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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: Gary Marx, President, Center for Public Outreach, Vienna, VA
President-elect: Charles Fowler, Exec. Director, Suburban School Admin. Exter, HN
Vice President: Christine Johns-Haines, Superintendent, Utica Community Schools, MI
1st Past President: Joe Hairston, President, Vision Unlimited, Reisterstown, MD
2nd Past President: Mark Edwards, Superintendent, Mooresville Graded Schools, NC
Directors:
Laurie Barron, Supt. of Schools, Evergreen School District, Kalispell , MT
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
James Harvey, Exec. Dir., Superintendents Roundtable, WA
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
Kevin Maxwell, CEO, Prince George's County Schools, Upper Marlboro, MD
Stan Olson, Director, Silverback Learning, Boise, ID
Steven Webb, Supt. of Schools, Vancouver School District, WA
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.
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New research from Vanderbilt University evaluates how principals use teacher-effectiveness data in decisions around hiring, placement, evaluation support, and leadership. The report finds principals generally believe rubric-based observations generate the most valid data and provide specific, transparent, actionable information. Value-added measures, on the other hand, are perceived as having shortcomings, and principals are less likely to use these despite their ready availability.
Traditional schooling isn't working for an awful lot of students. We can respond to that fact either by trying to fix the system (so it meets kids' needs better) or by trying to fix the kids (so they're more compliant and successful at whatever they're told to do). The current enthusiasm for teaching self-discipline and persistence represents a vote for the second option. The more effort we devote to getting students to pay "attention to a teacher rather than daydreaming" and persist on long-term assignments despite boredom and frustration, the less likely we are to ask whether those assignments are actually worth doing, or to rethink an arrangement where teachers mostly talk and students mostly listen.
I have written often of the destructive nature of the excessive testing that is now mandated across the nation. It began with No Child Left Behind and has continued on With Race to the Top and the Common Core Standards. Tests are tools that are used, not to drive meaningful instruction, but to present teachers and schools in negative ways, while at the same time labeling children and limiting their education to the narrowest of subject matter.
We now know that the fiction that the Common Core State Standards are nationally agreed-upon standards that grew from some grassroots movement in the states is manufactured hype. It is now broadly understood that these standards were developed behind closed doors under the direction of two private organizations, and were bankrolled by 
Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond, Professor of Education at Stanford University, discusses the benefits of college and career ready standards for improving conditions for both teacher and student learning. Darling-Hammond also speaks to the need for performance assessments that better measure student achievement and growth.
Since the Wizard Oz, the term "we're not in Kansas anymore" has been shorthand for saying we've changed the usual surroundings for a new, disorienting terrain. For school children who actually live in Kansas, that would likely be a relief.
The students of the two for-profit charter companies that edged their way into Lafayette Parish fared about as well as their counterparts in traditional public schools. The response from the companies was that their students had taken more difficult assessments in 2013-2014. As pointed out in the editorial, so did public school students. So where does this leave us?
When you are a school principal charged with leveraging reform, the art and craft of leadership morphs into a game of Whac-A-Mole. Why? Because managerial and contextual tensions play out everyday in the form of emergencies and problems. Such daily challenges pop up like plastic moles in the beloved carnival game daring a player to whack the smirking monster back into the hole from whence it popped. Unfortunately dealing with problems like limited resources, test score politics, unsafe learning environments, and marginalized voices is anything but a game in schools.
The standard reform position is that the way to help poor children of color is to destroy the education "status quo." Defeat the power of unions, university education departments, and local school governance, and "disruptive innovation" will produce great schools for all. 
State revenues in North Carolina decreased by more than $200 million in July and August, the first two months of the fiscal year, when compared with the same months in 2013. That's also $50 million short of state budget projections, the (Raleigh) News & Observer reports.)
In 1840 Mann wrote 
