The Horace Mann League of the USA
 
Greetings! 
Welcome to the September 24, 2012, edition of the Horace Mann League Blog. 

This week's email includes articles ranging from high stakes testing to research about the characteristics of success "turnaround" schools.  Of course, I had to include something about charter school too.  Your comments and suggestions are always welcomed.
 
This past weekend, the HML Board meet in Mooresville, NC, for their summer board meeting. Part of the meeting was a tour of the Mooresville Graded Schools.  Mooresville Graded School District is a school system embracing the theme that "strives to prepare every child, every day to be a successful and responsible citizen in a global workplace and community."  Some photos taken during the tour are below. 
Jack McKay, Executive Director, The Horace Mann League of the USA.
Some of the recent postings on the HML Blog for September 24, 2012.
Click on the title to read the complete article.

This week's postings:

With the installation of No Child Left Behind, teachers, particularly those who serve marginalized students, have increasingly been told what and how to teach. Previous research demonstrates that teachers can act as mediators between policy and practice, even within coercive environments such as those generated by high-stakes accountability systems.

  

How to Fix the Schools   by Joe Nocera

Teachers - many of them - will continue to resent efforts to use standardized tests to measure their ability to teach. Their leaders - some of them - will denounce the "billionaire hedge fund managers" who are financing many of the reform efforts. Reformers will continue to view teachers' unions as the greatest roadblock to higher student achievement. How can such a poisonous atmosphere not affect what goes on in the classroom? Alienated labor is never a good thing. "It is not possible to make progress with your students if you are at war with your teachers." 

 

Schooling Beyond Measure by Alfie Kohn 

The reason that standardized-test results tend to be so uninformative and misleading is closely related to the reason that these tests are so popular in the first place. That, in turn, is connected to our attraction to-and the trouble with-grades, rubrics, and various practices commended to us as "data based."  

 

 New Studies Dissect School Turnarounds  by Sarah D. Sparks

It's not just particular programs or practices, but the interplay of school implementation with district policies and support. What makes one low-performing school turn around and build momentum over time, while another, seemingly similar school tries the same strategies but continues to struggle?

 

by Richard Rothstein
It was bound to happen, whether in Chicago or elsewhere. What is surprising about the Chicago teachers' strike is that something like this did not happen sooner.
The strike represents the first open rebellion of teachers nationwide over efforts to evaluate, punish and reward them based on their students' scores on standardized tests of low-level basic skills in math and reading. 
Are we insane? How can we afford to spend more on prisons than on higher education in our increasingly competitive knowledge-based world?

by By Les Leopold
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report, which compares the educational systems of over 30 developed nations, provides data that, when it comes to education, proves we're so far from being number one, that the entire idea of American exceptionalism should be called into question.

by George Wood
A couple of recent events, one on the state level and one very local, have given me hope and point out the way each and every one of us can stand up for our public schools.

by Kyle Olson
How will you and your district respond to the conversation generated by the movie Won't Back Down?
Scheduled for nationwide release on September 28, the movie focuses on parents, teachers and an urban school where parents are rebuffed by the school bureaucracy and teachers' union. 

What the public does not understand, however, even though both the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times have been writing about it for months, is that CPS is also simultaneously planning to open 60 new charter schools in the next few years. 
  

With teacher pay so much in the news thanks to the Chicago Teachers Union strike, it's worth taking a quick look at a study of states' school spending from State Budget Solutions that has a refreshingly blunt title: "Throwing Money at Education Isn't Working."  

 

 

HML Board Members Visit the Mooresville Graded School District 
Mark Edwards welcomes the HML board members to Mooresville High School.
HML board members visiting the "Help Room" at Mooresville High School.  Stan Olson (ID), Charles Fowler (NH), Gary Marx (VA), James Harvey (WA), Mark Edwards (NC) and Evelyn Blose-Holman (NY)

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.