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Happy New Year from the
Horace Mann League Officers and Board members.
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Welcome to the Tuesday morning, January 2, 2018, edition of the HML Post. This weekly newsletter is a service to the members of the Horace Mann League of the USA.
More articles of interest are on the HML Flipboard site.
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Quote of the Week
"We carry within us the wonders we seek around us."
Sir Thomas Browne
____________________________________________
As someone who has taught high school history, led a school district, and researched the history of school reform including the use of new technologies in classrooms over the past half-century, except for one event noted below, I found little that startled me in 2017.
For digital tools in classrooms, it was the same o' same o'.
Sure, I am an oldster and have seen a lot of school reform both successes and failures but I am neither a pessimist nor a nay-sayer about public schools. I am a tempered idealist who is cautiously optimistic about what U.S. public schools have done and still can do for children, the community, and the nation.
So for 2017, I offer no lessons that will shock but ones distilled from my experience.
LESSON 1
When it comes to student use of classroom technologies, talk and action are both important. Differentiating between the two is crucial.
Anyone interested in improving schooling through digital tools has to distinguish between media surges of hyped news about, say, personalized learning transforming schools and virtual reality devices in classrooms from actual policies that are adopted (e.g., standards, testing, and accountability, buying 1:1).
LESSON 2
Access to digital tools is not the same as what happens in daily classroom activities.
District purchases of hardware and software continue to go up. In 1984, there were 125 students for each computer; now the ratio is around 3:1 and in many places 1:1. Nothing startling here-the trend line in buying stuff began to go up in the early years of this century and that trend continues.
Because this nearly ubiquitous access to new technologies has spread across urban, suburban, exurban, and rural school districts, too many pundits and promoters leap to the conclusion that all teachers integrate these digital tools into daily practice seamlessly.
While surely the use of devices and software has gained full entry into classrooms, anyone who regularly visits classrooms sees the wild variation in lessons among teachers using digital technologies.
(
Learn more.
)
The GOP/Trump tax cut bill is a much more
massive shift of the tax burden from the wealthy to the middle-class and low income families than reported-essentially borrowing from the future, taxing the working classes, and cutting needed services to finance an unnecessary tax cut for the wealthy who are already living high on the hog and receiving an unprecedented share of post-tax income.
One of the most commonly taught stories American schoolchildren learn is that of Ragged Dick, Horatio Alger's 19th-century tale of a poor, ambitious teenaged boy in New York City who works hard and eventually secures himself a respectable, middle-class life. This "rags to riches" tale embodies one of America's most sacred narratives: that no matter who you are, what your parents do, or where you grow up, with enough education and hard work, you too can rise the economic ladder.
A body of research has since emerged to challenge this national story, casting the United States not as a meritocracy but as a country where castes are reinforced by factors like the race of one's childhood neighbors and how unequally income is distributed throughout society. One
such study was published in 2014, by a team of economists led by Stanford's Raj Chetty. After analyzing federal income tax records for millions of Americans, and studying, for the first time, the direct relationship between a child's earnings and that of their parents, they determined that the chances of a child growing up at the bottom of the national income distribution to ever one day reach the top actually varies greatly by geography.
(
Learn more.
)
Exactly what is this new kind of smarts?
Successful intelligence is "the ability to set and accomplish personally meaningful goals in one's life, given one's cultural context."
According to Sternberg, if you're successfully intelligent, you can think well in four different areas as related to goals. These include
- Creatively
- Analytically
- Practically
- Wisdom-based (Ethically)
You think creatively to come up with new ideas that are useful. You then analyze those ideas to see if they're worthwhile or good. You think practically when you apply your concepts in ways that make sense for everyday life and convince others to jump on board. Lastly, you consider whether the way you're implementing your ideas will benefit everyone and follows accepted ethical rules. All these types of thinking rely on higher order executive mental processes like recognizing a problem.
Learn more.
)
Some years ago, we worked with a director of a multinational pharma company who'd been receiving poor grades for engagement and leadership effectiveness. Although he tried to change, nothing seemed to work. As his frustration grew, he started tracking the time he spent with each of his direct reports - and every time he received bad feedback, he pulled out his data and exclaimed, "But look how much time I spend with everyone!"
Things improved when he began a daily 10-minute mindfulness practice. After a couple of months, people found him more engaging, nicer to work with, and more inspiring. He was surprised and elated by the results. The real surprise? When he pulled out his time-tracking spreadsheet, he saw that he was spending, on average, 21%
less time with his people.
Simply getting through a day at school can be demanding for 8-year-old Sam Thompson - He has autism and a heart condition. His typical day looks a little different than his classmates', with visits to a variety of therapists and an early departure from school each afternoon.
"
It sounds like an unconventional, untraditional thing, but as a parent of a kid that not only struggles with acceptance of dogs but a lot of things in life, in general, it's such a good, new experience for him," Thompson said.
Students were recommended for the program for various reasons, Gillette said. Some have a learning disability, others may be struggling socially or emotionally.
(
Learn more
.)
It shouldn't surprise anyone to read about another supposedly phenomenal school accomplishment that ended up being more mirage than miracle.
The latest example comes from Washington, D.C., where in June, it was widely reported that Ballou High School, where few students tested as proficient in math or English, had nonetheless, incredibly sent all its seniors to college.
Incredible, indeed. When NPR and the local public radio station WAMU joined forces to re-examine the Ballou miracle, they found that half of the graduates had missed at least three months of classes in a single school year. A fifth of them had been absent for more than half the school year. Teachers complained that they had been instructed to give students a grade of 50 percent on assignments they hadn't even handed in, and that they were pressured to pass students whose work didn't remotely merit it.
(
Learn more
.)
Dawson Barrett on the TruthOut site.
From the Women's March to the airport occupations following the president's Muslim travel ban, the Trump era very quickly established itself as one of widespread protest and dissent.
Despite having little political capital or economic power, teenagers were on the front lines of much of it. On a wide range of issues, high school students across the US opposed the Trump agenda this year, both directly and symbolically.
At the end of a bleak political year, here are 10 stories about teens leading the charge in 2017:
10.
Student Journalists in Kansas Hold the Powerful Accountable.
student reporters at Pittsburg High School's Booster Redux newspaper continued to take seriously their own role as the fourth estate. When a new principal was hired at their Kansas school, they investigated her education and employment history -- and exposed her as suspect.
9. High School Marching Band Members in Iowa Walk Off the Field. Thirteen members of the Ames High School marching band in Iowa walked off the field during the "Star-Spangled Banner."
A lot of people in the school think of cheerleaders as airheads. They think we're oblivious to what's going on in the world. But they're wrong. ... Here was this small thing I could do to call attention to racism, and not let it go by. ... I decided to take a knee.
8. Youth Plaintiffs Take the Federal Government to Court Over Climate Change. Students argued that the plaintiffs have a fundamental right to live in a stable climate, the case challenges the federal government's policies on climate change and, notably, fossil fuels.
7. Teens in Massachusetts Call Out TD Garden - - in a year in which the student reporters of the Paradise Papers exposed Nike, Apple and others for dodging their tax responsibilities.
6. California High School Students Draft "Sanctuary Schools" students should be able to learn from their teachers without the fear that the president's "deportation force" might one day storm their schools.
5. Teens in Texas Protest Sanctuary Ban. Texas passed Senate Bill which outlaws "sanctuary cities" and "sanctuary campuses" by forbidding any locality from preventing its police, district attorneys and other officials from inquiring into a person's immigration status
4. New York High School Students Walk Out Against Trump's Muslim Ban
New York City students from several different high schools
walked out
of class -- some despite school memos to their parents discouraging it -- to join a rally against the travel ban in Foley Square.
3. Student protest for teachers. When the local school board announced that it would not deliver on raises for teachers that were promised in 2013 and that it was considering four new charter schools, hundreds of students from
eight high schools
walked out of class to protest in support of their teachers.
2. Students in Maine Rally Against Anti-LGBTQ Bigotry. In October, after a gay student at York High School in Maine was harassed and called homophobic slurs by bullies, nearly 200 York High students (and parents) held a rally at the school to express support for their classmate and to demand stronger anti-bullying policies from their principal.
1. Teens Nationwide Participate in the Women's March
Before becoming a presidential candidate, Donald Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women with impunity and about barging into beauty pageant dressing rooms uninvited.
Twenty-one women
have accused Trump of sexual harassment, assault or related misconduct. (
Learn more.)
Chronic absenteeism is associated with a host of adverse academic outcomes.
A 2008 study of graduation patterns found that the number of days students were absent in eighth grade was eight times more predictive of freshman year course failure than eighth grade test scores.
The same study found that freshman year absences were nearly as predictive of graduation rates as grade point average (GPA) and course failures, two more commonly used metrics for identifying students at risk of not graduating.
Similarly, a study of Baltimore City Public Schools found that chronic absenteeism was the strongest sixth grade predictor of not graduating high school.
For younger students, research has shown that chronic absenteeism in kindergarten is associated with lower achievement in reading and math in later grades, even when controlling for a child's family income, race, disability status, attitudes toward school, socioemotional development, age at kindergarten entry, type of kindergarten program, and preschool experience.
[9] Chronic absenteeism has also been linked to poor socioemotional outcomes, even after controlling for a rich set of student factors including lagged socioemotional measures. (
Learn more.)
However, despite abundant anecdotes and theories suggesting a causal effect of teachers' expectations on student outcomes, documenting its presence and size has been challenging. The reason is simple: positive correlations between what teachers expect and what students ultimately accomplish might simply result from teachers being skilled observers. In practice, distinguishing between accurate and biased expectations is difficult, because both teacher expectations and student outcomes are likely influenced by factors that researchers are unable to observe. (Learn more.)
Horace Mann League's Annual Meeting
2018 Annual Meeting and Awards
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The Education Cartoon of the Week. (Left here, just incase you didn't get a chance to read it.)
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The Superintendent's Special topics:
(Please share your ideas. Contact Jack McKay
)
Sponsor a Professional Colleague for membership
in
the Horace Mann League.
Click here to download the "Sponsor a Colleague" form.
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
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. Martha Bruckner,
Exec.Dir., MOEC Collective Impact, Omaha, NE
President-elect:
Dr. Eric King, Superintendent, (ret.) Muncie Public Schools, IN
Vice President: Dr. Laurie Barron, Superintendent, Evergreen School District, Kalispell, MT.
Past President:
Dr. Christine Johns-Haines, Superintendent, Utica Community Schools, MI
Directors:
Dr. Ruben Alejandro, Supt.
of
Schools, (ret.) Weslaco, TX
Dr. David Berliner, Professor Emeritus, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
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. Ember Conley, Supt.
of
Schools, Park City, UT
Dr. Linda Darling Hammond, Professor of Education, Stanford U. CA
Dr. James Harvey, Exec.
Dir
., Superintendents Roundtable, WA
Dr. Steven Ladd, Superintendent, (ret.) Elk Grove USD, Elk Grove, CA
Dr. Stan Olson, President, Silverback Learning, (former supt.
of
Boise Schools, ID)
Dr. Lisa Parady, Executive Director, Alaska Association of School Administrators
Dr. Kevin Riley, Superintendent, Gretna Community Schools, NE
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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