The Horace Mann League of the USA
 
Greetings! 
Welcome to the October 1 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 October 1 2012.
Click on the title to read the complete article.

This week's postings:

  

It is hard sometimes for advocates of public education to see our own movement, when we are active participants in it. But the critical and public reaction to the movie "Won't Back Down" is providing us with some evidence of how far we have come in the past two years. 

  

Each character in the new film, about Pittsburgh parents and teachers who band together to take over a struggling school, is crafted less as a believable human being than as a talking point. First there are the students of F-rated Adams Elementary, a tapestry of white, black, Latino and Asian children. 

  

States are a lot more willing to pass teacher evaluation laws than they are to empower principals (and districts) to manage their staffs effectively. 

  

Now that the fall semester has begun, schools will be faced with deciding where to draw the line on their students' right of free speech on the Internet. I'm not talking now about student-on-student cyberbullying, which is outlawed by nearly every state. Instead I'm referring to postings that slander teachers. 

  

What It Means to 'Believe in Teachers'  By Kim Farris-Berg

All of these efforts at improvement are things done to teachers. They are attempts to control teachers' behavior, choices, and quality from the outside. The motto seems to be: To get accountability, we need to get tough. 
 
Family socioeconomic characteristics continue to be among the strongest predictors of student achievement, but while there is a considerable body of research that seeks to tease apart thisrelationship, the causes and mechanisms of this relationship have been the subject of considerable disagreement and debate.
 
Photos of the tour of the schools followed by a recent article about the Mooresville Schools in the NY Times Education Section.

  

Other postings that may be of interest:

Preparing Students for the Future?  By Nancy Flanagan

Cartoons on Common Core Standards  by Larry Cuban
A Discussion About ALEC, by Julie Underwood,  (video)

Standing up for teachers  By Eugene Robinson

 

 

 

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.