The Horace Mann League of the USA
 
HML Annual Meeting, Friday, February 22, 2013, 11:45 to 1:30 pm, J.W. Marriott Hotel, Los Angels, CA.  Click here for the HML Annual Meeting and Luncheon Meeting Registration Form.
Dr. Thomas Payzant
Senator Mark Warner
Dr. Tom Payzant will be awarded HML's "Outstanding Public Educator" award for 2013.  Tom was the Assistant Secretary of Education, long-time superintendent of the Boston Public Schools, and most recently a professor at Harvard's Graduate School of Education.  Tom is the recent author book,"Urban and District School Leadership.
 
U.S. Senator Mark Warner, representing the state of Virginia, has a long history of supporting public education while Governor of Virginia and in the U.S. Senate.  Senator Warner has led his colleagues in making significant modifications to NCLB and in support of educational policies that strengthen local school boards and school administrators.


Greetings! 
Welcome to the January 28, 2013, edition of the Horace Mann League Blog. 

HML Annual Meeting, Friday, February 22, 2013, 11:45 to 1:30 pm, J.W. Marriott Hotel, Los Angels, CA.  Click here for the HML Annual Meeting and Luncheon Meeting Registration Form

Mark Edwards, President, The Horace Mann League of the U.S.A.
Jack McKay, Executive Director, The Horace Mann League of the U.S.A.

Click on the title to read the complete article.

This week's postings:
The 91st Horace Mann League Annual Meeting is set for Friday, February 22, 2013, at the J.W. Marriott Hotel in downtown Los Angles, from 11:45 am to 1:30 pm.  Featured speakers are Senator Mark Warner, from Virginia, and Dr. Tom Payzant, former Boston Superintendent and Assistant Secretary of Education in the US Dept. of Education.

  

Topical Sections for the week of February 11, 2013

  

Educational Reform Efforts (e.g. charters, testing)

Invasion Of The Charter Schools 
by By Anya Kamenetz
What about "innovation and excellence"? Well, your mileage may vary. According to a 2009 study published by Stanford, only 17 percent of charter schools nationally outperformed nearby public schools, and 46 percent did about the same.

  

There is no significant difference between the performance of public schools and charter schools. However, public schools in Milwaukee are more successful with the poorest students than are charter schools. 

  

Educational Research

It is concluded that the best way to improve America's schools is through jobs that provide families living wages. Other programs are noted that offer some help for students from poor families. But in the end, it is inequality in income and the poverty that accompanies such inequality, that matters most for education.  

Effective Educational Spending: Getting a Good Bang for Our Bucks 
by William J. Mathis
Spending money wisely and effectively is a perennial and paramount concern for educational policy-makers at all levels. While resources-financial and otherwise-are necessary, spending alone is not sufficient: "An expensive but ill-considered policy can prove wasteful or even counter-productive,"        
Understanding Education Indicators: A Practical Primer for Research and Policy
by Michael W. Apple

Let us not be naïve in assuming that, by themselves, the well-deserved criticisms of these tendencies will somehow cause governments and school districts throughout the nation to radically question their commitment to audit cultures.  It will take concerted and well-organized intellectual, political, and practical efforts over many years to even slow down the pace of uncritical acceptance of this agenda. 

  

Why Nobody Wins In The Education "Research Wars" by Matthew Di Carlo

. . .  the deeper problem here, which is less about one "side" or the other misleading with research, but rather something much more difficult to address: Common misconceptions that impede deciphering good evidence from bad. 

  

Bill Gates is naive, data is not objective  by Cathy O'Neil Mathbabe

. . . rather than focusing on how individual models improve with more data, we need to worry more about which models and which data have been chosen in the first place, why that process is successful when it is, and - most importantly - who gets to decide what data is collected and what models are trained.  

  

Legal Issues in Education

The End of the T-Shirt Wars in the Public Schools? 

In Palmer v. Waxahachie Independent School District, the court ruled that a Texas school district has the authority to a adopt student dress code that bans all messages on students' clothing so long as the district offers students other means of expression during the school day. 
 
America's First Freedom by Richard Balmer 
 I don't believe that religious freedom can exist apart from the separation of church and state; anytime the government is involved there is, at some level, coercion, or at least the specter of coercion. I like to think of the First Amendment as having set up a free marketplace of religion, where all religious groups are free to compete in this marketplace and none enjoys preferred standing from the state. 
 
 

Some other good articles posted this week. 

 

 
 


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, WI
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 Public Schools, PA
Dwight Jones, Supt., Clark County Public 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 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.