Welcome to the HML POST - For the busy leaders of public education.
November 30, 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
The biggest lesson was that the future isn't far away--it's already here. The shift we're seeing in the economy today is much bigger than what came out of the emergence of the Web in the 1990's. And it's happening fast. "What's coming at us is bigger than the original Internet," Businesses that don't pay attention will quickly be left behind.
Why's that? Well, just look at the businesses that are seeing the greatest success today, such as Airbnb and Uber. Neither of these companies are traditional firms. The same can be said for Etsy, Facebook, Kickstarter, LinkedIn, Lyft, Medium Slack, and UpWork. All of these companies are  platform businesses that build and orchestrate large  networks.
These platforms are challenging traditional models of economic organization. The perfectly controlled linear supply chains and the vertically integrated organizations of the 20th century are giving way to large, decentralized networks of producers organized by the platform businesses of the 21st.
  ( Read more .)

The Smartness Act of 2015   by Jon Reiner on the New York Times site.
To ensure that elected and appointed officials of State and Municipal governments are sufficiently prepared (i.e., "get it") to enforce the Basic Skills provision of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, the United States Federal government has enacted the Common Core Standards Reform Act for Government Officials.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
This Act may be cited as "The Smartness Act of 2015."
SEC. 2. PURPOSE.      The purpose of this Act is to improve the implementation (i.e., "doing it") of Basic Skills by establishing minimum academic standards for State and Municipal government officials that must be achieved within sixty (60) days of their taking office. (Read more.)

Human Relations, Charter School Style   by Gene Glass on the ED2Worlds site.
A teacher at Challenge Charter School in Glendale, Arizona, wrote, not to ask for help, but to let me know what is going on at one of the area's celebrated educational institutions.
A man named Greg Miller is president of the Arizona State Board of Education. There is also a man named Greg Miller who is CEO of Challenge Charter School in Glendale, AZ, a suburb of Phoenix. Matching up photos of the Board president and the charter CEO leaves no doubt that these two individuals are one in the same Greg Miller. Mr. Miller, a civil engineer for 25 years, founded Challenge Charter School in the late 1990s and for a while served as principal. His current title is CEO. ... [D]aughter Wendy Miller was appointed Principal of Challenge Charter School the same year in which she earned her MBA.  ( Read more.)

Tell us about the challenges you've faced in your districts that led you to the Community Schools strategy.
Steve:  Three pressing challenges led to us adopting the Community Schools model.  First, the Great Recession affected many Vancouver families. Over the past decade, students qualifying for free and reduced-price meals increased from 37% to a peak of 57%, and last school year we served 830 homeless students. Second, like other districts we've seen the urbanization of what was once a suburban school district. Lower income families are being pushed from the city to suburban Vancouver. Third, NCLB accountability measures labeled our schools with high poverty and large English language learner populations as persistently low achieving schools. In response, we formed an "Opportunity Zone" built on the community schools strategy and redirected resources to schools with the highest needs.
Teresa: The face of Grand Rapids has changed. We have more children in poverty and more children for whom English is their second language. So we really needed to utilize a strategy to bring the community together in a way that could mitigate the new challenges we were all facing. The school district alone was not able to deal with the myriad of issues and challenges that were upon us in Grand Rapids Public Schools. We needed to bring something new to the city that leveraged the assets and resources of the community, and that strategy was community schools.  (Read more.)

Annual testing of all children in grades 3-8 and once in high school in reading and math will continue to be required along with disaggregating and reporting the scores.  States will also be required to identify their bottom-scoring 5 percent of schools along with schools that graduate less than two-thirds of their students in four years. However, the compromise bill requires the states themselves to decide what to do: "States would also have to identify and take action in schools that aren't closing the achievement gap between poor and minority students and their peers. But importantly, the bill doesn't say how many of those schools states would have to pinpoint, or what they would have to do to ensure that they are closing the gaps-the bill allows state leaders to figure all that out."   ( Read more. )


Charter Schools, An Exchange   on the Jersey Jazzman site.
History teaches us school "choice" is often a front for school segregation. Further, the "choice" offered urban parents is not suburban "choice." Here's an ugly truth: school "choice" has a segregationist history. Here's another ugly truth: today's "choice" plans appear to be leading to more segregation, not less. The Civil Rights Project at UCLA found that "that charter schools, in many ways, have more extensive segregation than other public schools." I approach the idea of reintegrating schools with some caution as I think there can easily be a deficit perspective inherent in the idea: that somehow we need to "save" students of color by mixing them in with more white students whose families have the "right" values. That said, we also have to acknowledge that this country deliberately segregated itself, and that segregation extends to its schools. I don't see that the charter movement has done anything to address this reality.    
( Read more .)

Tom Staszewski on the Seattle Education site. 
It's time to stop blaming and criticizing teachers and start thanking and acknowledging them.
Our schools reflect society, and society has undergone a dramatic shift from previous generations. A typical classroom today consists of many students with severe behavioral problems, limited knowledge of English usage, emotional and psychological difficulties, learning disabilities and attention-deficit disorders. And many suffer from abuse and other adverse home and socioeconomic conditions.
Unlike previous generations, many parents today send their kids to school unfed, unprepared and with little or no basic skills nor social skills. In many neighborhoods, it's the school building, not the child's home, that provides a safe, secure and predictable haven.   ( Read more. )

10 Best TED Talks of 2014 for Educators   on the Edudemic site.
  TED Talks are a major source of inspiration for educators who need a morale boost, a discussion starter, or a new perspective. The year 2014 brought some of the best TED Talks for educators, but there are some not-to-be-missed talks from 2013 that still are highly relevant for educators today. Their messages are invaluable for educators who work tirelessly to inspire creativity, motivation, and determination in their students. (View video.)




'They Rake Us Over the Coals'   by Benjamin Herold on the Education Week site.
  For diehards like Sanders, the vast distances and sparse population are part of western New Mexico's draw.   But those characteristics are also at the heart of the Internet-connectivity challenge for schools in such rural and remote parts of the country.
It is undeniably expensive for telecommunications companies to run high-speed lines to schools like tiny Datil Elementary, Sanders' first stop each day, where her nephew is one of just 17 students in grades K-6.
Many larger telecoms won't even try. And without generous federal subsidies, serving such schools doesn't make financial sense even for smaller, more community-oriented companies.
"You can get angry all you want, but there's not a whole lot we can do," said Tim Angelus, the district's technology director.
"They just rake us over the coals."  ( Read more.)

The sweet spot for decision making appears to be a narrow range of choices that differ on a few select traits. For instance, w hen it comes to real estate options, less is more - so narrow your client's property prospects to help them make a better final decision on a big-ticket item. "I find it helpful to never let buyers have more than three homes under consideration at any one time," he says. "And I won't show them another house until they take one of their 'top three' off the table."  (Read more.)

The subject of school shootings was enough for Michael Moore to make the controversial film, Bowling for Columbine (see the original Guardian review  here), and the FBI to devote a  monograph to its lessons, as well as making available  additional information targeting communities and school leaders, including college and elementary, middle, and high schools, in offering a means to determine a threat assessment to prevent future attacks. Such efforts, though laudable, have admittedly not been entirely successful.
Indeed, despite any education that may be devoted to understanding and identifying troubled students, many of whom might not be initially suspected of having such a capacity to commit these kinds of crimes, such armed violence has continued to escalate.  ( View film trailer.)

In Northwest, a question of tax cuts or education   by  Michael Kranish in the Boston Globe.
Thomas Ahearne, a Seattle lawyer, drove in his Ford pickup to this small town on the Olympic Peninsula a decade ago on an audacious mission. He planned to sue the state for violating its "paramount" constitutional responsibility, amply funding education for every child. 
It was a long shot, but, if it worked, billions of dollars would flow, and the state's 1 million schoolchildren would finally receive the education promised to them. One of the things Ahearne was hunting for in Chimacum was a brave soul willing to be the lawsuit's public face.
Stephanie McCleary, a shy mother of two children, soon volunteered. She hardly imagined her instinctive decision to help her kids would put her at the center of a battle against the state's most powerful players, uncovering a trail of inequities and injustices that have profound implications for this state and the rest of the nation.
The unlikely journey of Ahearne and McCleary began because Washington faced a startling crisis: Despite its image as the cutting-edge land of Microsoft, Boeing, Amazon, Starbucks, and many other corporate icons, the state ranks near last place nationally in education categories such as per-pupil funding, class size, and college attendance.  ( Read more.)

Getting to know ESSA  by Caitlin Emma on the Politico site
The education world is eagerly awaiting a bill expected early next week that could replace No Child Left Behind - and waivers, too - by the end of the year. So what's going to be in the Every Student Succeeds Act? 
- The new SIG: The framework for updating NCLB includes a 7 percent set-aside in Title I for school support and improvement. Schools will receive the funds for plans that are "evidence-based," and the framework has language laying out the bar those plans will have to meet in order to qualify as "evidence-based." 
- The new tests: The framework allows for computer-adaptive tests that were hard to use under NCLB, which required all students to take the same tests. That made it difficult to measure progress made by students who were either above or below their grade level. This should open the door to true adaptive tests, which will lead to lots more accuracy for kids way above or below grade level (and thus more accuracy in their growth scores - important for schools and teachers).  ( Read more.)

Superintendent of Year Award to two HML Board Members
Martha Bruckner
Steven Webb
Dr. Martha Bruckner, Superintendent of the Council Bluffs Community Schools in Iowa and Dr. Steve Webb, Superintendent of the Vancouver School District in Washington, have been selected by their state administrator association.  Both are on the Horace Mann League Board of Directors.  Bruckner is vice president and Webb serves as a director.  Brucker and Webb will be honored at the February 2016 AASA meeting in Phoenix and at the HML Annual Meeting on February 12th.

Things You Should Never Say To Teachers  on the MetaTeacher Pinterest site.
  
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


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 

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


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.