The HML Post 
 
 
Greetings!
 
Welcome to the February 10th, edition of the HML POST

The HML Annual Meeting/Luncheon is on Friday, February 14, 2014, at the Omni Hotel in Nashville - in conjunction with the AASA National Conference. Click here to register for the Annual Meeting.
You are invited to attend the 92nd Annual Meeting of the HML, Friday, February 14, 2014, Omni Hotel,  Nashville, 11:45 am to 1:30 pm.  Register Now.
 
Outstanding Friend of Public Education
- Marian Wright Edelman, The Children's Defense Fund.
 
Outstanding Public Educator
- Larry Cuban, Professor Emeritus, Stanford University
 
Special HML Friend and Featured Speaker
- Jeffery Charbonneau, National Teacher of the Year.
 
 
To register for the HML Annual Meeting and Luncheon, Click here.

Check out HML's Cornerstone on "FLIPBOARD."   (The public schools are the "Cornerstone" of our democracy.)
 
 
  
 
 
Exogenous Variables and Value-Added Assessments: A Fatal Flaw  by David Berliner in Teachers College Record. 
There has been rapid growth in value-added assessment of teachers to meet the widely supported policy goal of identifying the most effective and the most ineffective teachers in a school system. The former group is to be rewarded while the latter group is to be helped or fired for their poor performance. But, value-added approaches to teacher evaluation have many problems. Chief among them is the commonly found class-to-class and year-to-year unreliability in the scores obtained.
 
 
 Follow the Monday    by Deborah Meier on the Deborah Meier blog
This whole "new reform" movement in education is being fueled (the $$$$) by ordinary greed. Or second-hand greed-seeing a chance to destroy the political power of an already waning labor movement by undermining the two teacher unions. This is being done by fooling folks who mistakenly saw their own longtime critique of the public bureaucracy in the "radical" sounding idea charter schools. Afraid of being part of the "status quo" some genuine school-based reformers thus provided cover for a shift in power quite the opposite of what they had in mind. 



The idea that teachers have the summer off is something of a myth. I recently spent a few days with several thousand teachers -- not at the beach, but at TEACH, the AFT's largest gathering of educators focused on their professional practice and growth. Teachers spent long days learning from fellow educators and other experts about concrete ways to improve teaching and learning. 
 
 
7 Things You Need to Know About Your Local Public School  by Nancy Letts in the Going Public.com
Our public schools are the last real space where people from different classes and different walks of life come together to learn, to share ideas, and to be afforded a fair opportunity to reach for the American dream. At the same time, unless you work in a public school or have a child enrolled in one, chances are you don't get to spend much time in them.

 
 
Why won't teachers move? This is a lot of money.  Many high-performing teachers wouldn't even apply. When we asked them why, they told us overwhelmingly that they liked where they were.  Our research, has found that teachers are far more likely to stay at schools with strong instructional cultures, where expectations are high, clearly articulated and widely shared and where teachers receive consistent feedback and have opportunities to improve. 
 
 
Poverty, Politics, Racism and School Reform  by Cami Anderson in the Huffington Post. 

Our poorest neighborhoods, disproportionately African American, contain some of the lowest-performing public schools in the country and have for a long time. A child in the South or West ward is virtually guaranteed to be in an elementary school where only 30 percent of students can read -- or in a high school built for 1500 students with only 500 enrolled and a graduation rate below 30 percent.  It is often said that a society should be judged by how it treats its citizens in greatest need. 

 

  

Single-Sex Education Does Not Improve Girls' Self-Esteem, Math Achievement  by  Rebecca Klein in the Huffington Post

Study results released this week by the American Psychological Association found that students do not perform better in math, science or verbal subjects when they attend single-sex schools, or single-sex classes within coeducational schools. The research, which analyzed 55 years worth of data, refutes theories that adolescent girls thrive when separated from boys, and that boys perform better when they have a curriculum specifically tailored to them.  

 

 
School Funding Fairness Suffers Amid National Recession  by Bruce Baker of the Rutgers Graduate School of Education; David Sciarra, Executive Director of Education Law Center (ELC); and Danielle Farrie, ELC Research Director.
The National Report Card (NRC) examines each state's level of commitment to equal educational opportunity, regardless of a student's background, family income, or where she or he attends school. Providing fair school funding -- at a sufficient level with additional funds to meet needs generated by poverty -- is crucial if all students are to be afforded the opportunity to learn and be successful.
 
 
5 Big Education Stories to Watch in 2014  by Owen Davis in AlterNet.com

For people looking to "disrupt" public education, it's become requisite to bemoan the "educational status quo" - a phrase meant to evoke images of poor kids striving against the impediments of failing schools and incompetent teachers. Those who question these disruptors' methodologies are cast aside as hidebound intransigents who likely have some vested interest in an ossified order.  

 

  

Other related articles on the HML Cornerstone Flip Board

Games School Boards Play  by David Lee

Perceived Respect for Teachers Has Declined by Larry Shannon-Missal

Guilford school board will fight plan to end tenure by Marquita Brown

 

See these and other related articles in the "Cornerstone" Internet magazine.

 

 


Reprinted with permission.
 
 
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, President, Vision Unlimited, Reisterstown, 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, Superintendent, Sterling Heights, Michigan 
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.