Good News, Science Students: We're Fighting Back!

In May, the Seattle Public School District voted to spend $9 million on a new Science curriculum  called Amplify Science for K-12 and another called CarbonTime for High School. 

This science curriculum adoption process lacked proper oversight, objectivity, and integrity.
In response, an appeal has been filed against the District. 

The District failed to follow their own policy and state law in the adoption process, and as a result, taxpayers and parents were misled and misinformed. Those who conducted the process put themselves in charge of overseeing their own work, and bypassed mandated Board approval. In doing so, the Board failed to provide oversight of the required legal process for curriculum decisions.

The outcome of this flawed process is that:

--The materials are costly, computer-based, and provide minimal hands-on learning.
--$9 million is a conservative estimate of what this will actually cost the District, and ultimately, the taxpayers of Seattle. Amplify's science curriculum uses no physical textbooks, and requires major IT upgrades to function on District computers.  Professional development and support to implement also will incur additional fees.
--Additionally, "lab kits" are the only "hands-on" portion of the curriculum, and they cost extra. 
--The developers of CarbonTime admitted in their own research that CarbonTime does not work well for students in higher-poverty schools  : “CarbonTime was less successful in higher-poverty schools with fewer organizational resources. The school percentage of free and reduced lunch was negatively associated with class-average learning gain." 

We believe that the District should be held accountable for doing their job ethically and responsibly and we have a skilled attorney ready to help us.

We are not seeking monetary compensation, only to hold the District responsible for following their own processes and state law.

Consider the testimony of two recently retired Seattle Public Schools Science teachers:

"The science curriculum revisions shamed this school district in both substance and process. Established rules, procedures, accounting practices and the school board itself were blatantly disregarded. In the school setting, scheduling, budgeting, enrollments, college admissions concerns, as well as the deep professional experience of science teachers was equally disregarded. Even worse, the experience and feedback from students and parents on much of the content was shamefully disregarded.  The process was so lacking in the standards of transparency that we expect for our school community that we can only hope that such a process is never again repeated."

Eric Muhs
former SPS science teacher (retired)
AAPT Washington Physics Teacher of the Year 2013
former Science Dept Chair

Dewey Moody, PhD
former SPS science teacher (retired)
former Science Dept Chair


In order to pursue this lawsuit, however, we need support from our community.  Please feel free to share this with friends, neighbors, and concerned citizens.

**Please consider a donation to offset the costs of our legal fees.  Any sized donation is appreciated.**

Many thanks.