http://ppsequity.org Equity for all students in Portland Public Schools Fri, 16 May 2008 05:06:46 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en At least Mayor Potter and superintendent Smith had the courtesy to follow up on the Mayor's January week in residence at Jefferson High School. The school board -- who met at Jefferson that same week, and heard testimony from the same students and same community members about the same issues ... http://ppsequity.org/2008/05/15/oh-yeah-jefferson-high/ In an unsurprising vote Monday night, the PPS Board of Education moved to spend $1.2 million on middle school history materials, the first such adoption in over 20 years. I differ with some of my activist cohorts on the degree to which standardization is necessary to ensure equity (I'm pleased the ... http://ppsequity.org/2008/05/15/publishers-vs-librarians-pps-chooses-publishers/ These are the remarks delivered by Chief Joseph parent Peter Campbell to the PPS Board of Education Monday, May 14, 2008. –ed. The mantra behind the common curriculum adoption has been equity. A legitimate case was presented that schools have inequitable curricular offerings, i.e., "good"/rich schools have better curricular offerings than ... http://ppsequity.org/2008/05/15/common-curriculum-and-equity/ These are the remarks delivered by Peninsula parent Nicole Leggett to the PPS Board of Education Monday, May 14, 2008. --ed. Good Evening, School Board, I'm Nicole Leggett of Peninsula School. It has come to my attention that schools across the district have need of access to books. But not through another ... http://ppsequity.org/2008/05/14/remarks-to-the-school-board/ Please join Rethinking Schools colleagues from the Portland metro area to explore the tension between mandates and autonomy. What agreements need to be made so that ALL children receive a quality education? What systemic reforms put equity at the center of every decision? What agreements can teachers make to ensure ... http://ppsequity.org/2008/05/05/rethinking-schools-meeting/ Amanda Fritz, candidate for City Council seat #1, has responded to the PPS Equity questionnaire. Amanda has been involved with her neighborhood public schools for 17 years. Her daughter, a senior at Wilson, will be her third child to graduate from her neighborhood schools: Markham Elementary School, Jackson Middle School, ... http://ppsequity.org/2008/05/01/election-08-amanda-fritz/ Number of students in grades 6-8 in PPS: 9,866 Percent assigned to a traditional middle school (6-8): 55% Percent assigned to a PK-8 (or some variant): 45% Of those assigned to a traditional middle school, percent in the Cleveland, Wilson and Lincoln clusters: 57% Percent in the Jefferson, Madison and Roosevelt clusters: 8% Number of ... http://ppsequity.org/2008/04/21/a-few-facts-about-pk-8/ Terry Olson has a great post on his blog on the environmental impact of school transfers. Nobody's done a statistical survey to evaluate the number of vehicle miles traveled daily as families criss-cross the city taking their children out of their neighborhoods for school, but Terry scratches the surface by looking ... http://ppsequity.org/2008/04/16/student-transfers-and-the-environment/ With the virtually unchallenged* talk of 300,000 new residents moving to Portland, and the need to build more high-density housing near rail transit to accommodate them, it's curious that nobody talks about the role of schools in people deciding to move to a city. An article posted today in Pittsburgh's POP ... http://ppsequity.org/2008/04/16/portland-schools-did-not-measure-up/ Still touted as a way to close the achievement gap, the "small schools" model that has gutted the high schools in Portland's poorest neighborhoods is proving to be not just unpopular, but also impotent in retaining students. Seven of ten of the schools with the worst graduation rates in the metro ... http://ppsequity.org/2008/04/13/gates-small-schools-have-worst-dropout-rates-in-pps/