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Welcome to the May 11th edition of the HML POST
The HML website, Click
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(Editorials and research articles are selected by Dr.
Jack McKay, Executive director of the HML. Suggested editorials and related research are always welcomed. McKay is Professor Emeritus from the University of Nebraska-Omaha in the Department of Educational Administration and a former superintendent in Washington state.)
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Recognizing Your Work
by
Randi Weingarten, President, American Federation of Teachers on the Learning First Alliance site
 As president of one of the leading public sector unions in this country, I see firsthand and hear stories every day about workers who make a difference in their communities and in people's lives-healing the sick, unlocking a child's mind or improving a family's life. That is who our members are: all 1.6 million.
Yet, too often, these workers face a barrage of scurrilous attacks denigrating them and the work they do-from sources that simply wish to eliminate these essential public services and silence those who do the work.
That's why Teacher Appreciation Week, National Nurses Week and Public Service Recognition Week-all being celebrated this week in May-are more than simply a Hallmark card moment.
Needed in School: 140 Characters by Arnold Dodge on the Huffington Post site
 Many of our schools have become dry, lifeless places. Joy and spirited emotions have been replaced by fear, generated by masters from afar. These remote overseers -- politicians, policy makers, test prep executives -- have decided that tests and numbers and drills and worksheets and threats and ultimatums will somehow improve the learning process. The engine that fuels this nefarious agenda is the imposition of mandatory testing, an initiative that insults teachers and students, and sucks the life out of our schools.
What's more, this system of tests is invalid on its face. When a student does well on a reading test, the results tell us nothing about how well she will use reading as a tool to learn larger topics, nor does it tell us that she will be interested in reading at all. What it tells us is that she is good at taking a reading test.
 The movement among parents to refuse to allow their children to take Common Core-aligned standardized tests has been growing in a number of states, as recent Answer Sheet posts have chronicled (
here and
here, for example). As opt-out numbers have grown, so too has reaction from officials who argue that frequent testing is valuable and that school districts could lose federal funds if too many students refuse to take the test (
a threat that appears to be based on shaky ground.)
 A year ago, the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) issued a report demonstrating that charter schools in 15 states-about one-third of the states with charter schools-had experienced over $100 million in reported fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement. This report offers further evidence that the money we know has been misused is just the tip of the iceberg. Over the past 12 months, millions of dollars of new alleged and confirmed financial fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement in charter schools have come to light, bringing the new total to over $200 million
Despite the tremendous ongoing investment of public dollars to charter schools, government at all levels has failed to implement systems that proactively monitor charter schools for fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement. While charter schools are subject to significant reporting requirements by various public offices (including federal monitors, chartering entities, county superintendents, and state controllers and auditors), very few public offices regularly monitor for fraud.
John Oliver: Standardized Testing (HBO)
American students face a ridiculous amount of testing. John Oliver explains how standardized tests impact school funding, the achievement gap, how often kids are expected to throw up.
After extensive research and discussion with our membership, Parents Across America (PAA) has taken a position against the Common Core State Standards and the related tests, called the PARCC and SBAC. PAA calls for an immediate moratorium on implementation of these programs.
We wish to place our position in the following context:
1) PAA is NOT opposed to learning standards or assessment.
2) PAA is NOT opposed to federal involvement in public education.
3) PAA recognizes that the push for national standards and tests did not start with CCSS/PARCC/SBAC.
However, we believe such efforts are based on a faulty analysis of the challenges facing public schools and a disregard for the harmful and ineffective results of standardized test-based accountability.
We oppose the CCSS because they are not derived from any community's shared vision of a quality education.
We oppose the PARCC/SBAC assessments because they are products of the same companies whose tests are being rejected daily as time-wasting intrusions on real learning by growing numbers of parents, teachers, students, and administrators across the nation.
 CREDO, the nation's foremost independent analyst of charter school effectiveness, released today a comprehensive Urban Charter Schools Report and 22 state-specific reports that combine to offer policymakers unprecedented insight into the effectiveness of charter schools.
"One of our largest research efforts to date, this study targets our focus on charter schools in urban areas because these are communities where students have faced significant education challenges and are in great need of effective approaches to achieve academic success," said Dr. Margaret Raymond, director of CREDO at Stanford University. "This research shows that many urban charter schools are providing superior academic learning for their students, in many cases quite dramatically better. These findings offer important examples of school organization and operation that can serve as models to other schools, including both public charter schools and traditional public schools."
Response to the CREDO Study on Urban Charter Schools
Trying Hard to Shape Urban Charter Success from Shoddy Research
by Mercedes Schneider on the Schneider blog
Considering that the pro-market reform Thomas B. Fordham Foundation paid for this study and Raymond works at the Hoover Institution at Stanford - a free market bastion, I was frankly floored, as were most of the folks at my table.
Thus, it is with raised eyebrow that I learned of a new CREDO study released in spring 2015 and that supposedly demonstrates urban charter school superiority. The study also caught the attention of Baruch College researcher/journalist Andrea Gabor, who informed me of her painstaking invesrigation of the "new" CREDo study. As Gabor noted to me in an email:
...After years of researching schools on the ground in charter-heavy districts like New Orleans and New York City, I was skeptical about the [new CREDO] study's approach and its findings. So, I hired Kaiser Fung, a respected statistician, to help me analyze the study. I then asked CREDO's director, Macke (Margaret)Raymond, several questions via email; her answers raised more concerns. In the end, Fung and I found several major problems with the study; in the case of its analysis of New Orleans charter schools, the study even violated its own methodology. The problems go well beyond technical quibbles and suggest that any generalizations drawn from the study about the quality of traditional public schools relative to charter schools would be a big mistake.
Response to The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights Statement on Opting Out
by Robin Hiller of the Network for Public Education
 We support opting out of high stakes tests because:
- There is no evidence that these tests contribute to the quality of education, have led to improved educational equity in funding or programs, or have helped close the "achievement gap".
These tests, particularly those associated with the Common Core, have become intrusive in our schools, consuming huge amounts of time and resources, and narrowing instruction to focus on test preparation.
- These tests have never been independently validated or shown to be reliable and/or free from racial and ethnic bias.
- Instead the Common Core exams are being used as a political weapon to claim huge numbers of students are failing, to close neighborhood public schools, and fire teachers, all in the effort to disrupt and privatize the public education system.
Thus, the notion that subjecting students to high-stakes tests is a "civil right" is inherently misguided.
Is Testing Students the Answer to America's Education Woes? by Kevin Welner in the New York Times
 It is much easier to correctly identify a problem than to come up with a workable solution.
When No Child Left Behind was signed into law in 2002, the United States did indeed have a problem - one that was identified, at least partially, by President George W. Bush's condemnation of the "soft bigotry of low expectations." Since the nation's inception, many children of color and those living in poor communities have been denied fair opportunities to learn and to succeed. N.C.L.B. was supposed to change that by demanding that by 2014, all students would be "proficient" in math and reading.
Teacher Librarians: Mavens in a Digital Age by Steven T. Webb and Mark C. Ray on the School Administrator site
With the advent of pervasive digital learning content, increased access to handheld devices and the evolution of blended learning, new technology is posing new challenges and opportunities to our profession. As analog processes give way to new digital paradigms, educators from the classroom to the administrative offices are changing their approach to serving and supporting students.
Teacher librarians have felt the need to change as acutely as anyone. The digital shift, combined with perennial budget shortfalls, has led many school districts to cut library programs.
Education doesn't need Common Core reform, Teachers need the time and resources to build great schools by Carol Burris on the Hichinger Report site
 Here is why I ask the question. Those who support the Common Core standards often claim they are needed because state standards were weak and, if states would adopt the same standards, the achievement of all students would rise. The problem is there is no evidence that standards per se make a difference in student performance, and there is some impressive scholarship that says they do not make any difference.
Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institute
has shown that similar reforms over the past three decades have not improved student achievement, even when the standards were "rigorous" and schools did their best to implement them.
AASA, Howard University Seal Partnership to form Urban Superintendents Academy on the AASA School Administrator site
The Urban Superintendents Academy will offer current and aspiring school superintendents a revolutionary new approach to ensure success in urban schools as well as recruit a new generation of minority educators to the superintendency," said Leslie T. Fenwick, dean of Howard University's School of Education. "There is a yawning diversity gap between the nation's students and the school personnel that serves them. About 16 percent of the nation's 92,000 principals are ethnic minorities. Approximately 20 percent of the nation's school teachers are ethnic minorities. There is much work that we still need to do in diversifying school personnel.
Dr. Joe Hairston, Past President of the HML and former Superintendent of the Baltimore County Schools is the co-leader of the program at Howard University.
 A long-term study shows that children who were bullied have more trouble in adulthood than children mistreated by their parents. Peers may be worse than parents when it comes to the psychological effects of disparaging words and harassment.
A study published today in The Lancet Psychiatry reports that children who were bullied by peers had significant mental health problems as adults - even more significant than children who were mistreated by their parents or caregivers.
In his study, University of Warwick psychology professor Dieter Wolke defined maltreatment as physical, sexual, or emotional abuse by an adult caretaker.
Bullying, in contrast, is repeated aggression by peers (such as verbal taunts, physical attacks, or social exclusion) carried out at least once a week.
by Anthony Cody on the Living in Dialogue site
 Bill Gates entered the field of education about fifteen years ago with some interesting ideas. Starting around the year 2000, his foundation invested about $650 million in promoting small schools. On the positive side, this was a concept with some basis in how students learn best. There was an understanding that human relationships were improved when schools and class sizes were smaller. Schools like High Tech High were able to experiment with project based learning and other innovative approaches. On the negative side, the foundation was determined to "scale up" this approach, and so there was a tendency to give money to anyone willing to go through the motions.
The Horace Mann League on the The Horace Mann league site
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 Cartoon for the Week
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Superintendent Vacancies
Multnomah Education Service District, Portland, Oregon, Contact
Dennis Ray
Waterford, Public Schools, Waterford, CT, Contact
Joseph Wood
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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