using locally bargained polices to layoff teachers and principals based on performance.
• Granting continuing contracts (“tenure”) based on performance.
• Establishing a rigorous but fair dismissal process for teachers and principals rated ineffective if they have not improved after receiving targeted, individualized, intensive professional development, coaching and support.

To support the implementation of the evaluation system and these polices, the state should provide resources for:

• Training principals to use the evaluation system and how to objectively evaluate teacher performance.
• Training teachers on the evaluation system and how to participate most effectively.
• Expanding principal mentorship to ensure good leadership at the school level and effective use of the evaluation system.

Bill #2: A Bill to Close the Opportunity Gap

In Washington, students from low-income families and students of color have fewer academic and economic opportunities than the population as a whole – and the problem is getting worse. The opportunity gap is created by inequitable access to quality schools, educators and educational programs, as well as the inequitable allocation of resources across communities. Too often, a student’s zip code dictates the student’s academic and career opportunities.

No student should be forced to stay in a chronically under-performing school. Additional opportunities should be given to these students, through two proven, outcomes-based alternatives.

Establish a Transformation Zone. Build on Washington’s existing intervention authority in the lowest-performing schools by creating a Transformation Zone. This zone should oversee the supervision, development and encouragement of school improvement efforts, which includes:

• Contracting out the management of low-performing schools– to proven learning management organizations.
• Requiring the use of performance contracts and revoking contracts if building managers fail to meet them.
• Allowing flexible use of funds to implement innovative reforms, such as strategic staffing, longer school year, longer school days and technology-based learning.
• Recognizing employees’ rights to collectively bargain.
• Attracting the best teachers by providing increased support and autonomy.
• Attracting high-performing principals to work in Transformation Zone schools through increased autonomy and flexibility to manage budgets, time and curriculum; and to hire, assign, reassign and dismiss staff.

Authorize Public Charter Schools. Forty-one states allow public charter schools; Washington does not. In many of these states, non-profit charter management operators (CMOs) have succeeded where traditional public schools have not—especially at closing opportunity gaps.

In recent years, the research on charter school effectiveness has grown, enabling us to identify effective providers and practices through data. The data show that, if properly managed, charters are an effective alternative for students in chronically under-performing schools.

Washington should establish a public charter school law that learns from other states’ experiences and replicates best practices:

• Require the majority of public charter schools to focus on serving educationally disadvantaged students.
• Require public oversight by, and accountability to, the State Board of Education.
• Recognize employees’ rights to collectively bargain.
• Require open student enrollment to prevent discrimination or cherry-picking
• Require admission by a fair, a transparent and an equitable lottery system, when demand is greater than capacity.
• Allow only qualified, public benefit non-profit organizations governed by boards of directors, to operate public charter schools.
• Limit the number of public charter school authorizers.
• Establish a public charter school cap.
• Establish a rigorous process for closing poor-performing public charter schools.

Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative — Digital Storytellers

Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative — Digital Storytellers:

Via Digital Stoop. Follow link for full story.

Occasional Seattle media-maker Amber Cortes just sent me an email reminding me to check out the homepage for the Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative. She designed it using a simple WordPress theme and encouraged youth to use the platform to tell their own stories.

Guess what? That’s exactly what they’re doing. I’ll share just one video that’s up on the site, but seriously, anyone who want to see how empowered youth can feel when they tell their own stories rather than have others speak for them, hit up the SYVPI homepage and use it as a teaching model if nothing else.

More seats opening at the UW for in-state applicants

More seats opening at the UW for in-state applicants: A Washington student's chances of getting into the University of Washington are much better than they were last year.

Via Seattle Times. Follow link for full story.

Preliminary data shows Attendance Campaign is helping kids get to school

Preliminary data shows Attendance Campaign is helping kids get to school:

Via Mayor Mike McGinn. Follow link for full story.

Preliminary data suggests the Be Here. Get There. attendance campaign launched in September by Mayor Mike McGinn and Seattle Public Schools is producing results, with the rate of students missing school at its lowest level in five years. This data comes as the City of Seattle and Seattle Public Schools announce new incentives in their ongoing attendance campaign, including a partnership with the Harlem Globetrotters.

“The preliminary data from our attendance campaign is encouraging. This is good news and supports our recently doubled Families & Education Levy. I thank all of our community partners, especially the students, parents, teachers and administrators who are making this effort possible,” said Mayor McGinn.

“I’m happy to see the attendance campaign adding value to our work,” said Interim Superintendent Susan Enfield. “Absentee rates are lower so far this year, compared to previous years. As we continue into the second half of the school year, we’ll continue to recognize classrooms across the District that improve attendance.”

To re-energize students and parents after the holidays, with the hopes of improving Average Daily Attendance, the Be Here. Get There. campaign has partnered with the Harlem Globetrotters for a short-term challenge to elementary schools. For the entire month of January, the school with the best attendance record will receive a visit from a Harlem Globetrotter and an assembly for the entire school. Additionally, each high school will receive a prize pack with four Harlem Globetrotters tickets and a free large pizza donated by Papa Murphy’s to raffle off in the month of January. The Harlem Globetrotters will be in Seattle this February as part of the 2012 Harlem Globetrotters World Tour. Visit www.Harlemglobetrotters.com for more details.

The elementary school classroom with the most improved Average Daily Attendance in their school will receive coupons for Mini-Murph pizzas from Papa Murphy’s. Winning classrooms will receive prizes throughout the spring generously donated by various sponsors. A list of sponsors includes Molly Moons Ice Cream, Pacific Science Center, Pike Street Fish Fry, Seattle Aquarium, Seattle Children’s Theatre, Showbox, Neumos, Starbucks, Experience Music Project, Cupcake Royale, Raleigh Bicycles, Seattle International Film Festival, Microsoft, Trophy Cupcakes, Phyllis Catering, Amazon, Google, Pagliacci Pizza, Seattle Symphony, Seattle Center, KEXP, KUBE 93.3 and KISS 106.1 FM, and Target.

Fletcher's Rules of Personal Engagement

Fletcher's Rules of Personal Engagement:

There is more to living than getting good jobs, living opulently, going exotic places, or being an extravagant person. More than ever, people around the world are wondering how to live meaningful lives filled with substance, depth, and a different kind of success than what marketers sell. People want to know how to become deeply engaged within themselves. After learning from thousands of workshop participants over the last decade, I have discovered five important rules for personal engagement.

Fletcher's Rules of Personal Engagement

Rule #1: Personal engagement is for everyone.

Every person in every home in every community around the world should become engaged in themselves.

It doesn't matter how old you are, how much money you have or don't have, or where you live; None of these should be barriers to personal engagement. Instead, these are points to build on and learn from. Personal engagement is an active, intentional process whereupon everybody everywhere can become purposefully compelled as humans.

Rule #2: Personal engagement does not end inside ourselves.

Everybody should be active within their families and throughout their communities. Personal engagement goes far beyond meditation or self-study or listening to music or writing poetry. Making roles for ourselves through democratic action, powerful cultural expression activities, and meaningful experiences of freedom of speech throughout society opens the doors and sustains personal engagement. Personal engagement can happen in our homes, when we play, through relationships with others, and throughout our lives.

Rule #3: Every person should feel responsible for their own engagement.

Only through the constant self-encouragement and self-focus will each of us feel there is a real place within ourselves to connect to, our Heartspace. Personal engagement extends beyond our own interests, and every single person in our lives is a reflection of that. However, nobody else is responsible for it. Every person should feel that self-engagement is their own responsibility.

Rule #4: Engage a person in an experience and they’ll connect with that time; teach people how to engagement throughout themselves and they will engage for a lifetime.

Learning to engage in our lives is something many people want to do without every knowing that is what they want to do. This is literally why we "get engaged" before we get married- to want to have a sustained connection in our lives, and that's (minimally) what marriage should be. Good teachers actually aspire to engage their students in learning without every being explicit in their intentions; good doctors, health; good authors, stories; good bosses, work. Every person should develop their own understanding of what engages them in life. If you want to engage another person, take a constructivist perspective about the nature of engagement, the purpose of teaching, and the arch of lifelong personal engagement. We live this life from cradle to grave in order to become engaged; teaching others to do that requires more than simply doing; it requires facilitating. There is a difference.

#5: Personal engagement is never done.

Will Rogers once said, “Even if you’re on the right track you’ll get run over if you don’t move.” We live in a world of transition and transformation. Everyone of us changes with the times whether we do it intentionally or not, whether we acknowledge it or not. It is hardwired in our Heartspace to understand that if we do the same old things we've always done, we’ll always get what we've always got. As society constantly changes, we do. Many people have told me that their lives have changed more in the last 5 years than at any other point in their lives. Society is evolving faster than ever, right now. That gives people who want to engage others a lot of opportunities to become personally engaged within themselves. Along the way, we can transform our homes, our organizations and businesses, our governments, and our society in order to truly engage every single person in every single community around the world. Personal engagement is at the core of every single person's life, and that should be how we engage with every single person, all the time.

Those are my rules of personal engagement. What are yours?

Written by Adam Fletcher for CommonAction Consulting. It was originally posted at YoungerWorld.org. Contact us for more information by emailing info@commonaction.org or calling +1 (360)489-9680.

Statement from State Superintendent Randy Dorn on the new Quality Counts Report

Statement from State Superintendent Randy Dorn on the new Quality Counts Report: Today, Education Week released Quality Counts, an annual report on how states compare in education. Below is a statement from State Superintendent Randy Dorn on the report.

Via OSPI. Follow link for full story.

UW freshmen enter with higher grades and SAT scores

UW freshmen enter with higher grades and SAT scores: The University of Washington has released its annual profile of freshman and transfer statistics for the autumn 2011 quarter.

Via Seattle Times. Follow link for full story.

New Policies Should Align With Existing Goals and Plans for Children and Youth

New Policies Should Align With Existing Goals and Plans for Children and Youth:

policy_series.jpg

To have a collective impact on child and youth outcomes, leaders must develop and implement a broad, long-term child and youth strategy, and be accountable for results. This can be a challenge. Policies often require the creation of strategic plans that are organized around a single, narrow topic. Instead of working toward collective impact, policy leaders end up generating separate sets of goals and plans, which fragment their efforts.

Via The Forum for Youth Investment. Follow link for full story.

5 Schools, One District Named STEM Lighthouse Schools

5 Schools, One District Named STEM Lighthouse Schools: A total of five schools and an entire district will be serving as Science, Technology, Engineering and Math mentors to other schools in the state.

Via OSPI. Follow link for full story.

Report Outlines Guide for Evaluating Afterschool Programs (Education News, 12/16/11)

Report Outlines Guide for Evaluating Afterschool Programs (Education News, 12/16/11)

Via HFRP. Follow link for full story.

Scholarships not for illegal-immigrant students?

Scholarships not for illegal-immigrant students?: Illegal-immigrant high-school students, who signed up for the state's College Bound scholarship as a way of paying for college, are finding it and many other public and private scholarships out of their reach.

Via Seattle Times. Follow link for full story.

New sex education standards released

New sex education standards released: Young elementary school students should use the proper names for body parts and, by the end of fifth grade, know that sexual orientation is "the romantic attraction of an individual to someone of the same gender or a different gender," according to new sexual education guidelines released Monday by a coalition of health and education groups.

Via Seattle Times. Follow link for full story.

Debate on Length of School Day

Debate on Length of School Day:

Via SOWA Live (So Alive!)

Janet Frieling, Network Director, commented on two nationally focused articles last week regarding increases in the length of the school day. She wrote to describe the benefits of high quality afterschool, the situation in Washington State, and to clarify different uses of "expanded learning."

From today's Afterschool Snack, the blog of the Afterschool Alliance: "Should Schools Have Longer Days at the Expense of Afterschool?"

"That was the topic of a debate in The Washington Post's Answer Sheet blog last Wednesday. The entry featured a point-counterpoint between Afterschool Alliance Executive Director Jodi Grant and Jennifer Davis of the National Center on Time and Learning on using 21st Century Community Learning Center program funds to extend the length of the school day at the expense of afterschool programs." Continue reading the Afterschool Alliance's full blog entry on the debate...

Janet's Response:

"I agree that our children and youth deserve a much better education than what is currently being offered in most schools across our country however I am not convinced that extending the time within the current model will get us the results we so desperately need. Afterschool and youth development programs funded with 21st Century Community learning center dollars are currently offering experiential learning opportunities to thousands across the country. There are very few dedicated resources to support this effort of aligned and supportive learning done in partnerships with schools and community based organizations. Let's not take away critical resources that have a proven track record to invest in efforts that can be covered with other funding sources and may or may not deliver results." (As posted in Washington Post comments).

Lucy N. Friedman, president of TASC (The After-School Corporation.), also discussed the issue last week on 50can.org in a post "Twelve Reasons to Expand Learning Time":

"ExpandED Schools is a promising approach to re-inventing public schools that are struggling to deliver on the promise of high-quality education for all students. We add roughly three hours to the traditional school day by partnering schools with experienced community youth-serving organizations, like YMCAs, that fully participate in planning and staffing the longer learning day." Continue...

Janet's response:

"If all states had charter schools, additional financial resources and strong community based partners this is a truly an innovative idea. In Washington State, we support 'expanded learning opportunities' that are delivered outside of the traditional school day and as one of many supports that can help youth succeed in life. We have many programs in our state that use innovative learning methods and complement the school day content because community based organizations have strong integrated partnerships. In many of our communities resources for longer school days are just not possible and many are looking at shortening the school week to cut costs. We need to do a better job of delivering a high quality educational experience.

Indeed, we know that schools can't do everything as Ms. Friedman points out, yet both the afterschool and the in-school professionals play equally important and unique roles in student success. It would be wonderful if all kids in all schools had access to the resources that ExpandEd school have!"

Paving the way for youth's success

Paving the way for youth's success: Atlantic Street Center's youth-development program, supported by The Seattle Times Fund For The Needy, offers academic support and leadership training for disadvantaged kids in Seattle's NewHolly neighborhood.

Via Seattle Times. Follow link for full story.

Gates study: Once-a-year teacher evaluations not enough

Gates study: Once-a-year teacher evaluations not enough: Annual evaluations aren't enough to help teachers improve, and school districts using infrequent classroom observations to determine their best and worst teachers could be making some big mistakes, according to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Via Seattle Times. Follow link for full story.

Best Illustrated Books of 2011

Best Illustrated Books of 2011:

Via United Way

The illustrations in children’s books are often as engaging and imaginative as the stories. Many people maintain memories of Harold and his purple crayon, or the wild things among the trees. Click below for the New York Times selection for the best illustrated children’s books of 2011.

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/the-2011-best-illustrated-books/

High court: State isn't fully funding education

High court: State isn't fully funding education: Education advocates are hoping a Washington State Supreme Court decision Thursday will prevent further cuts in funding for public education.

Via Seattle Times. Follow link for full story.

Seattle residents give their local schools a thumbs up

Seattle residents give their local schools a thumbs up: A telephone survey conducted in November shows that local schools and Interim Superintendent Susan Enfield are much more popular than the Seattle School Board or the district's central administration.

Via Seattle Times. Follow link for full story.