Welcome to the HML POST - For the busy leaders of public education.
November 16, 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.  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.
The HML Facebook page, Click here.  (Includes past issues of the HML POST)
 
The Horace Mann League of the USA Post
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.  Registration information, click here.
Special awards will be presented to the following at the annual meeting.
Dr. Andy Hargreaves Outstanding Friend of Public Education. Professor and Author, Boston College 
Dr. Gene Glass
Outstanding Public 
Education. Professor and Author, National Education Policy Center
Gary Marx
Outstanding Friend of the League. Author and Past President of the HML, President of Public Outreach

Absenteeism will be front-and-center today at the U.S. Department of Education, which hosts an online summit on strategies to combat chronic absence.

Shake Off Those Charter Chains! by Mark Fiore on the Progressive site.
  Ever wondered about the magic bullet of charter schools?  Turns out they may not be the promised educational salvation so many claim.  Sure, there are good, community-based charter schools that are built from the ground up, but the rise of huge "Charter Chains" dwarfs them by comparison.
I did this cartoon in collaboration with the good people at The Progressive.  This video is a good starting point for learning about a very real threat to public education in the United States.  The more you dig into some of these Charter Chains, the more awful they become.  (View video.)

The purpose of this statement is to inform those using or considering the use of value-added models (VAM) about their scientific and technical limitations in the evaluation of educators and programs that prepare teachers. The statement briefly reviews the background and current context of using VAM for evaluations, enumerates specific psychometric problems with VAM, and addresses the validity of inferences from VAM, given the challenges of isolating the contributions of teachers and school leaders from the many other factors that shape student learning.
Conclusion: Many states and districts have incorporated VAM in a comprehensive system to evaluate teachers, principals, and educator preparation programs. There are considerable risks of misclassification and misinterpretation in the use of VAM to inform these evaluations. As detailed above, the education research community emphasizes that the use of VAM in any evaluations must satisfy technical requirements of accuracy, reliability, and validity. This includes attention not only to the construct validity and reliability of student assessments, but also to the reliability of the results of educator and program evaluation models, as well as their consequential validity. In sum, states and districts should apply relevant research and professional standards that relate to testing, personnel, and program evaluation before embarking on the implementation of VAM. ( Read more.)

The  Washington State Supreme Court  ruled on September 4, 2015 that charter schools are not "common schools" and therefore cannot be funded by common school funds.  The judges based their decision on the issue of public funding for schools that are not publicly governed, not subject to local accountability, and not under the authority of elected school boards. Proponents of charter schools  and parents who enrolled their students  expressed shock and disappointment in response to the Supreme Court decision. 
After getting Initiative 1240 onto the ballot, proponents of the bill spent $10.9 million, making it the third most expensive initiative campaign in state history.  Six individuals collectively spent more than $9 million in support of the initiative, including Bill Gates, Alice Walton of the WalMart fortune, and Eli Broad, founder of the Broad Foundation. In contrast, opponents of the measure raised approximately $700,000.  The initiative narrowly passed by a 50.69% majority vote, but the slim victory exposed the lack of popular support for charter schools in the state and galvanized the opposition.   ( Read more .)

CMD, a national investigative group that conducts in-depth investigations into the influence of corporations, trade groups, and PR firms on media and democracy, found that the public does not have ready access to key information about how their federal and state taxes are being spent to fuel the charter school industry since charters began almost 25 years ago.
Indeed, no one even knew how much the federal government had spent on its program designed to boost the charter sector. So CMD reviewed more than two decades of federal authorizations and appropriations to calculate the sum, which is now more than $3.7 billion-as noted in this new report. CMD also found that the federal government was not providing the public with a list of all the charter schools that received federal tax monies and how much.
CMD also found that many states have not provided the public with ready information about the amounts of federal funding each charter has received under the federal "Charter School Program" (CSP) for state education agencies (SEAs), and that most states have not provided the public with information about the amounts in state and federal tax dollars that have been diverted to charters rather than spent strengthening traditional public schools. ( Read more.)



 The United States ranks near the bottom of the pack of wealthy nations on a measure of child poverty, according to  a new report from UNICEF . Nearly one third of U.S. children live in households with an income below 60 percent of the national median income in 2008 -  about $31,000 annually .
In the richest nation in the world, one in three kids live in poverty. Let that sink in.
The UNICEF report pegs the poverty definition to the 2008 median to account for the decline in income since then -  incomes fell after the great recession, so measuring this way is an attempt to assess current poverty relative to how things stood before the downturn.










High-stakes accountability systems do not significantly improve student achievement, and in fact have no statistically significant impact on the scores of students in reaching proficiency. There may be some evidence that high-stakes accountability assists in moving students to basic levels of performance, but once student demographics are controlled for, even those minimal effects disappear. Research has yet to prove high-stakes accountability will move students to proficiency and close achievement gaps. There is wide evidence, though, that high-stakes accountability systems have caused a narrowing of the curriculum and reduced the amount of time that students spend being instructed in non-accountability subjects.  

 
Some school districts across the country have begun to convene principals in professional learning communities (PPLC) as a strategy to help principals develop as instructional leaders, and they have designated executive-level central office staff to lead the PPLCs.  
We found that the central office administrators varied in how they participated in the PPLC meetings, particularly in terms of the extent to which they engaged in the teaching practices identified in our conceptual framework. The central office administrators who most frequently engaged in those practices were also the central office administrators we associated with such positive results as their principals' engagement in progressively more challenging instructional leadership activities during PPLC meetings, and principals' detailed reports of the value of the PPLC meetings to their development as instructional leaders. Key mediators of central office administrators' participation in the meetings include their executive-level positions, other central office staff and principal demands, the availability of professional development, and their own orientations to the work.

The Dos and Don'ts of Educational Leadership
by Pedro Noguera on Youtube.











GERM that kills schools by Pasi Sahlberg  on TEDx/Youtube. 
Activist & Education Director Pasi Sahlberg brings what he has learned from the education system in his native Finland to United States' parents, teachers and policy makers. 
(View.)







Funny infographic on the cost of a bad PowerPoint presentation. Feature the top annoyances when listening to a bad presentation and the do's and don'ts.   (See more.)












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
 

   "Do not think of knocking out another person's brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago." 
 
  
  
     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 

 -------------------------------------------
A Few Political Cartoons for the Week
 

 
------------------------------------- 
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


Reprinted with permission.

 

 
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.