Seattle sets new academic targets for students

The Seattle School Board adopted a measure that aims to increase the percentage of students who meet or exceed second-grade literacy standards and sixth-grade math proficiency by 10 percentage points over the next five years.

Using 2024 data, this would mean boosting the target percentages for second-grade literacy from 56.5% this year to 65.5% in 2030 and sixth-grade math proficiency from roughly 56% to 66% between June 2025 and June 2030. The baseline and outcome percentages will likely change after spring test scores are released.

The resolution, which passed by a 5-2 vote on Wednesday, calls for increasing the percentage of students who graduate from high school prepared to enroll in postsecondary education or enter the workforce. The board has not yet set baseline data and targets for this goal.

Board Vice President Evan Briggs and Director Michelle Sarju voted against the measure, which had been revised from an earlier version introduced in December. President Gina Topp, Liza Rankin, Joe Mizrahi, Brandon Hersey and Sarah Clark voted for it.

Briggs said the targets were too low but hopes the district can surpass the goals in a few years and keep going.

“I just feel that it’s unacceptable for us to set a goal that leaves nearly a third of second-graders lacking in foundational literacy skills,” she said.

“Just because it’s the target doesn’t mean it’s the ceiling. I certainly hope we do better than that.”

The vote came after residents asked the School Board to postpone setting new academic targets. In feedback sessions and before Wednesday’s vote, residents said the targets were not ambitious enough. One person said the resolution, which includes five “guardrails” for the superintendent, didn’t fully capture the community’s input, particularly their ideas on social-emotional learning, multilingual education and fiscal management and accountability.

Sebrena Burr, the co-president of the Seattle Council PTSA, the umbrella group that represents parent-teacher organizations across the city, said the 10-percentage-point target was unacceptable. 

“What we are saying is that we are willing to fail some students,” she said. “Those are the Black and brown students that I know, in my lifetime, you have been failing for 70 years.”

Community members also criticized the short window for providing input on the proposal and called for a separate goal to track students’ math performance.

Rankin, who oversaw the development of the goals and guardrails last year when she was the board’s president, had also said the targets were too low. 

Still, she said, the goals and guardrails provide “a concrete lever for us to understand and ensure that investments are being made in the best possible way to serve students.”

She now wants to see the district administration’s plans to meet them.

Board members have said they will examine whether upcoming budget proposals allocate money to programs that will help the district meet its academic targets.

“I want them to better identify what strategies they believe will move the needle, and make sure that we invest in them,” Rankin said.

One of the five guardrails was amended to clarify that the superintendent would not allow a student’s school assignment, family income, race, ethnicity or identity to determine their access to high-quality standards, rigorous programming, high-quality teaching or support.

The goals and guardrails will inform the district’s strategic plan, which the board plans to adopt by June or July.

The superintendent will propose metrics to measure whether he is following the guardrails. The board can reject or accept them. His progress or lack of progress in meeting the metrics will be included in his performance evaluation.

The resolution was initially scheduled for adoption last week. It was postponed because of community and board feedback and new information from the district administration to help the board decide how to measure college and career readiness.

The district will track the percentage of students who complete a “High School and Beyond Plan,” a state graduation requirement that asks students to, among other things, create career and education goals and a plan to accomplish them. But to further prove readiness beyond K-12, the district will also seek to increase the percentage of students who complete one of the following: dual-credit assignments in English Language Arts, world language, social studies, STEM or career and technical education or a formal work-based learning experience; a state or federal financial aid application; or an application to at least one college; work or postsecondary program.