Thank you for the summary of legislative and other news of interest to Jews in our area. Some of us are too busy avoiding/responding to national news to keep up locally!
This seems to miss the big elephant in the room, the state education budget with plans for an ethnic studies graduation requirement, and the unanswered question of who will get the funding to be the curriculum provider.
I asked about this, and I think the answer is that maintaining funding is different than the intention of the bill last year, and that Ferguson does not seem too interested in spending money on new programs.
Lisa Wellman's bill consisted of amendments to previous legislation on graduation requirements. The first clause would have given parents and community members the right to provide inputs on any proposed new graduation requirements. The second part of the bill was the newly proposed computer science graduation requirement. In the most recent version of the bill, the first part was deleted. So now there is no specific provision or process that I can see to make sure that parents and community members can provide an input on new graduation requirements. Based on PESB's previous choice of an ethnic studies provider, I am skeptical about passing this down to layers boards and commission appointed by SBE/PESB, even though they are well-intentioned and their broad goals and concerns are admirable and based on the needs of students.
Either they dodged the question or they aren't aware of specific documents and specific approvals in public meetings that can be watched on TVW and read in the state budget bill. At the September meeting of the SBE and the Otcober 17 meeting of the SBE, which can be watched on the TVW website, they SBE endorsed an ethnic studies graduation requirement. That meeting was a beautiful meeting in which ethnic studies was described as students particiating and being heard, specifically, rural Native Americans and Black students from underprivileged backgrounds. It did not decribe how ethnic studies is funded today. The SBE approved a joint cooperation with the PESB and made a request in its letter to Gov. Inslee to move some administrative functions out of OSPI and into the PESB/SBE collaboration, which would form the boards and commissions necessary to implement their budget and programs. The superintendent is a member of SBE. He doesn't attend the meetings, His views of graduation requirements, posted on the OPSI LinkedIn page, are very different. The goal of the SBE project is to introduce graduation requirements for Mastery Based Learning. Ethnic Studies is subsumed under Mastery Based Learning, which includes cultural competency. I will have to look up the specific sections of the state education budget. I posted it on Facebook in the Israel discussion group. I wrote a long letter to the SBE saying that their meeting was beautiful, but warning them about PESB's selection of WAESN as the content provider. I sent them various social media posts. There are several issues here: (1) Should there be more graduation requirements? (2) Should administrative functions be moved out of OSPI to the SBE/PESB collaboration for them to form boards and commission to design Mastery Based Learning? (3) What is Mastery Based Learning and how is it defined with respect to cultural competencies, and how is ethnic studies defined within that purview? (4) Should there be an ethnic studies graduatation requirement? What approach should it take? Who should be a funded curriculum provider? Who should decide that? Clearly, PESB delegating it to College Spark didn't result in a very good result several yars ago. (5) What parental and community input should take place? Sen. Lisa Wellman's bill on graduation requirements contained a statement that parents and the community must have a means to comment and participate on any proposed new graduation requirements. But that clause was dropped from the next (the current) version of her bill.
This is why the superintendent is in favor of decreasing, rather than increasing, the number of graduation requirements. He is in favor of a broad range of electives, with students choosing the courses they want for their chosen career paths. And that seems to be why PESB and SBE are using the state budget bill to move adminsitrative functions out of OSPI. State Sen. Vandana Slatter introduced a nice bill that will consolidate public community college course selection for online education, so that students can choose an online course from any community college in the system and earn the credits. And since so many high school students enroll in Running Start, they can already go to community college to graduate from high school. These ideas promote a culture of choice within the public education system. Even independently of political debates, I see that the making students memorize the rules for finding the zeros of a higher order polynomial in the second semester of Algebra II is a failure mill for the students. And that kind of math is only used in specific fields of electrical engineering and physics. So the current form of the second Algebra II is not a good graduation requirement. I have seen students with disabilities suffer emotionally though social and emotional learning, which can be very ableist normative. And the specific discussion about genocide would have to be actively discussed. Not talking about it will only cause everyone to vote on the bill.
It also misses another big elephant in the room and ignores the needs of senior citizens by not advocating for opening up "WA Cares" to any current retirees to choose to enroll. In the past 5 years, legislators have catered to wealthy people who wanted a way to opt out of the program. No one is talking about how anyone should be able to choose to opt into the program. No one is talking about the on-ramp of all senior citizens to make the choose to participate. So it seems that the JCRC process has failed to stand up for Jewish senior citizens by not advocating for our ability to enroll in WA Cares and receive benefits from that program.
Thank you for the summary of legislative and other news of interest to Jews in our area. Some of us are too busy avoiding/responding to national news to keep up locally!
This seems to miss the big elephant in the room, the state education budget with plans for an ethnic studies graduation requirement, and the unanswered question of who will get the funding to be the curriculum provider.
I asked about this, and I think the answer is that maintaining funding is different than the intention of the bill last year, and that Ferguson does not seem too interested in spending money on new programs.
SB5327 graduation retuirements
this link might work for the joint SBE/PESB letter to the governor on the budget. https://sbe.wa.gov/sites/default/files/2025-01/2024PSEB-SBEJointReport_0.pdf
Here is a place to find information on Mastery Based Learning in the state budget proposal.
https://ofm.wa.gov/budget/state-budgets/gov-inslees-proposed-2025-27-budgets/agency-recommendation-summaries/350?fbclid=IwY2xjawIWFGVleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHaaCWamQtrDcu7E0JqANSr-sW236pUMFsOLWqO4_F5xQ7aejzqKSBsFW_Q_aem_bfRaBXjBG80T0B9pSeCMWQ
It looks like they are adding $2M on the Mastery Based Learning line.
This includes cultural compencies. It's not just mastering the multiplication tables.
Lisa Wellman's bill consisted of amendments to previous legislation on graduation requirements. The first clause would have given parents and community members the right to provide inputs on any proposed new graduation requirements. The second part of the bill was the newly proposed computer science graduation requirement. In the most recent version of the bill, the first part was deleted. So now there is no specific provision or process that I can see to make sure that parents and community members can provide an input on new graduation requirements. Based on PESB's previous choice of an ethnic studies provider, I am skeptical about passing this down to layers boards and commission appointed by SBE/PESB, even though they are well-intentioned and their broad goals and concerns are admirable and based on the needs of students.
Either they dodged the question or they aren't aware of specific documents and specific approvals in public meetings that can be watched on TVW and read in the state budget bill. At the September meeting of the SBE and the Otcober 17 meeting of the SBE, which can be watched on the TVW website, they SBE endorsed an ethnic studies graduation requirement. That meeting was a beautiful meeting in which ethnic studies was described as students particiating and being heard, specifically, rural Native Americans and Black students from underprivileged backgrounds. It did not decribe how ethnic studies is funded today. The SBE approved a joint cooperation with the PESB and made a request in its letter to Gov. Inslee to move some administrative functions out of OSPI and into the PESB/SBE collaboration, which would form the boards and commissions necessary to implement their budget and programs. The superintendent is a member of SBE. He doesn't attend the meetings, His views of graduation requirements, posted on the OPSI LinkedIn page, are very different. The goal of the SBE project is to introduce graduation requirements for Mastery Based Learning. Ethnic Studies is subsumed under Mastery Based Learning, which includes cultural competency. I will have to look up the specific sections of the state education budget. I posted it on Facebook in the Israel discussion group. I wrote a long letter to the SBE saying that their meeting was beautiful, but warning them about PESB's selection of WAESN as the content provider. I sent them various social media posts. There are several issues here: (1) Should there be more graduation requirements? (2) Should administrative functions be moved out of OSPI to the SBE/PESB collaboration for them to form boards and commission to design Mastery Based Learning? (3) What is Mastery Based Learning and how is it defined with respect to cultural competencies, and how is ethnic studies defined within that purview? (4) Should there be an ethnic studies graduatation requirement? What approach should it take? Who should be a funded curriculum provider? Who should decide that? Clearly, PESB delegating it to College Spark didn't result in a very good result several yars ago. (5) What parental and community input should take place? Sen. Lisa Wellman's bill on graduation requirements contained a statement that parents and the community must have a means to comment and participate on any proposed new graduation requirements. But that clause was dropped from the next (the current) version of her bill.
How are they going to teach genocide studies if enemies are accusing Israel of genocide?
This is the question of the hour.
This is why the superintendent is in favor of decreasing, rather than increasing, the number of graduation requirements. He is in favor of a broad range of electives, with students choosing the courses they want for their chosen career paths. And that seems to be why PESB and SBE are using the state budget bill to move adminsitrative functions out of OSPI. State Sen. Vandana Slatter introduced a nice bill that will consolidate public community college course selection for online education, so that students can choose an online course from any community college in the system and earn the credits. And since so many high school students enroll in Running Start, they can already go to community college to graduate from high school. These ideas promote a culture of choice within the public education system. Even independently of political debates, I see that the making students memorize the rules for finding the zeros of a higher order polynomial in the second semester of Algebra II is a failure mill for the students. And that kind of math is only used in specific fields of electrical engineering and physics. So the current form of the second Algebra II is not a good graduation requirement. I have seen students with disabilities suffer emotionally though social and emotional learning, which can be very ableist normative. And the specific discussion about genocide would have to be actively discussed. Not talking about it will only cause everyone to vote on the bill.
According to the state government website, there are three openings on the PESB. Two are for teachers and one is for a principal.
It also misses another big elephant in the room and ignores the needs of senior citizens by not advocating for opening up "WA Cares" to any current retirees to choose to enroll. In the past 5 years, legislators have catered to wealthy people who wanted a way to opt out of the program. No one is talking about how anyone should be able to choose to opt into the program. No one is talking about the on-ramp of all senior citizens to make the choose to participate. So it seems that the JCRC process has failed to stand up for Jewish senior citizens by not advocating for our ability to enroll in WA Cares and receive benefits from that program.