Comments

1
Maybe he should be superintendent.

So who is doing "mayoral" things while he runs at tangents?

This frustrates me mightily. Not city business and not strategic, just a campaign ploy.
2
Because athletes, especially high-profile basketball stars, and especially those from RBHS, care so much about academics.
3
Yeah, bribe 'em to stay in school, or to get good grades, that'll work! : P

As a society, we don't give a rat's ass about education. Credentialing is what matters. It would be nice to reach a point where everyone is honest enough with themselves to admit that...
4
Didnt a number of McGinns staff take an extended leave of absense to run the anti-Tunnel campaign? Seems kinda odd that once again the Mayor is trying to fix something he has no real power or control over and at the same time, not really leading by example.
5
So McGinn isn't going to make it past his primaries in a couple years?
6
@3,

Why couldn't it work? Society not caring about education trickles down to the students themselves. Giving them something tangible to get their butts in the seats (other than brownie points or the vague promise of a career in a decade) could potentially work, at least if it's based on improvement over time, and not just raw numbers.
7
A robocall from some celebrity to wake up in the morning is probably only slightly more effective than one of those "The More You Know" ads or some motivational cartoon of a dog in sunglasses who raps and plays basketball. Who comes up with this shite?
8
Goldy, as a former truant Seattle School alum, I can tell you that the correlation is backwards. Being forced to sit in your seat and listen to roll call, endless back talking and busy work does not lead to high graduation rates. Kids who get something from class go to class, those that don't skip. If they skip too much, they lose credit and can't graduate.

So of course there's a correlation, its built right into the policy. Those that get into the habit of skipping keep skipping until they have a better use of their time. Rather than bribing them to sit through pointless wastes of time, a better strategy would be to improve the time they are there.

IMHO, that's firing the old garbage teachers. But that's not in the cards so maybe a starbucks card will work.
9
Cause and effect is pretty relevant to argue about here. This particular theory of change seems specious on its face.
10
These comments are really something. The mayor tries to get kids to go to school regularly and with no cost of the taxpayer. And most of your commentors think this is crummy. Goldy must have the conservatives really scared because they spend so much time trolling his comments.
11
@8 That is my line of thinking on this as well. Attendance & Graduation Rate correlate because they have the same underlying cause: interest in school (specifically the teaching methods or material being taught in each class)

Those who find their classes engaging attend them and do well, those that aren't engaged are likely not to attend class (some attend even if they aren't engaged, which would explain the ~15% negative offset on graduation rates)

A study would have to be done to confirm this; though the results wouldn't be as strong as the attendance/graduation rate data, given that student engagement would be a qualitative measure.

Please wait...

Comments are closed.

Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.


Add a comment
Preview

By posting this comment, you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.