The Horace Mann League of the USA
 
Greetings! 
Welcome to the September 17, 2012, edition of the Horace Mann League Blog. 

This newsletter is supported by dues of the members of the Horace Mann League.  Your comments and suggestions are always appreciated. 

Jack McKay, Executive Director, The Horace Mann League of the USA.
Some of the recent postings on the HML Blog for September 17, 2012.
Click on the title to read the complete article.

This week's postings:

  

 Evaluating Teacher Evaluation  by Linda Darling Hammond
Popular modes of evaluating teachers are fraught with inaccuracies and inconsistencies, but the field has identified better approaches. 
 
As noted in 2011 research synthesis by the Center on Education Policy, these studies generally show no clear advantage in academic achievement for students who attend private schools with publicly funded vouchers, compared with similar students in public schools. 
 
"Won't Back Down" is very clearly an attempt to promote school privatization and ALEC-backed parent trigger laws, which have not even been on the radar screen here in Southwest Pennsylvania.
 
it is also a political issue wrapped up in the "gutting [of] vital social services such as education, health care, police and public transit services, spending for the disabled and other areas of state services and employment." 
 
Some reformers have argued for years that charters should become the system, that we should treat every public school like a charter. With parental choice, freedom from most district rules and constraints, and accountability for performance, charters simply represent a better way to organize public education-or so the argument goes. 
 
With the new school year upon us, we asked a handful of superintendents of districts in the greater Washington area to answer six questions so we could get a better understanding of their vision and challenges. 
 
... public schools are the heart and soul of many American towns, the core of local DNA. And because public schools are so strongly part and parcel of their community, they tend to reflect and even reinforce the strengths and weaknesses of the people they serve. 
 
There are more schools struggling to round up more than 20 players. There are more and more comically lopsided scores-50-0, 60-0-making the dreaded second-half running clock a more frequent occurrence. The difference in participation, skill level and coaching ability between the schools with rich football traditions and those without them is growing exponentially. 
 
Starving the Future by Charles Blow 
Emerging economic powers China and India are heavily investing in educating the world's future workers while we squabble about punishing teachers and coddling children. 
 
the United States continues to fall behind other developed countries in terms of graduation rates, access to higher education and work conditions for teachers, even losing some of its advantage as a higher-education destination for international students. 
 
A recent Brookings Institution report that looked at college enrollment rates of students attending voucher schools in New York City acknowledged no overall impacts of the vouchers on college attendance, but its authors trumpeted large, positive impacts for a subgroup of the voucher students: African Americans. 

 

 
 
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: Mark Edwards, Supt., Mooresville Graded Schools, NC
President-elect: Joe Hairston, (ret.) Supt., Baltimore County Public Schools, MD
Vice President: Gary Marx, President, Center for Public Outreach, VA
Past President: Julie Underwood, Dean, Sch. of Ed. U. of WI, Madison
2nd Past Pres: George Garcia, (ret.) Supt., Boulder Valley Schools, CO
3rd Past Pres: Steve Rasmussen, Supt., Issaquah School District, WA

 

Directors:
Martha Bruckner, Supt., Council Bluffs Community Schools, IA
Evelyn Blose-Holman, (ret.) Superintendent, Bay Shore Schools, NY
Carol Choye, Instructor, Bank Street College, NY
Brent Clark, Exec. Dir., Illinois Assoc. of School Admin. IL
Linda Darling Hammond, Professor of Education, Stanford U. CA
Nancy DeFord, Supt. (Ret.) Park City Schools, UT
Charles Fowler, Exec. Dir., Suburban School Superintendents, NH
James Harvey, Exec. Dir., Superintendents Roundtable, WA
William Hite, Supt., Philadelphia City Schools, PA
Dwight Jones, Supt., Clark County Schools, NV
Eric King, Supt., (Ret.) Muncie Public Schools, IN
Barry Lynn, Exec. Dir., Americans United, Washington, DC
Stan Olson, Supt. (Ret.) Boise Public Schools, ID
Douglas Otto, Assoc.Prof.,Ed. Ad., University of North Texas, TX

 

Executive Director:
Jack McKay, Professor, (Ret.) 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. 
 HML Blog Posts through August 5, 2012
The 304 postings are listed in alphabetical order by author.