What can you do if you don't like the way your ideals are portrayed in the media? You start your own network, and bypass traditional TV by distributing your message through the Internet, mobile devices and video-on-demand.

The conservative-backed Right Network launched today with this introduction:

"We are proud Americans. And we're inspired by the many Americans before us who've stepped forward to help move us all forward. So now we’re stepping forward. We're creating a platform where people can join the national conversation. A place where they can be inspired, entertained, laugh together, or just sit back and enjoy being part of a vibrant community with a similar perspective - a right-minded perspective that includes an entire spectrum of opinion from thoughtful and reserved to bold and brash."

The Right Network's first series is called "Running." It follows a couple of Tea Party-backed candidates who are running (or ran, some lost in the Primary) for offices in California. Other shows include "Right2Laugh," with standup comedians and "Politics and Poker," with card players sitting around talking politics.

Tea Party leaders in our state have been working to promote the launch. "I think the business model has a very good chance to succeed," says Sally Oljar with the Tea Party Patriots in Seattle.

Familiar actor Kelsey Grammer, whose TV show "Frasier" was set in Seattle, is one of the early investors and supporters of RightNetwork. He says it's the only way to "stop allowing people who hate us to define us."

"If you have NBC, ABC, you have entire networks flooded with a very particular point of view," he tells the Associated Press. "They won't admit it, but it's clearly the way it is. There's plenty of room for us."

It's off the subject, but I always loved the view from Frasier Crane's fictional Seattle condo.

An online game that started in Seattle has about 30 offers from Hollywood to option the movie rights.

The game is Plants vs. Zombies, created by the Seattle-based casual gaming company - Pop Cap They're as surprised as anyone with the offers because the online game has no real plot or story.

"You are defending your home from these hordes of these very kind of cartooney and not really threatening zombies, who will eat your brains if they make your way to your door. You're defending your home with about 60 bizarre types of plants," says Garth Chouteau, a VP with Pop Cap.

The plants, of course, have zombie fighting capabilities. He says kids as young as four are playing the game and it's their "biggest success" yet. That's another surprise for Pop Cap, considering they didn't think it would take off, and it only started with a $35,000 marketing budget.

When they launched an iPhone version of the game, Plants vs. Zombies made a million dollars in just nine days.

"I usually play around 8 or 9 at night, after I'm done with dinner, dishes, and sports. It doesn't interfere with my family," says Kelly Wetterhus, a Puyallup mom. She calls her interest in social online games "my time" and "a good way to unwind after a busy day."

"It's no different than watching TV, but instead I spend my time planting and harvesting virtual crops. I also help others with their online farms and it's the most fun I've ever had," says Ginny Marguese, the mother of two school-age children in Redmond.

"FarmVille never interferes with my job or the activities do with my kids," says Rene Ostrom, "but with all three of my children back in school today I'll celebrate with a few minutes of uninterrupted computer time."

Kelly, Ginny and Rene are a part of the largest demographic of social and casual gamers - women in their late 30s to mid 40s. These kinds of games don't require special skills to play. While most video games are played on consoles like Microsoft's Xbox or Nintendo's Wii, casual games are usually played on computers or portable devices like the iPad and smart phones.

The three moms also play the most popular social game in the world - FarmVille. I wrote about the FarmVille fad when it reached more than 80 million users. It's still huge. Wetterhus says she's attracted to the game because it's a "brainless" way to relax at the end of the day.

Starting with a small plot of land like this...

and ending up with something elaborate, gives users a sense of accomplishment too.

Pop Cap, a casual gaming company based in Seattle, has studied the profile of the average social gamer. More women than men are playing games like FarmVille - 54 percent women compared with 46 percent of men. About 41 percent have fulltime jobs, and the majority are only playing the games for about 15 minutes a day.

"It's not a huge part of their time, but it does suggest that this is becoming a new facet of people's lifestyles," says Garth Chouteau, Pop Cap VP of public relations. "People are playing these games online or on their phones the same way they'd look at a paper in the morning, check their email, or look at a sports or gossip website. It's a part of their routine."

Why do so many people play these games? About 53 percent say it's just for fun, 45 percent say it's for stress relief, and almost as many people say it's for the competition. For Zynga - the company that makes FarmVille, Mafia Wars, FrontierVille and others - it's for the money.

While gamers can plant virtual crops and take care of online animals for free, they can also pay for upgrades. An estimated 15 percent of players spend real money on social games. Zynga is expected to make $450 million this year alone. Incidentally, the chief technical officer of FarmVille is a former Microsoft engineer.

Confess. Do you play some kind of social game online?

Boeing has begun assembly of the 1,000th 767 airplane at its Everett plant.

In a statement from Boeing, the company calls this "an important milestone for the 767" which first entered service 30 years ago.

The 1,000th airplane, a 767-300ER passenger model, is scheduled for delivery in February 2011 to All Nippon Airways. ANA ordered its first 767 in 1979 and has taken delivery of 89 767s to date.

Boeing will use the 767 as the platform for its NewGen Tanker if it wins the U.S. Air Force KC-X Tanker competition. Contract award currently is scheduled for mid-November.

Kim Pastega, vice president and general manager of the 767 program begins production of the 1,000th 767 with spar load in the Everett factory. Boeing.com photo

Listen to this report

A little over three months ago Ken Griffey Jr. retired from baseball in Seattle, with a simple statement: "I've come to a decision today to retire from Major League Baseball as an active player...My hope is that my teammates can focus on baseball and win a championship for themselves and for the great fans of Seattle, who so very much deserve one."

Griffey retired on June 2nd, 23 years to the day after he was drafted. As soon as Griffey announced he was done with baseball as a player, he was gone, on the road home to Florida. That same day, Seattle Mariner fan Glen Garnett started a campaign to rename a Seattle street after the baseball legend. Are we any closer to having it happen?

"I've loved this guy so much because he has a natural swing. He is amazing in baseball," says Garnett.

Garnett has never met Griffey, but he has been relentless in trying to get a part of 1st Avenue in front of Safeco Field renamed in honor of Junior - someone who was an inspiration to a generation of boys who were just starting to play baseball, he says.

"When kids played baseball in their back yard or out on the diamond they'd think 'I wanna be Ken Griffey Jr.' because he was so polite. He was so unique. He was so powerful," Garnett says. "People wanted to be like him."

Before there can be a Ken Griffey Jr. Way, about 10 businesses on a block along 1st Avenue would have to change their addresses. In hopes of convincing them to give in, Garnett launched a new website this week - KenGriffeyJrWay.com - where people can sign a petition supporting the name change.

And he's not stopping there. Garnett wants to start a non-profit foundation to raise money for a statue in Griffey's likeness, and later raise money to help children in Griffey's name.

A couple of Seattle City Council members support the idea of a name change, but they're waiting for businesses on that stretch of 1st to get behind the effort. In the meantime, they've suggested giving the Kid an "honorary" street name.

"People are saying they don't want that," says Garnett. "Edgar Martinez has his own street, why can't Griffey have his own street?"

In this photo from the AP's Elaine Thompson was taken one day before Ken Griffey Jr. announced his retirement on June 2nd of this year. Thompson also took the classic photo below on October 8, 1995 with Griffey smiling from beneath a pile of teammates after he scored the winning run in the bottom of the 11th inning against the New York Yankees in Seattle.

The lawn is meticulously manicured, as if the groundskeeper’s tools include a cuticle scissors. Classic brick buildings, a bell tolling the hour and concrete lion statues almost convince me that I’m at an East Coast college. But this is Lakeside School in Northeast Seattle.

This is where super-achievers went to school – Bill Gates, Paul Allen and Craig McCaw to name a few. Many of Seattle’s affluent families send their kids here for a challenging private education. With an acceptance rate of 24 percent, Lakeside is the most elite private high school in the Northwest. This photo of Bliss Hall was taken before the current renovation project started.

So what was I doing there? Just wandering, and wondering if my children would have a better start in life if they went to private schools.

“As someone who has experienced both public schooling and private schooling, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind: sending your child to a private school is one of the best decisions you can make for him or her,” says Peter Rasmussen, a recent Lakeside alumnus. “In retrospect, if my parents made me pay my tuition all by myself, I would have. That’s how valuable a Lakeside education is.”

Words from an e-mail conversation with Rasmussen scroll across my brain as I glance around Lakeside: “Absolutely no doubt … one of the best decisions … that’s how valuable.”

A lot of families are like the Rasmussens. In Seattle, almost one out of four students attends private schools, according to an estimate from Seattle Public Schools. The national average is one in 10.

I’ve talked with the president of Seattle Preparatory School, the mom of a Holy Names Academy student, researchers at the Center on Education Policy and a local education author. They’ve given me a better understanding of why private education is extraordinary and also what public schools do well. Which is better for my kids? For your kids?

Motivated to Learn

A couple of years ago Peter Rasmussen was preparing a speech for his commencement at Lakeside. Now he's wrapped up a few years of studying international relations and Spanish at Emory University in Atlanta.

He has all the characteristics I’d expect from a Lakeside grad. He’s intelligent, articulate and ambitious. Rasmussen is so driven that he asked his parents if he could switch from public school to Lakeside when he was in eighth grade.

Rasmussen was unhappy with the quality of teaching at Islander Middle School on Mercer Island. While there were several teachers who were “fantastic,” he says there were “many more who were either mediocre teachers or good teachers who were overwhelmed with too many students and too few resources.”

Another reason for his dissatisfaction with public education is the same frustration I feel when my middle school-age daughter tells me about her day. Only Rasmussen puts it more politely than I would. There are a lot of students who aren’t “motivated to be sitting in a classroom,” he says.

“Teachers spent copious amounts of time dealing with these kids, while somewhat neglecting the rest of us,” he says. “I wanted to be in an environment where nearly everyone was motivated to learn like I was. I wanted to be in a place where I could learn as much from my peers as I could learn from teachers.”

The transition from a public middle school to Lakeside was good for Rasmussen, but not as natural for his parents. Some of their friends treated them differently, he says, and made them feel like traitors or snobs for betraying the public school system. People aggressively questioned his decision to switch to a private school.

I understand why adults might be uncomfortable with his choice. It forces them to confront their beliefs about education, and it highlights the fact that private schools have an academic rigor that a lot of us would like for our children, but often don’t find in public schools.

The Golden Ticket

If Seattle Public Schools had a parent pep squad, Lisa Dennison would be on it. She’s been a paid tutor for the district and volunteers to make public schools better for all kids.

Nevertheless, her daughter, Sarah, switched from Whitman Middle School in Seattle to Holy Names Academy on Capitol Hill a few years ago. Dennison says they were put off by a “lack of focus, concentration and rigor” in the public school classroom. Or as Sarah described it, “It was a waste of time.”

Through a series of chance encounters, Sarah applied to Holy Names, and she received the “golden ticket” – mom’s term for the acceptance letter – her freshman year.

Established in 1880, Holy Names is the oldest continually operating school in Washington state. Like most private schools, it has small class sizes. The student-teacher ratio at Holy Names is 14:1 (Lakeside’s is 9:1).

As I walked through Holy Names, trying to keep my heels from clicking loudly on the gleaming hardwood floors, what stood out wasn’t an external feature or an admissions brochure fact. It was the girls’ confidence and poise. Dennison noticed that, too.

“A lot of times a girl’s self-confidence gets obliterated in middle school and/or high school. Many girls feel like they have to hold back what they know or what they think because they might be perceived as being too smart,” she says. “The young women at Holy Names have a strong sense of who they are. They’re leaders.”

There are two other strengths of private schools, and in this case a Catholic institution, that Dennison appreciates. They emphasize social justice and community service, and their teaching doesn’t revolve around standardized tests.

Private Is Not for Everyone

For all its plusses, there are a few minuses to private education. It’s expensive. In the Seattle area, high school tuition ranges from $10,000 to more than $25,000, depending on the institution. Also, private schools generally have a homogeneous student body.

Those detractions had Dennison’s daughter thinking about attending Ballard High School. The academic challenges might not be as formidable at Ballard, but she would be around a more diverse group of students and friends from her neighborhood.

“Holy Names has an excellent reputation and will open doors to any college Sarah wants to get into, but it’s not as diverse as we’d like,” Dennison says. “Some families at the school have a sense of entitlement and privilege that is hard for us to deal with. It’s not who we are.”

Entitled, privileged, elite, white. Those words are sometimes used to describe private schools. Peter Rasmussen says when it comes to Lakeside, that impression is “just nonsense” and it’s an “egregious myth” that the school is racist.

The facts support Rasmussen’s experience. About 42 percent of Lakeside’s students are non-white. Earlier this year a federal judge dismissed the racial discrimination claims made by one of two African-American teachers suing Lakeside. And as for the concern that Lakeside is just for rich kids – about one out of four students there receives financial aid.

Money should not be a deciding factor when choosing a school, according to Seattle Prep President Kent Hickey. Financial aid and scholarships are “there for the asking,” he says. Ultimately, they’d like to have a large enough endowment so the school could be tuition free. Seattle Prep’s goal is to make sure that any student who desires a Jesuit education can receive one.

“Whatever the cost, it’s worth it. Over their four years here, students become independent learners. They understand how to learn and become critical thinkers,” Hickey says. “The immediate goal is knowledge, but the ultimate goal is wisdom.”

What price would you pay to know your kids are going to be critical thinkers when they graduate from high school and life-long learners afterward?

The Bottom Line

Just as I consider writing a big check for tuition, I examine research which surprisingly does not give private schools an edge. The two most recent national studies on the subject found no evidence that private schools increase student academic performance.

A 2006 Education Department report found that children in public schools generally performed as well or better in reading and mathematics than comparable children in private schools. The exception was in eighth-grade reading, where the private school kids scored higher. The report compared test scores from 7,000 public schools and about 530 private schools nationwide.

The Center on Education Policy (CEP) came out with a more recent report called, “Are Private High Schools Better Academically Than Public High Schools?”

Their study shows that students attending private high schools performed no better on achievement tests in math, reading, science and history than students at traditional public high schools. The CEP also found young adults who went to private schools were “no more likely to enjoy job satisfaction or to be engaged in civic activities at age 26” than those who went to public schools.

One exception from the report was Jesuit schools, where students performed at a higher level than both public school and non-Jesuit private school students.

Public or private? Maybe there’s a way to have the best of both.

Get a Private Quality Education in a Public School

“You can give your child a public education without feeling like you’re giving them the short end of the stick,” says Cynthia Tobias, an educator and author based in Puyallup.

Tobias has written nine books, including her most recent, I Hate School: How to Help Your Child Love Learning.

She says the way to get a private quality education in public school is to put the responsibility for learning on the student – not the school, not the teacher. A school might be inept, a teacher might be boring, but it’s still the student’s responsibility to get something out of it.

“Even if students have an educator who bends over backwards to motivate and encourage them, they might never get a wonderful teacher like that again, and certainly nobody stands on their head to motivate them after they graduate,” Tobias says. “The key to great education lies within the students themselves.”

She encourages parents to help their kids figure out their strengths and learning styles. Here’s her Web site and another local site to get started: www.applest.com and www.lifesceneinvestigation.com.

“Private schools don’t have an exclusive right to teach the skills that help kids become curious, engaged learners throughout their lives,” says Tobias. “No matter where they are, no matter what their circumstances, all students can be critical thinkers.”

This story originally appeared in Seattle's Child magazine in 2008. Two years later, I'm committed to public schools but still occasionally wonder if my kids would be better off with a private education. If you have school-age kids I'd love to know your thoughts about public and private schools.

On a voice vote, 1,280 Seattle teachers approved a new contract and passed a "no confidence" vote in Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson.

Between 65 and 75 percent of the membership approved the contract, according to Glenn Bafia, SEA executive director. The separate vote disproving of Goodloe-Johnson's leadership was "almost unanimous."

"Seattle’s students deserve a school system where their interests are at the center of the debate, without hidden agendas and conflicting interests," says Jonathan Knapp, SEA vice president. "Students deserve a district where educators work collaboratively and seek solutions based on the best evidence available. It has become increasingly evident – and not just during our negotiations – that Seattle Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson does not represent these ideals."

The Superintendent has released a statement to the school community about the contract approval, saying she was "pleased" that SEA members approved the agreement.

"This historic agreement builds on a tradition of collaboration with our teachers and will further strengthen the excellent work of our educators and administrators to keep student learning as our central focus. I honor the dedication of our teachers, knowing they work each day to ensure that every student reaches their highest potential," says Goodloe-Johnson.

Now, about that no confidence vote. I've asked Dr. Goodloe-Johnson for a statement about her teachers' lack of confidence in her. When she gets back to me, I'll let you know what she says. School Board Member Steve Sundquist says change can be difficult.

"The School Board and the Superintendent have committed to an ambitious change agenda in pursuit of improved student achievement and closing the achievement gap in our community," says Sundquist. "In that process we have undergone substantial change. We recognize that change isn't easy and the pace of change isn't always agreed upon."

Under the new contract, teachers will be rated a four-tier system, which is something Goodloe-Johnson proposed. The categories will go from unsatisfactory to innovative. The highest-rated teachers will be eligible for additional pay. The lowest-rated will get support training. Before teachers agreed to this system, they were simply evaluated on a meets expectations/does not meet expectations scale. The contract gives teachers one-percent raises in the upcoming 2011-12 school year and 2012-2013. Teachers who work at the city's lowest performing schools will get extra money to boost their students' performance, and there are some financial rewards for the top performing teachers.

Where will the extra money for teachers come from? If you live in Seattle, then YOU will be asked to pay for it. A $48 million levy on the November 2nd General Election ballot will fund the teacher incentive pay.

Seattle Schools and the Seattle Education Association have a tentative agreement for a three-year contract.

The district says, "the tentative agreement includes continued collaboration with teachers as we refine measures of student growth and plan the phase-in of a new system of teacher evaluation and support. By providing teachers with multiple measures of student growth data during the year, and by balancing principal observations with evidence of student learning, we believe that each teacher will have genuine opportunities to learn and grow."

I'm pretty good at translating education speak, but that statement doesn't tell me whether teachers agreed to using student test scores from the Measures of Academic Progress as part of their evaluation. I'm on vacation, but will probably take the time later to read through the contract language.

Proposed Certificated Contract

Proposed Classified Contract

The agreement also provides stipends to recognize "those excellent teachers who take on the extra work of sharing their expertise with peers." And it offers more professional development opportunities for all teachers, and identifies steps to offer specific support to teachers who are struggling.

Seattle Public Schools fast facts on the tentative agreement

Highlights of the tentative agreement

Detailed summary of the agreement

Teachers will vote on the contract tomorrow, and take a confidence/no confidence vote in Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson.

UPDATE: Both sides talked until midnight. Still no tentative agreement to announce yet on Wednesday.

Both teachers and administrators in the Seattle School District are expected to announce a tentative contract agreement soon.

"We believe we have a tentative agreement," says Glenn Bafia, with the Seattle Education Association.

He says smaller groups from both bargaining teams will get together Tuesday to review contract language and proposals.

"If we see that we are both on the same page, we will announce a definite tentative agreement," Bafia says. They'd make that announcement in the afternoon. Neither side is releasing details of the possible contract deal.

Teachers are scheduled to vote on a contract Thursday. They'll also take a confidence/no confidence vote in Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson

It will be interesting to see how they resolved the issue of evaluating teachers. Goodloe-Johnson has introduced a process that links a small part of a teacher's evaluation on how well students do on a test that measures academic progress at several points throughout the school year. Teachers say it's not fair to link their evaluation to students' test scores.

Tuesday is also "wear blue in solidarity" day for Seattle teachers who are reporting to their classrooms to get ready for the new school year, which starts September 8th.

The ACLU of Washington has told the Oak Harbor School Board that a proposed policy for searching student cell phones goes too far and violates students' privacy rights.

"The proposed policy is overly broad. Searching telecommunication devices impinges on student privacy significantly more than a traditional backpack or locker search. Cell phones store a virtually limitless amount of highly personal information dating back months or years," says Brian Alseth, director of the ACLU's technology and liberty project.

"By searching a smart phone, administrators could determine a student’s political views, whether a student is having relationship problems, whether their parents might be considering a divorce, whether the student has personal health issues or is pregnant, and whether the student likes sports, World of Warcraft, or shopping for lingerie," says Alseth.

Instead of Oak Harbor's proposal, the ACLU supports a policy that would allow school officials to seize devices that they reasonably suspect to contain illegal content and then turn the devices over to law enforcement.

In a letter to the school district's principal, the ACLU also suggests the district could deter sexting at school by banning students from sending, sharing, or viewing sexually explicit material while at school.

ACLU of Washington has not issued a statement yet on the Seattle School District's new policy that allows school administrators to discipline students based on "off campus" postings through Facebook, MySpace or texting that have a negative effect on student learning.