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Welcome to the HML POST
(Editorials and research articles are selected by
Jack McKay, Executive director of the HML.
Topics are selected to provoke a discussion about the importance of strong public schools.
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.
The HML website, Click
here.
The HML Flipboard magazine, Click
here to read and follow more articles.
The HML Leadership Pinterest
Board. Click
here.
The HML Horace Mann Quotes on Pinterest, Click
here.
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A gift for your New Teachers: 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
Playground scene.... 2015
 Public education used to be, you know, public - an essential societal investment for the betterment of all, paid for by all through school taxes.
In addition to privatization schemes to turn education over to corporate profiteers, public schools themselves have steadily been shifting from free education toward what amounts to fee education. This is a product of the budget slashing frenzy imposed on our schools in the past 15 years or so by the convergence of Koch-headed, anti-public ideologues and unimaginative, acquiescent education officials.
Beset by tight budgets, too many school systems are accommodating the slashers by shifting the cost of educating America's future from the general society to the parents of students who are presently enrolled.
(Read more.)
 American public education is in controversy. As public schools across the country struggle for funding, complicated by the impact of poverty and politics, some question the future and effectiveness of public schools in the U.S.
For free-market reformers, private investors and large education corporations, this controversy spells opportunity in turning public schools over to private interests. Education, Inc. examines the free-market and for-profit interests that have been quietly and systematically privatizing America's public education system under the banner of "school choice." (
Watch trailer video.)
by Charles E. Basch, Delaney Gracy, Dennis Johnson and Anupa Fabian on the Education Commission of the States
 Education is a critical pathway by which children can rise out of the cycle of poverty. Billions of dollars are invested annually in America's public schools and considerable improvement has been made in academic achievement and educational attainment. However, certain school-aged cohorts - entire communities of youth - have been left behind. An under-appreciated fact is that these same youth are disproportionately affected by a constellation of health problems that subvert their motivation and impair their ability to learn. Scientists and stakeholders agree that students must be healthy to be ready to learn.1 If a child needs but doesn't have eyeglasses, can't sleep because of poorly controlled asthma, feels unsafe at school, is hungry or cannot focus attention, motivation and ability to learn are greatly limited. In communities with high rates of poverty, these conditions are endemic.
 In a stark about-face from just a few years ago, school districts have gone from handing out pink slips to scrambling to hire teachers.
Across the country, districts are struggling with shortages of teachers, particularly in math, science and special education - a result of the layoffs of the recession years combined with an improving economy in which fewer people are training to be teachers.
At the same time, a growing number of English-language learners are entering public schools, yet it is increasingly difficult to find bilingual teachers. So schools are looking for applicants everywhere they can - whether out of state or out of country - and wooing candidates earlier and quicker. (
Read more.)
 This post was written by Phyliss Doerr, an experienced kindergarten teacher in Néw Jersey.
As we wind down a year of tremendous controversy in the realm of education in the United States, I thought I would share some of my input given in January to a New Jersey Board of Education panel on testing led by Education Commissioner David Hespe.
As a kindergarten teacher, I find the trend to bring more testing into kindergarten not only alarming, but counter-productive and even harmful.
In the kindergarten at my school, we do not administer standardized tests; however, hours of testing are included in our math and language arts curriculum. In order to paint a realistic picture of the stress, damaging effects and colossal waste of time caused by testing in kindergarten, allow me to bring you to my classroom for our first test prep session in late September for 5-year-old children. (
Read more.)
 Indiana's got a problem: Teachers increasingly don't want to work in the state anymore. The problem has become so acute that some school districts have have had a hard time finding enough teachers to cover classes for the new school year - and some lawmakers want a legislative committee to discuss the shortage.
The percentage of all teachers getting a teaching license - including veterans - fell by more than 50 percent from 2009-10 to 2013-14, and there was an 18.5 percent decline in the number of licenses issued to new teachers during the same period, according to Indiana Department of Education figures. (
Read more.)
 Opposition to the Core does not stem from a single source and is not confined to members of one political party. People dislike the Common Core for different reasons. In this post, I will identify various sources of opposition to the Common Core as well as assess (and in some instances dispel) the stated reasons for opposition. It is also important to understand the unusual political alliances that have emerged in opposition to the Common Core implementation, and how they may play out longer term. In a future post, I will analyze their likely effects on the future of the Common Core. (Read more).
 The Washington state Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the state pay $100,000 a day in sanctions, starting immediately, for its lack of progress toward fully paying the cost of basic education.
The court encouraged Gov. Jay Inslee to call a special legislative session to address the issue, saying that if the Legislature complies with the court's previous rulings for the state to deliver a plan to fully fund education that the penalties accrued during a special session would be refunded.
The order stems from McCleary et al. v. State of Washington, filed by two families against the state in 2007. (
Read more.)
 There are many reasons why school boards buy hardware and software
still the old chestnut that "students will achieve more academically with ________ (put your device or software du jour here) lingers on in the minds of enthusiasts as a sweat-filled dream. Sure, vendors and consultants paid by high-tech companies produce "
white papers
" or research studies that tout gains in students' academic performance. No longer authoritative reports, "white papers" have become
marketing tools
. Like sponsored advertising in the media, such "white papers" want to sell readers on the merits, not the complexities of either teaching or learning in using devices. (Read more.)
 Most teens start school too early in the morning, which deprives them of the sleep they need to learn and stay healthy, a new study says.
The
American Academy of Pediatrics
last year urged middle schools and high schools to start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. in order to allow teens - who are biologically programmed to stay up later at night than adults - to get the recommended 8.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep each night.
But 83% of schools do start before 8:30 a.m., according to a study released Thursday by the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
.
(
Read More
.)
 The ballooning demand for misplaced and misunderstood metrics, benchmarks, and performance indicators is costing us big.
The characteristic feature of the culture of accountability is the aspiration to replace judgment with standardized measurement. Judgment is understood as personal, subjective, and self-interested; metrics are supposed to provide information that is hard and objective. The strategy behind the numbers is to improve institutional efficiency by offering rewards to those whose metrics are highest or whose benchmarks have been reached, and by punishing those who fall behind relative to them. Policies based on these assumptions have been on the march for decades, hugely enabled in recent years by dramatic technological advances, and as the ever-rising slope of the Ngram graphs indicate, their assumed truth goes marching on. (Read more.)
 More than 200,000 third through eighth graders sat out New York's standardized tests this year, education officials said on Wednesday, in a sign of increasing resistance to testing as more states make them harder to pass.
The number of students declining to take the exams quadrupled from the year before, and represented 20 percent of all those eligible to be tested, according to data from the State Education Department. The statistic not only showed the
growing strength of the "opt out" movement against standardized testing, but also put immediate pressure on state and federal officials, who must now decide whether to penalize schools and districts with low participation rates. (
Read more.)
Barclay Key on the BadAssTeacher site
 This is for every teacher who refuses to be blamed for the failure of our society to erase poverty and inequality, and refuses to accept assessments, tests and evaluations imposed by those who have contempt for real teaching and learning.
From the chaos of initial desegregation efforts to the white flight of the past few decades, Little Rock's hopes for strong public schools have consistently been sacrificed on the altar of white supremacy. As a historian, I knew the general contours of this story before my family and I moved here in 2012. The story differs only in its details as one travels the country. (Read more.)
 Extensive behind-the-scenes work to develop proposal
Rep. Rob Bryan (R-Mecklenburg) may be the face of a plan to allow charter school operators to take over North Carolina's worst performing schools, but he's not the only Bryan with fingerprints on the proposal.
Enter John D. Bryan, an Oregon-based retired business executive-and multimillionaire-who has long standing ties to the school privatization movement developing in the Tar Heel state and is a backer of conservative causes and political campaigns across the country. (
Read more.)
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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In the past two years, states have implemented sweeping reforms to their teacher evaluation systems in response to Race to the Top legislation and, more recently, NCLB waivers. With these new systems, policymakers hope to make teacher evaluation both more rigorous and more grounded in specific job performance domains such as teaching quality and contributions to student outcomes. Attaching high stakes to teacher scores has prompted an increased focus on the reliability and validity of these scores. Teachers unions have expressed strong concerns about the reliability and validity of using student achievement data to evaluate teachers and the potential for subjective ratings by classroom observers to be biased. The legislation enacted by many states also requires scores derived from teacher observations and the overall systems of teacher evaluation to be valid and reliable. 
