Welcome to the March 7, 2016, edition of the HML Post.  A service to the members of the Horace Mann League of the USA.
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The Concentration of Poverty in American Schools by Janie Boschma and Ronald Borwnstein on the Atlantic Monthly site.
In almost all major American cities, most African American and Hispanic students attend public schools where a majority of their classmates qualify as poor or low-income, a new analysis of federal data shows.
This systemic economic and racial isolation looms as a huge obstacle for efforts to expand opportunity because researchers have found that the single-most powerful predictor of racial gaps in educational achievement is the extent to which students attend schools surrounded by other low-income students.
Underscoring the breadth of the challenge, the economic segregation of minority students persists across virtually all types of cities. ( Read more.)

Debating School Choice   by Marina Bolotnikova on the Harvard Magazine site.
"The most surprising thing coming out of that analysis," Pathak explains, "is the possibility that-even though you have made the lowest-quality school better-you actually haven't helped the intended beneficiary," whose family is priced out of that school's district.
Perhaps this shouldn't be surprising, because the school-choice movement treats high-quality education as a scarce resource best allocated by a free market. If good schools are a scarce resource, then only some children can access them-and they tend to come from wealthy families who find ways to game the system in their favor. "If left unchecked," Avery says, "natural forces seem to run in the direction of making [good] schools more accessible to the wealthy."  ( Read comments by Diane Ravitch)

National Poll Results On Charter Schools   by Kathy Irwin on the Education Bloggers Network.
According to a new, nationwide poll, Americans overwhelmingly want public charter schools to be more accountable, have less selective admissions policies, employ better-trained teachers, and refrain from harming traditional local schools by siphoning away precious taxpayer funds. Overall, the poll shows wide support for regulating many aspects of the school privatization movement.
"Americans embrace proposals to reform the way charter schools are authorized and managed," said a  report  by GBA Strategies, which conducted the poll of 1,000 registered voters in January for two groups that have documented fiscal malfeasance by charter operators,  In The Public Interest  and the  Center for Popular Democracy . "The public overwhelmingly supports initiatives to strengthen charter school accountability and transparency, improve teacher training and qualifications, prevent fraud, serve high-need students and ensure that neighborhood public schools are not adversely affected."  ( Read more.)

Several weeks ago, the New York Times  published a surreptitiously recorded video of a charter school teacher berating a first grade student and ripping up her work in front of the class for being unable to explain how she solved a math problem. The publicly-funded school, the Success Academy founded by Eva Moskowitz, circled the wagons and launched a public relations blitz.
According to the Times, the girl's parent tried to  raise questions at a meeting organized by the school to get parent support for the teacher in the press. She was concerned that the parents were being asked to help without even being shown the video. "She's like 'You've had enough to say' and [Ms. Moskowitz] tried to talk over me," the mother told the Times. Frustrated, she gave up and walked out of the meeting.
The student's parent went to the NY Department of Education to  file a complaint. She was told that Success was independent from the school district and that she needed to contact the school's board of trustees. But the  board, chaired by hedge fund CEO Dan Loeb, that gets to spend taxpayer dollars aren't elected by nor accountable to New York voters. They have no obligation to neither listen to her nor take action. They are a group of hedge fund and private equity investors, lawyers, public relationships professionals, philanthropists and one full-time educator.  ( Read more.)
 

I received an email from a daily reader of the blog who asked me how she could explain the downside of corporate reform to friends at a dinner party in the suburbs who know nothing at all about the issues. She said that her friends were liberal Democrats, but their own children are grown, and they don't read the blogs. What could she say that was direct, accurate, and informative?
We exchanged emails and began creating a list of snappy explanatory comments. Our combined list is below. Would you be good enough to send me your suggestions?
Your friend says, "So what do you think of the education reform movement?" Or, "How could anyone be opposed to education reform?"

Louisiana and my home state of South Carolina both share a historical struggle with high-poverty, racial minority public schools. In recent years, however, New Orleans has become a model for a drastic form of education reform, in which the state takes over schools and entire districts from local control.
These takeovers often include reconstituting schools as charters, replacing entire faculties and administrations, and even handing over operations to private entities - which is precisely what is now being  proposed  in Charleston, SC, where education and poverty were given close examination via the 2006 documentary  Corridor of Shame : Neglect of South Carolina's Rural Schools.  ( Read more.)

Examining Teacher Effectiveness Between Preschool and Third Grade By Rachel Herzfeldt-Kamprath and Rebecca Ullrich on the Center for American Progress site.
In order to improve alignment and ensure that children have access to effective teachers every year between preschool and third grade, policymakers should focus on the following priorities: 
* Expanding access to high-quality prekindergarten programs, 
* Providing collaborative and multi-year professional development and in-service training opportunities to all teachers between preschool and third grade,
* Ensuring that school-level supports and instructional resources are available to all teachers, children, and families, 
* Aligning the oversight agencies that develop standards for teaching, instruction, and governance between preschool and third grade, and
* Increasing teacher compensation.
Supporting educators and caregivers so that they are well-equipped to provide high-quality learning environments is a critical first step to improving academic outcomes for the nation's youngest learners and ensuring their long-term success.  ( Read more.)

Can you spot a good teacher from their characteristics?  by  Rob Klassen on the Guardian site.
What would you do in the following situation?
As students in your classroom begin a writing task, one of them, Kata, starts throwing paper around and distracting the others. You know from previous incidents that Kata often becomes frustrated when she does not understand how to complete activities; she often displays this by being disruptive.
Would you ...
a) Ask her to leave the class?
b) Show her how to get started on the task?
c) Encourage her by telling her that she is capable of completing the task?
d) Ask a passing teacher to talk to her?
Your answer gives important clues about how you think and operate as a teacher (see below for answers). In future, similar questions could help researchers understand how prospective teachers might interact with students, and enable trainers to recruit people who are best suited to work in schools. ( Read more.)
 
What The Best Teachers Do    by John Morrow on the Morrow Report site.
So many teachers routinely go the extra mile to connect with their students, and they do it without any expectation of recognition from their bosses. I believe it's in the DNA of most of the men and women who make teaching their career.  Shouldn't we be making it easier for them to do what they do best, which is help grow adults, instead of hounding them about test scores?
I use those three words,help grow adults, advisedly.
          "Help" conveys that teaching and learning are team sports.  
          "Grow" connotes a process of many steps (most forward, some not), which is why one test score-a snapshot-should never be used to make critical decisions.  It's a movie, not a photo.
          "Adult" is the end-game of schooling, not 'getting into college' or 'doing well on the SAT/ACT.'  What is it that we want children to be and be able to do when they are out on their own?  Never forget that 'We are what we repeatedly do.'  (Read more.)

Profitship! Cashing In On Public Schools by the Progressive Magazine on Youtube.
This animated feature on school privatization stars little Timmy, a kindergartner who likes his public school. Timmy gets a confusing lesson in corporate education reform, starting with the rightwing mantra "Public Schools have failed." 
(The Bradley Foundation, a top rightwing think tank, has devoted more than $30 million to label public education as "failing" and promote privatization as the "solution.")
Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Mark Fiore uses his trademark humor to show the absurdity of this argument. Despite poor results, charter chains like Rocketship are replacing real teachers and classes like art, social studies, and gym with a computer-aided test-prep curriculum straight out of science fiction.  (View two-minute video.)

When it comes to time, there are days that I feel I'm managing down to ten minute increments. Getting myself and three kids out of the door in the morning is a circus. If you're not living this reality, then I'm sure you've heard from others because, as working parents, we can't stop talking about how chaotic our lives often seem to be. So little time savers are really important.
The trick? Reduce the sheer volume of mundane decisions you have to make to conserve time and energy to focus on the big, important strategic stuff. Here are a few tried and true time-savers that work for me.
  1. Create a weekly meal plan for dinner. 
  2. Similarly, eat the same (healthy) thing for breakfast every day.
  3. Create a Pinterest board with "go to" work outfits. 
  4. Turn off all email and Facebook notifications. 
  5. Time yourself. e.
  6. Of course, you know to keep your keys in the same place. 
  7. Review your next day's calendar the night before.   (Read more.)
National Poll Results On Charter Schools by Kathy Irwin on the Education Bloggers Network.

In the U.S., millions of middle and high school students attend schools that don't match the reality of their lives. By their teenage years, young people should be solving complex problems, thinking critically about tough concepts, and communicating their ideas effectively. Yet, our schools are organized to be lecture-based, encouraging students to simply memorize facts and follow rules.
In my new book, " Deeper Learning: How Eight Innovative Public Schools are Transforming Education in the Twenty-First Century ," I take you inside a growing movement that represents what should be the new normal. Deeper Learning is a set of student outcomes that includes mastery of essential academic content; thinking critically and solving complex problems; working collaboratively and communicating effectively; having an academic mindset, and being self-directed.  ( Read more.)

Check out Highline's online, interactive  Annual Report to the Community that puts a sharper focus on student progress. The new online tool gives the community the opportunity to dig deeper into the data and includes videos that tell the stories behind numbers.
Details available in the online annual report include the types of assessments used to measure student success, results broken out by school, and progress over time. Videos highlight Highline's rising graduation rate, innovative discipline practices that keep students in school, and a program that places graduates in family wage Boeing jobs.
Community residents and staff received the  print report in December, when it was mailed to all residences within Highline boundaries.  ( See complete more.)

  The Flawed Premises of Reform by Peter Greene on the Curmudgucation site.
In Friday's Washington Post, Mike Petrilli and Chester Finn, the current and former chiefs of the right-tilted thinky tank Thomas B. Fordham Institute, set out to create 
a quick, simple history of modern education reform
. It's aimed mostly at saying, "Look, we have most of the bugs worked out now!" But it also lays bare just what failed assumptions have been behind fifteen years of failed reformster ideas.
They start by throwing our gaze back a decade to when "US education policies were a mess." Then:
At the core of the good idea was the common-sense insight that if we want better and more equitable results from our education system, we should set clear expectations for student learning, measure whether our kids are meeting them and hold schools accountable for their outcomes, mainly gauged in terms of academic achievement.
And there are most of the problems with the reformsters approach, laid out in one sentence.  (Read more.)

How Finland broke every rule - and created a top school system  by William Doyle on the Hechinger site.
Spend five minutes in Jussi Hietava's fourth-grade math class in remote, rural Finland, and you may learn all you need to know about education reform - if you want results, try doing the opposite of what American "education reformers" think we should do in classrooms.
Instead of control, competition, stress, standardized testing, screen-based schools and loosened teacher qualifications, try warmth, collaboration, and highly professionalized, teacher-led encouragement and assessment.
At the University of Eastern Finland's Normaalikoulu teacher training school in Joensuu, Finland, you can see  Hietava's students enjoying the cutting-edge concept of "personalized learning."
But this is not a tale of classroom computers. While the school has the latest technology, there isn't a tablet or smartphone in sight, just a smart board and a teacher's desktop.


Boise School District blasts "Don't Fail Idaho" ads  by Bill Roberts on the Idaho Statesmen site.
Boise School District leaders have fired back at a J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation ad campaign challenging the readiness of Idaho students after high school.
The foundation's  "Don't Fail Idaho" campaign, which says four out of five students aren't prepared, is part of an "agenda designed to undermine public schools," the Boise School Board said in an op-ed article for the Statesman.
The campaign  includes one TV ad showing children getting off a school bus in a remote location and being left alone. But the campaign is inaccurate, offers no solution and hurts teachers, students and parents, the  Boise trustees say.
The board decided "not to sit back and allow our teachers to be devalued and have the success of our students undermined," said Maria Greeley, board vice president.  ( Read more.)

Inaccurate "Don't Fail Idaho" ad Undermine Public Schools  by Don Conley on the IDED news site. 
Over the last few weeks you may have seen the latest advertisements from the J.A and Kathryn Albertson Family Foundation's "Don't Fail Idaho" campaign. The most controversial claim is that four out of five Idaho students are not prepared for life after high school.   Let's be clear; this campaign promotes an agenda designed to undermine public schools. It is highly inaccurate. It offers no real solutions to increasing post-secondary readiness. It is a disservice to the work public school teachers, parents, and students do every day.
Kevin Wilson stated, "For years now the Albertson Foundation has been engaged in a blatant attempt to undermine public education in Idaho, aided by Idaho Business for Education, KTVB, and the Albertson-funded Bluum. All have taken their cue from the ed-reformer's playbook: 1. Create a crisis where none exists. 2. Cut funding to schools and then declare them failures. 3. Demonize and demoralize teachers while legislatively robbing them of what little political power they possess. 4. Offer the privateer's solution: charter schools, standardized testing, vouchers, charter-management organizations, and a host of other ploys for diverting tax payer dollars into the pockets of hedge-fund managers, venture capitalists, and billionaire social engineers."  (Read more.)  
 

Seven Cutting Edge Innovations That Will Change the World   by James Canton on the Huffington Post site.
Where are the early warnings that shape trends and have some basis in science, geopolitics, technology, business or economics. I am less fascinated with cool devices then emerging trends that might disrupt markets, economies, business and global security--to set the stage for you to consider. 
Are you ready for the top innovations that will shape the coming year? This look ahead could be your strategic recipe for competitive advantage in your company, new venture or your career.
These innovation trends originate in the Global Futures Forecast. The GFF looks at strategic global trends that will affect jobs, competition, innovation, asset classes and risk. These global innovation trends should be on every leaders mind as he or she looks out ahead on what may come in 2016.
We need to all become more Future Ready, cultivate a perspective on the emerging trends coming to avoid strategic surprise. This could affect your job, career or the destiny of your organization. Preparing for the future, developing a capacity as a leader to look ahead and prepare for risk, disruption and opportunity is the smart way to navigate change. This is my contribution to that journey.  ( Read more.)

As reward for minutes without misconduct, they win prizes like 20 seconds to kick their feet up on their desks or to play rock-paper-scissors. And starting this year,  their school and schools in eight other California districts will test students on how well they have learned the kind of skills like self-control and conscientiousness that the games aim to cultivate - ones that might be described as everything you should have learned in kindergarten but are still reading self-help books to master in middle age.
A recent update to federal education law requires states to include at least one nonacademic measure in judging school performance. So other states are watching these districts as a potential model. But the race to test for so-called social-emotional skills has raised alarms even among the biggest proponents of teaching them, who warn that the definitions are unclear and the tests faulty.  ( Read more.)

Why Introverted Teachers Are Burning Out  by Michael Godsey on the Atlantic Monthly site.
"Absolutely. I do this every day to recharge." Unfortunately for me and thousands of future students, Jayson has left the classroom for the workshop: He's refurbishing furniture instead of teaching and says that his "introversion definitely played a part."
I've written about  the challenges faced by introverted students in today's increasingly social learning environments, but the introverted teachers leading those classrooms can struggle just as much as the children they're educating. A few studies suggest that introverted teachers-especially those who may have falsely envisioned teaching as a career involving calm lectures, one-on-one interactions, and grading papers quietly with a cup of tea-are at risk of burning out. And when these teachers leave for alternate careers, it comes at a cost to individual children and school districts at large.
The term "introversion" can mean a variety of different things in different contexts. Carl Jung defined it as an orientation through "subjective psychic contents," while  Scientific American  contends that introversion is more aptly described as a lessened "sensitivity to rewards in the environment."  ( Read more.)

 The Struggle to Unionize Within LA's Biggest Charter Chain   by George Joseph on the Nation Magazine site.
  Last spring,  70 teachers announced their plans to form a union at Los Angeles' largest charter school chain, Alliance College-Ready Public Schools. The news could not have come at a worse time for the  city's business community, led by the Broad Foundation, whose unprecedented  plan to make the district 50 percent charter was leaked a few months later. Alliance College-Ready, led by the Broad Foundation's former managing director, was to be at the center of these plans.
However, a union breakthrough into the city's largest charter operator, just as this  260-charter school expansion was supposed to begin, would fundamentally undermine the Los Angeles  boosters' union-free vision for the nation's largest-ever charter school district.
Almost immediately after the announcement, Alliance's private management organization  began  crafting plans to counter the campaign. Only a month after the drive launched last spring, an internal memo was leaked, advising administrators on how to  discourage  staff from unionization,  noting  candidly, "the goal is no unionization."  ( Read more.)
 

The "full-contact" aspect of football - the big hits, the spectacular tackles - has helped make watching the sport a quintessential American pastime. But as we've learned more about the associated risks of brain trauma, the brutality is becoming controversial.
Last year,  a thousand former players won a class action lawsuit against the National Football League, which provided up to $5 million per athlete in compensation for their head injuries. Some NFL players are retiring early. Some parents are deciding against letting their children play the game - meaning there will be fewer future players from which the NFL has to choose.
As the issue has increasingly made its way into the public discourse - coming to a head with the blockbuster Concussion, which came out last December - it has become clear that something about the sport needs to change. Over the past few years, the  NFL implemented some rule changes  in the hopes of reducing head injuries , but given that  diagnosed concussions rose by nearly 32 percent in 2015 , those tweaks don't seem to be working.  ( Read more.)

At the center of this juggernaut is elementary and secondary education, which receives over $550 billion in annual public spending, equal to the GDP of Belgium, ranked twenty-fifth worldwide in national income. 1  The new copyrighted Common Core State Standards, and the accompanying standardized tests run by two multi-state consortia in conjunction with testing companies, are "high stakes" not merely for schools, teachers, and students, but also for the vested interests of capital. The latter seek by these means to: 
(1) form a labor force of cheerful robots; 
(2) eliminate critical thinking from schools; 
(3) generate immense profits for the education industry and information firms; 
(4) end teacher tenure, seize control of classrooms from professional educators, and break teachers' unions; 
(5) privatize public education through charter schools and other means; 
(6) facilitate private profits and financial speculation through control of government education funding; 
(7) merge education for large sections of the poor and racial minorities with the military and penal systems; 
(8) decrease the role of democracy in education while increasing the corporate role; 
(9) create databases with detailed biometrics on almost everyone, to be exploited by corporations; and 
(10) manage the population in what is a potentially fractious society divided by race and class.  (Read more.)
 
The National PTA and the Delaware PTA.  OPTING OUT OF OPT-OUT. on Politico.
A warning from the National PTA appears to have prompted the Delaware chapter of the parents group to back off its support of testing opt-out legislation [ http://bit.ly/1QlrF8o ]. The Delaware PTA had been circulating a petition [ http://bit.ly/1nhwo0h ] pushing for an override of Gov. Jack Markell's veto of the bill last year. [ http://delonline.us/1oNrHMW ] But that was in direct conflict with the National PTA's stance [ http://bit.ly/1TrHgpu ] against advocating that students skip testing. "While we recognize that parents are a child's first teacher and respect the rights of parents to make decisions on behalf of their children, the association believes the consequences of nonparticipation in state assessments can have detrimental impacts on students and schools," the national organization said earlier this year.
- The Delaware affiliate will discuss its position at its next meeting but is shelving advocacy in the meantime. But that doesn't stop Delaware parents from keeping up the fight. "National PTA's prohibition on our advocacy only extends to the state association and thus the local units. This position does not have any impact on individual activity and advocacy," the state group said. [http://bit.ly/1L3NUAP]
- In the Huffington Post this week, National PTA Vice President Shannon Sevier reiteratedthe group's position. "We must be effective stewards of education for our nation's children by improving assessment systems, not opting children out of the system that should be for their benefit," she wrote. More: http://huff.to/1XVAJUe.
- Tim Farley, a middle school principal in New York, offered a response to Sevier. "The National PTA needs to put the 'P' and the 'T' back into the PTA instead of being a propagandist for Bill and Melinda Gates," he wrote on Medium. "If they do not, they run the risk of the PTA standing for 'Profits and Testing Association'." More: http://bit.ly/1RpTw58.

Sponsor a Professional Colleague for membership in the Horace Mann League.
Click here to download the "Sponsor a Colleague" form.
 
Starting the week off with a cartoon.  
 
 
 
A gift for your Community Leaders: On the Art of Teaching by Horace Mann. 
The book, On The Art of Teaching by Horace Mann has been presented to new teachers as a welcome gift by a number of schools district.  For orders of 50 or more, the district's name is printed on the front cover.

Ordering Information
Cost per copy: $12.50
Orders of 50 to 99: $11.00
Orders of 100 or more: $10.00
Send orders to:  (include name of district, P.O. #, and address)
The Horace Mann League of the USA
560 Rainier Lane
Port Ludlow, WA 98365
or   email:  Jack McKay
FAX (866) 389 0740
 
   
     The Horace Mann League  on the The Horace Mann league site
"School Performance in Context:  The Iceberg Effect"   by James Harvey, Gary Marx, Charles Fowler and Jack McKay.
To download the full or summary report,
Summary Report, Click here 
Full Report,  click here 
To view in an electronic magazine format,
Summary Report, click here.
Full Report, click here 

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A Few Political Cartoons for the Week
 
 
 


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Horace Mann Prints
 The 11 * 18 inch print is available for individual or bulk purchase.  Individual prints are $4.00.  Discount with orders of 50 or more.  
For additional information about this or other prints, please check here .
 
    
  
 
A Gift:   On the Art of Teaching   by Horace Mann
In 1840 Mann wrote On the Art of Teaching. Some of HML members present On the Art of Teaching to new teachers as part of their orientation program.  On the inside cover, some write a personal welcome message to the recipient.  Other HML members present the book to school board members and parental organizations as a token of appreciation for becoming involved in their schools.  The book cover can be designed with the organization's name.  For more information, contact the HML ( Jack McKay)
 
  
  
  
 
   
    


All the past issues of the HML Posts are available for review and search purposes.
 
Finally, 7 links that may be of interest to you.
Jack's Fishing Expedition in British Columbia - short video


 
The Horace Mann League of the USA Post
About Us
The Horace Mann League of the USA is an honorary society that promotes the ideals of Horace Mann by advocating for public education as the cornerstone of our democracy.

Officers:
President: Dr. Christine  Johns-Haines, Superintendent, Utica Community Schools, MI
President-elect: Dr. Martha Bruckner, Superintendent, Council Bluffs Community Schools, IA
Vice President: Dr. Eric King, Superintendent, (ret.) Muncie Public Schools, IN
Past President: Dr. Charles Fowler, Exec. Director, Suburban School Administrators, Exeter, HN

Directors:
Dr. Ruben Alejandro, Supt. of Schools, Weslaco, TX
Dr. Laurie Barron, Supt. of Schools, Evergreen School District, Kalispell , MT
Dr. Evelyn Blose-Holman, (ret.) Superintendent, Bay Shore Schools, NY
Mr. Jeffery Charbonneau, Science Coordinator, ESD 105 and Zillah HS, WA
Dr. Carol Choye, Instructor, (ret.) Superintendent, Scotch Plains Schools, NJ
Dr. Brent Clark, Executive Director, Illinois Assoc. of School Admin. IL
Dr. Ember Conley, Supt. of Schools, Park City, UT
Dr. Linda Darling Hammond, Professor of Education, Stanford U. CA
Dr. James Harvey, Exec. Dir., Superintendents Roundtable, WA
Dr. Steven Ladd, Superintendent, (ret.) Elk Grove Unified School District, Elk Grove, CA 
Dr. Kevin Maxwell, CEO, Prince George's County Schools, Upper Marlboro, MD
Dr. Stan Olson, President, Silverback Learning, (former supt. of Boise Schools, ID)
Dr. Steven Webb, Supt. of Schools, Vancouver School District, WA

Executive Director:
Dr. Jack McKay, Professor Emeritus, University of Nebraska at Omaha, 
560 Rainier Lane, Port Ludlow, WA 98365 (360) 821 9877
 
To become a member of the HML, click here to download an application.