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Welcome to the HML POST - For the busy leaders of public education.
October 12, 2015
(Editorials and research articles are selected by
Jack McKay, Executive director of the HML.
Topics are selected to provoke discussions about the importance of strong public schools. Dr. McKay is Professor Emeritus from the University of Nebraska-Omaha in the Department of Educational Administration and a former superintendent in Washington state.) Feedback is always appreciated.
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Olivia Fantini is a public school teacher. She's put some of her thoughts on standardized testing into a poem. Button Poetry films these poetry performances. Olivia attacks standardized testing, the lack of support for both ESL students as well as for teachers, and the inherent issues many well-meaning teachers face trying to save children who don't need saving but understanding.
Andy Hargreaves is the Thomas More Brennan Chair in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. The mission of the Chair is to promote social justice and connect theory and practice in education.
Before moving to Boston, he taught primary school and lectured in several English universities, including Oxford. Prior to coming to Boston College, he was co-founder and director of the International Centre for Educational Change at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education in Toronto. (View video.)
 Innovation in education can look like lots of things, like incorporating new technology or teaching methods, going on field trips, rejecting social norms, partnering with the local community.
It can be a floating school in an impoverished region, like the one in Lagos, Nigeria.
Or it can be a school that's blind to gender, like Egalia, in Stockholm, Sweden. (
Read more.)
 Bruckner's leadership in Council Bluffs - her yes-we-can approach and the results the district has shown over the past several years - was recognized Friday when the School Administrators of Iowa organization named her its 2015-16 superintendent of the year.
News of the announcement spread on social media Friday morning, after district employees and the public were told by the organization that represents more than 1,800 administrators across the state.
Dr. Bruckner is also the Vice President of the Horace Mann League of the USA. (Read more.)
 Low-paid teachers are fighting back against exploitation in public & private colleges. No more poverty wages.
Students aren't the only ones feeling the financial pinch of college. Faculty members are, too, particularly adjunct professors and recent hires. According to Service Employees International Union analysis, "Thirty-one percent of part-time faculty members and 14 percent of all faculty are living near or below the federal poverty level."
But nationwide, a growing movement is attempting to change that. In solidarity with Fight for $15 and with the support of labor organizers like SEIU, faculty are calling attention to the crisis of poverty wages and demanding solutions. (
Read more.)
One of those attempted hostile takeovers is happening in Los Angeles.
 A well-funded, professionally orchestrated demonstration of support for privatization.
The children and parents all wore identical red tee-shirts, with the slogan "Dont Steal Possible." This slogan works nicely in suggesting that someone is trying to close down charter schools, and this imminent threat to their survival must be stopped.
In fact, as is typical with reformer slogans, the opposite is true. Eva and her billionaire hedge fund backers get whatever they want from Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state legislature. And they aim to "steal" space and resources from the beleaguered public schools. They merrily "steal possible" from children with disabilities, children who are English language learners, and children who are homeless, none of whom are wanted by Eva's Success Academies because they might not get high scores. (Read more.)
 Last week's
jobs report showed the labor market decelerating. This appears to be the
fifth straight year that promising signs in the winter end up softening in the summer and fall. And indicators like the labor force participation rate (which is at a
38-year low) and wage growth (which has
stagnated for decades, including in what should be a surge period since the Great Recession) make it look even worse.
But Elise Gould of the Economic Policy Institute
dug out
perhaps the worst numbers in the report. With September's data in, we can see how many teachers went back to school this year. And Gould finds that the tremendous gap that opened up when local budgets crashed during the recession has not come close to being filled. (
Read more.)
I refer to data-driven instruction-a way of making teaching less subjective, more objective, less experience-based, more scientific. Ultimately, a reform that will make teaching systematic and effective. Standardized test scores, dropout figures, percentages of non-native speakers proficient in English-are collected, disaggregated by ethnicity and school grade, and analyzed. Then with access to data warehouses, staff can obtain electronic packets of student performance data that can be used to make instructional decisions to increase academic performance. Data-driven instruction, advocates say, is scientific and consistent with how successful
businesses
have used data for decades in making decisions that increased their productivity. (
Read more.)
 The education world reacted with surprise to this afternoon's
announcement that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is stepping down, and former New York education commissioner and current acting Deputy Secretary John King Jr. is stepping into the role at the end of the year. As with any political transition, there's plenty of spin and speculation, but here are few things we can know for sure:
It's too soon to fully judge Duncan's tenure. There are lots of strong opinions in Washington and around the country about Duncan. Privately, insiders' views range from "he's the most committed and effective secretary of education in the department's history" to "he's a jock who's in way over his head on policy." (
Read more.)
 Does preschool education help youngsters do better in school as they get older, or not? Two new studies, both released in the final days of September 2015, make the answer seem as elusive as ever.
First came a state-of-the-art study from Tennessee. It showed that all the benefits of its statewide pre-kindergarten program not only disappeared by third grade, but that students who hadn't gone to preschool were actually doing better in third grade than those who had. Can preschool actually be harmful? It defies logic. (Tennessee study
here.)
The following day, a large study from Miami came to the opposite conclusion: nearly 90 percent of the low-income Latino students who had attended the city's publicly-funded pre-kindergarten programs were passing Florida's third grade tests. (
Read more.)
 The recently released scores on the Smarter Balanced assessments underscore
enduring achievement gaps that decades of previous reforms have failed to close. But one contributor to the achievement gap has recieved little attention: The fact that large numbers of the youngest and often most disadvantaged students are frequently absent from school.
In California, kindergarten students are the most likely of any elementary school students to be "chronically absent," defined as those missing at least 18 days, or 10 percent of the school year, according to "
In School & On Track 2015
," a new report from Attorney General Kamala Harris that looked at absenteeism rates in the 2014-15 school year.
(
Read more
.)
As researchers of education policy, we see him differently: the hub of a network of policy advocates. As the head of the federal Department of Education, he actively facilitated private actors' influence on public education policy.
(Read more.)
 Prior research has linked social engagement, such as peer interaction and participation in school activities, to a host of positive outcomes for youth and adolescents. However, little research considers patterns of social engagement among racial/ethnic minority and immigrant adolescents, despite prior research suggesting distinct racial/ethnic and generational differences in social interactions among young people.
Findings/Results: Overall, results show that racial/ethnic minority adolescents, as well as first- and second-generation adolescents, are less engaged in friendships than their third-generation White counterparts. In contrast, there is no clear pattern of advantage or disadvantage in extracurricular activity participation.
The perfect teacher. In Ofsted's eyes, that probably means exemplary lesson plans and 30 immaculately marked books with targets for improvement. But, as a 16-year-old, I'm not sure I agree. What students love about the best teachers - the ones whose lessons are discussed at the dinner table, whose names are always remembered and whose impact is never forgotten - is quite different.
Show us that you care
Ofsted says outstanding teachers demonstrate a "deep knowledge and understanding of their subject". Although passion is inspiring, a deep knowledge and understanding of their children is just as important. (
Read more.)
There's always something new to learn, an innovative strategy to uncover and a potentially successful hypothesis to use in an experiment. But in the midst of the ever-evolving infrastructure of the online world, one thing is becoming increasingly clear: visual content is the way of the future.
Sure, written content will still have its place -- at least for the next few years. But entrepreneurs that are refusing to get on board with this new frontier of visual content will almost certainly miss out.
Upcoming Event:
The 94rd Annual Meeting of the Horace Mann League will be held on Friday, February, 12, 2016, at the Phoenix Downtown Sheraton Hotel, starting at 11:45 am.
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
FAX (866) 389 0740
To
download the full or summary report,
To
view in an electronic magazine format,
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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
.
 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.
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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. Charles Fowler, Exec. Director, Suburban School Administrators, Exeter, HN
President-elect: Dr. Christine Johns-Haines, Superintendent, Utica Community Schools, MI
Vice President: Dr. Martha Bruckner, Superintendent, Council Bluffs Community Schools, IA
1st Past President: Mr. Gary Marx, President for Public Outreach, Vienna, VA
2nd Past President: Dr. Joe Hairston, President, Vision Unlimited, Reisterstown, MD
Directors:
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. Linda Darling Hammond, Professor of Education, Stanford U. CA
Dr. James Harvey, Exec. Dir., Superintendents Roundtable, WA
Dr. Eric King, Superintendent, (ret.) Muncie Public Schools, IN
Dr. Steven Ladd, Superintendent, (ret.) Elk Grove Unified School District, Elk Grove, CA
Dr. Barry Lynn, Exec. Dir., Americans United, Washington, DC
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.
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Unless you live in a closet or cave without electricity and the internet, it's no secret that the hostile for-profit corporate takeover of America's democratic public schools has led to billions of tax dollars lost to white collar fraud and crime with a lot more to come. >
US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's surprise announcement to leave his position in December is making headlines and driving lots of commentary, but an important story lost in the media clutter happened three days before he gave notice.
Much has already been written on the U.S. obsession with standardized 
Arne Duncan is 
