“That’s Bullshit!”

So now believe the EIS is accurate and honest.

@3 Comparing these reports is largely comparing apples to oranges and not very useful. The reports do however raise one important question that deserves some serious study. Why are some schools in mostly white, high income areas successful with students who are on free or reduced lunch while other schools with the same demographic, ie. mostly white, high income areas, unsuccessful with FRL students? The answer to that question could be very illuminating because this is a comparison of apples to apples.

If you look hard enough in that EIS, back near the appendices and attachments, you will find approximately 5 years worth of specially formulated Kool-Aid mix.

Just drink it and stop asking questions already.

Yes, that’s bullshit. However, the emotive force of Gates’ point was utternly lacking in his campaign which tried to make its case with things like debating notions of progressive and regressive taxes, the fairness of tax policy and other abstractions instead of telling the story of a $30K income family with one kid about to drop out of community college and a parent on basic health versus a Ballmer family with $5M in income for whom the high income earners tax would mean 5 weeks a year at sun valley instead of six. There also has to be a long term messaging plan given that since Reagan the right wing has consistently messaged govt is theft while the D’s have failed to make the case the right wing is theft and govt. spending benefits you and you and you and you and you while it should be paid for by just him. You can’t wage class warfare with the wonky policy arguments the campaign was built on; stats are not a message. We always hear the tale, mythical as it is, of some high earner who is about to move to a nonincome tax state or a small business crippled by taxes. I didn’t hear one single tale in the 1098 campaign about David the janitor or Mary the true small business owner running a cleaning company with one employee herself and paying $2K a year in state and local on her income of $22K which means no heat in the winter and no busfare for her 15 year old kid to get to a part time job at jack in the box meaning they can’t pay for a visit to the dentist so she works in pain so that Steve Ballmer has take home pay of $4,300,000 instead of $4,200,000.

point four: the AWV impact on parking supply has been known for a few years. the planned first hill streetcar would also take out about 250 parking spaces. together, the two projects will reduce the supply of parking in downtown and on First Hill. it would make both the commercial parking tax increase and the parking meter increases even more sensible. good pricing is needed to ration scarce goods.

#3: What are the levels of per-student funding at all these schools, and is there any disparity between this at south end versus north end schools? I would hope the spending ratios are near uniform, but I suspect that’s not the case.

#4: Another reason why Conlin has abdicated his duties to Seattle overall to sell out to a handful of interests. Seriously, what next? “BREAKING: TUNNEL VOWS TO EAT CHILDREN, CITY COUNCIL ENDORSES” ?

All that map shows me is how failing schools are near areas where there are too many single mothers and where pockets of local culture don’t support education for their kids.

Oh, it also shows areas in red where the SPS spends MORE per-student.

Joe – you got this one wrong. You want to spend more per student in underperforming schools in general (extra tutoring, more instructional assistants, after school enrichment programs, custom curriculum, etc.). On top of that, you’ll also have expenditures that may not show up in school district budget because they come from other orgs (in school health clinics, for example).

Ignore, meant as reply above.

I realize all that — I’m asking if the per student spending at the under performing schools is at least an even ratio with the ‘good’ schools.

Joe, I suspect one of the larger disparities among our schools is the level of parent and outside support they have. Some PTSA’s have been enormously successful in raising money that goes to additional staffing and support for students, while others have no functioning PTSA’s at all, let alone one out raising money.

Unfortunately, the schools’ report cards omit any reference to this factor.

You can find the spending level per student by school at the Seattle Public School web site. I looked at them yesterday, and yes the District does spend more per student in the South End schools.

Perfect Voter hits the nail on the head. The big difference is in PTSA funding. At many schools in more well to do neighborhoods in Seattle the PTSA raises hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. That money goes towards capital improvements, hiring teachers, new books and computers, and many other needs. At many South End schools the PTSA raises less than $25,000 annually.

It is not just money, either. Working class parents often have less flexibility to volunteer in schools and fewer personal contacts that can help with school projects.

This is why we must invest more in schools without the parent resources.

True. What is it about Northgate Elementary that it performs similar to schools in the south end?This would be a neighborhood school for me by the district map but it is actually a little further away than Broadview.

It has also been known that people tend to not take their cars with them onto the bus going downtown.
The legislature needs to step up to the Transit component of Tunnel+Transit.

Re 3, you would get better data out of parent participation numbers in PTA than dollars per student.
Poor kids parents can’t afford to take time off work to spend time with the school.
The way PTA compensates for school programs would be another factor. Paying for part of the art teacher, or librarian that otherwise would be part time-split between two schools matters.
The poorer schools should have more teacher’s assistants.

Two of my kids go to an elementary school where the PTSA raises a significant amount of money. One of the best things about this, and why I give what I can, is that their number one funding priority is tutors for kids that struggle.

One of the surprising things to me is how quickly the monetary support disappears when the kids go to middle school. As an example, the four elementary schools that feed into the middle school in my area raise, collectively, near $300K a year. The middle school, on the other hand, struggles to raise less than $50K. I suspect that one of the primary drivers is that people that can afford to send their kids to private schools use the public elementary schools (where they are good and small), and then send their kids to private school after that. In our neighborhood, we are hoping that the new student assignment plan reverses that trend. But, I also recognize that it will exacerbate that trend in areas that have only struggling schools as public options.

Poverty, 87% of students at Northgate are on Free or Reduced Lunch and 39% are English Language learners, English is not spoken at home or is second language.

Beyond the money is the time on top of the PTSA money.
For a couple years I was able to be the parent voluntee for Friday after school chess. An hour a week, almost every week, for about 2 years.
My kids old school had a couple things going after school every day. We paid the chess teacher, a college student.
That is not in any of the districts reports.

I agree 100%. My daughter just entered middle school and their PTSA raised $25,000 last year. And I know many of our fellow elementary parents who opted for private schools.

In our neighborhood, the new assignment plan makes things worse. In West Seattle now, if you live on the wealthier water side of 35th, you go to West Seattle High. If you live on the Delridge side of 35th, you go to Sealth. An north-south line would have mixed the schools better.

I think the school district is either incompetent or isn’t sharing their strategy. Either is distressing.

Like ratcity said. It’s poverty. But besides that, school funding tends to be directly tied to property taxes and property values in this country. So you have a situation where funding is not evenly distributed. Richer people get better education while poor people (who already are burdened), get less.

And I just realized I was wrong. Damn. Oh well then.

@1 – Nice to know that swing voters are clueless and apathetic– am I the only person who finds that ignorant? Is there never any middle ground between left (‘if you don’t vote like me, you’re ignorant’) and right (‘stay away from my money but give me yours’)?

Right. The one element that seems to be missing in all these school reports is the level of parental involvement. And how on earth is the school district expected to fix that? It seems like no one wants to point the finger at parents.

And I should say — it’s not all about money. A PTSA that raises lots of money also indicates parents who are heavily involved in their children’s classwork as well. So money aside, what do you do to get more parental involvement in lower-performing schools?

um….in 2008 swing voters went for obama who said he’d do health care and finance regulation and stimulus. Then the GOP scared them into thinking that stuff doesn’t work. So they swung GOP in 2010.

No, there really isn’t any middle ground on this issue:
a. you get out of economic doldrums thru bigger govt and more regulation and taxation

b. you get out of economic doldrums thru smaller govt. let rich have more it will trickle down to the poor.

(Hint: how did we get out of that depression again, was it thru cutting taxes, reducing deficits and letting the private sector have its way? was THAT how we got out of the great depression? No? then how did we?)

By going to war.

How about raising your bus fares – buses once an hour, is that rare enough?

I was against the initiative but I agree with you wholeheartedly about what a poor campaign it was. I’d be for it if it eliminated the sales tax instead of reducing some difficult-to-quantify property tax.

You’re absolutely right.

I thought the Dems would get the messaging thing after 2004, but they didn’t. They just go on and on, explaining and reasoning and blahblahblah and people tune out and hear the Republicans’ punchy but incorrect one-sentence slogan repeated a million times, and vote accordingly.

Funding of school perks (or necessities) by that school’s PTSA should be forbidden, especially now that Seattle schools are going back to a neighborhood enrollment pattern. Schools in poor neighborhoods won’t have a chance if the kids are no longer bused out to schools in neighborhoods with resources. Schools aren’t supposed to be supported by parents to begin with. If the districts want to continue that practice, then whatever’s donated should go equally to all schools in that district (which will probably stop the practice anyway, since parents want their money to go to their own childrens’ school).

and the likelihood of that is…

I think it’s both. Remember their demographic data has been horrible for years, and their long-term ‘planning’ in terms of handling their assets has been almost as bad. I also think they have a ‘neighborhood school’ “vision” with no clue how to implement same.

Another “senior moment” for the elder Gates I guess. He should either write a check to the state or move to California, where he can bask under their high income taxes. The income tax is a dumb idea, even to economically literate progressives. It will never pass in Washington because we are too smart.

Wealth isn’t a zero sum game. High taxes and high regulation only help the large and powerful. If you want a prosperous economy for all, less taxes, less regulation, and less roadblocks are the answer. High taxes, high regulation, and large govt. gets in the way of all sorts of freedom, including commerce and entrepreneurship.

You cite the Great Depression above, yet big govt. was what prolonged it. And regulation (on trade) is what caused it!

Original Recipe Bill Gates should follow his own advice then and not reduce property taxes on his son’s mansion, as he tried to do in 1098.

I invite, Mr. Gates, Esq, to formulate a fair and balanced asset-based tax, with properties assessed under Fair Use, and to remove the restriction on taxing Intellectual Property, such as Software — which is currently untaxable.

1. Correlation probably doesn’t equal causation here. Donors at an event usually make their donations in advance or show up with their donations ready. Gates’ speech probably didn’t have much of a hand in wringing $140K out of EOI’s rich donors: Most of that money would have dropped if Gates had gone up to the podium and given a pedestrian speech.

@ Gomez

Every fundraiser has an “ask” at the end when attendees are encouraged to write another check. For many fundraisers, this is where the big money comes in, ESPECIALLY if there is a moving speech/video/etc.