The Horace Mann League of the USA
Greetings!
 
Welcome to the April 23rd, edition of the Horace Mann League Blog.

Couple of things,
The reception with the President and the "National Teacher of the Year" will be on CSPAN on Tuesday, April 23rd, EDT. The reason for this note is that our son (Kevin McKay) is the Superintendent of the Zillah School District (WA) and Jeff Charbeneau, a science teacher at Zillah High School, is one of the top four teachers selected for the "Nation Teacher of the Year" award.

Nancy DeFord, former HML Board member and former superintendent of the Park City Schools (UT) wants members to know that the school board is looking for interested candidates for the superintendency.  for more information, click here.
Highlighted Posts for the week of April 22nd:

It's time to replace our high-stakes test-and-punish strategy with "intelligent accountability." Without major changes, we will be testing our nation to death.





Gates' faith in test scores as indicators of effectiveness makes it clear that he buys the conventional wisdom that the teacher's role is to "deliver information." But what if the conventional wisdom is wrong?
Gates asserts that the foundation has figured out how to make the average teacher as effective as those in the top quartile. He neglects to mention--maybe he doesn't know--that the implementation of these ideas has not produced this result anywhere.

. . . the public is increasingly asking whether the WFF's corporate-style, privatization-oriented approach to reform, based on the mistaken premise that competitive market dynamics apply to K-12 education just like they apply to Walmart stores, is right for our schools.

Six Biggest Religious Right Threats to America

With many legislatures tilting right and "prayer" caucuses on the prowl, Church-State separation may be in trouble in the coming year.

 
Austerity measures are eroding America's public school system.  With massive increases in school closures and class cancellations, advocates say educational opportunities for students of all ages are increasingly being diminished.

The authors find that teacher value added scores in their historical data set vary. No surprise. And they find that those variations are correlated to some extent with "other stuff" including income later in life and having reported dependents for females at a young age. There's plenty more.

 

 



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: Joe Hairston, (former) Supt., Baltimore County Public Schools, MD
President-elect: Gary Marx, President, Center for Public Outreach, VA
Vice President: Charles Fowler, Executive Director, Suburban School Superintendents
1st Past President: Mark Edwards, Supt., Mooresville Graded Schools, NC
2nd Past President: Julie Underwood, Dean, Sch. of Ed. U. of WI, Madison, WI
3rd Past President: George Garcia, (ret.) Supt., Boulder Valley Schools, CO
4th Past President: 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
Charles Fowler, Exec. Dir., Suburban School Superintendents, NH
James Harvey, Exec. Dir., Superintendents Roundtable, WA
William Hite, Supt., Philadelphia City Public Schools, PA
Christine Johns-Hines, Superintendent, Shelby Township, Michigan 
Dwight Jones, Superintendent, Clark County Public Schools, NV
Eric King, Superintendent, (Ret.) Muncie Public Schools, IN
Steven Ladd, Superintendent, Elk Grove Unified School District, Elk Grove, CA 
Barry Lynn, Exec. Dir., Americans United, Washington, DC
Stan Olson, Superintendent, (Ret.) Boise Public Schools, ID

 

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.