The HML Post 
 
 
 
Welcome to the October 6th edition of the HML POST

 

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The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study   Children with toxic stress live much of their lives in fight, flight or fright (freeze) mode. They respond to the world as a place of constant danger. With their brains overloaded with stress hormones and unable to function appropriately, they can't focus on learning. They fall behind in school or fail to develop healthy relationships with peers or create problems with teachers and principals because they are unable to trust adults. Some kids do all three. With despair, guilt and frustration pecking away at their psyches, they often find solace in food, alcohol, tobacco, methamphetamines, inappropriate sex, high-risk sports, and/or work and over-achievement. They don't regard these coping methods as problems. Consciously or unconsciously, they use them as solutions to escape from depression, anxiety, anger, fear and shame.

The Secret to Eva Moskowitz's  "Success" by Diane Ravitich in the Nation Magazine.
Her charter schools get outstanding performance reports-which leave out some salient facts.  The media have long been in search of a "miracle" school, a school that can succeed in turning poor children of color into academic superstars. Of course, there already are poor children of color who are academic superstars, but they're the exception, not the rule (the same is true for poor white children). The defining characteristic of low test scores is poverty, not color. The titans of our society are especially interested in the pursuit of miracle schools because finding them would relieve those with high incomes of any obligation to alleviate the poverty that interferes with academic achievement.


Fraud, financial mismanagement, lousy results: 

In a real "bargaining process," those who bear the consequences of the deal have some say-so on the terms, the deal-makers have to represent themselves honestly (or the deal is off and the negotiating ends), and there are measures in place to ensure everyone involved is held accountable after the deal has been struck.   But that's not what's happening in the great charter industry rollout transpiring across the country. Rather than a negotiation over terms, charters are being imposed on communities - either by legislative fiat or well-engineered public policy campaigns. Many charter school operators keep their practices hidden or have been found to be blatantly corrupt. And no one seems to be doing anything to ensure real accountability for these rapidly expanding school operations.


 

Colorado school district votes to opt most students out of Common Core testing  by Valerie Strauss in the Washington Post Answer Sheet

The board of education in Colorado's second largest city has voted to opt out most of its 30,000 students from new Common Core standardized testing and will ask the state government for flexibility to carry out its plan. It is the first district in the state and one of the first in the country to do so.

The action by the board of Colorado Springs School District 11 is the latest in a growing "test reform" movement around the country aimed at reducing the number and importance of standardized tests, with educators, students, parents, superintendents, legislators and others saying that high-stakes testing is perverting public education.


 

Public Accountability for Charter Schools: Standards and Policy Recommendations for Effective Oversight  by Barbara Gross on the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University

In the last two decades, charter schools have grown into a national industry with 2.5 million students, more than 6,000 schools, and a burgeoning market of management services, vendors, policy shops, and advocacy organizations. State laws and charter authorizing standards have not kept up with this explosive growth.

Although most charter operators work hard to meet the needs of their students, the lack of effective oversight means no guarantee of academic innovation or excellence, too many cases of fraud and abuse, and too little attention to equity.


 

 Back to School, and to Widening Inequality  by Robert Reich on the Reich blog


 


 


 

Teachers and Students Still Trapped Going Up the Down Staircase  by John Thompson on the Living the Dialogue post

Bel Kaufman's Up the Down Staircase (1965) is the teachers' and students' Catch-22 (1961). She captures the fecklessness of bureaucracies, especially those damaged by a culture of powerlessness. She also illuminates the best single antidote to the situational ethics that dominate dysfunctional education systems - the moral consciousness of children.  During Kaufman's 15-year high school teaching career in New York City, and in urban districts today, "major issues are submerged by minor ones, catastrophes by absurdities." As was also explained in Joseph Heller's masterpiece, real truths are not measurable. But, the more surrealistic the system, the more the persons trapped in it try to seek order by quantifying that which can't be counted.


There's been a flood of local news stories in recent months about FBI raids on charter schools all over the country.  From Pittsburgh to Baton Rouge, fromHartford to Cincinnatti to Albuquerque, FBI agents have been busting into schools, carting off documents and making arrests leading to high-profile indictments.  "The troubled Hartford charter school operator FUSE was dealt another blow Friday when FBI agents served it with subpoenas to a grand jury that is examining the group's operations.


 

Poverty Rates Unchanged for Rural Children  by in the Rural Education Newsletter

Despite the slight decline in child poverty in urban areas, urban children experience the highest rates of poverty at 29.1%. In rural places, 26.2% of children live in poverty, while in suburban places 17.2% of children live in poverty.   Yet this data masks important information about child poverty. The brief finds, for example, that while a higher percentage of urban children live in poverty, a larger number of suburban children live in poverty. And, children of all racial-ethnic groups except Hispanic are more likely to live in poverty if they live in a rural place than if they live in either an urban or suburban place.


 

Laura H. Chapman provides here the relevant federal statutes that restrict the role of federal officials to prevent federal intrusion and control of public education. The prohibition of federal employees exercising any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, instruction or personnel of public schools was enacted when the U.S. Department of Education was created in 1979. Secretary Duncan insists that the Department of Education is not directing or influencing curriculum or instruction by its ardent support for the Common Core standards or its $360 million funding of CCSS tests. We all know that standards and tests don't influence curriculum and instruction, right?
 

Teachers are not the enemy  by Joseph A. Ricciotti on the  Bridgeport, CT Post 

Fewer and fewer college graduates today are entering the teaching profession as teaching today is like working in a war zone. The war on teachers, which began when George W. Bush became president in 2000 and continues with the Obama administration, has taken its toll on teaching as a profession.

The Urban Teacher Education Consortium, a national consortium of teacher educators in a recently released position paper on the training of teachers described what public school teachers are experiencing in their classrooms today as a time of "encroaching dehumanization and disempowerment of both teachers and their students." 

 

5 Presentation Mistakes Not to Make    by Scott Schwertly on the SlideShare blog

A successful presentation is an orchestra of great content, strong delivery and pitch-perfect design. When one element is out of tune, it can ruin the entire performance. In order to ensure your upcoming presentation is a success, be sure to avoid these common mistakes:


 

Meta-Analysis Finds "Effects" That Aren't There  by William Mathis in the National Education Policy Center website.

A recent meta-analysis of charter-school effects overstates its own findings, according to a new review published today.  The report was published in August by the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington. The report, by Julian R. Betts and Y. Emily Tang, draws on data from 52 studies to conclude that charters benefited students, particularly in math.   "This conclusion is overstated," writes López in her review. The actual results, she points out, were not positive in reading, not significant for high school math, and yielded only very small effect sizes for elementary and middle school math.

 

Evaluating Gates via His Microsoft Failure  by Mercedes Schneider  on the deutsch29 blog

Let us begin by considering that Microsoft's heyday was between 1980 and 1999. It is not today. Microsoft reached its high point with the release of Windows 95 and rode that wave for a several years.

It was important for Microsoft to catch a new wave before the former wave subsided, and it was Bill Gates' shortsightedness that missed the next wave.

Some of his developers came to him in 1998 with a prototype for the e-book.

Gates rejected the idea because it did not (dare I?) "plug in" to the "socket" of Windows.

 

 

 

Manufactured Emergency: The Neoliberal Assault on Michigan  by Jane Slaughter  on the Political Research Associates blog 

A central goal of the neoliberal project is to weaken unions, and state legislation is one method. Unions are anathema in the free-market ideology, since they constrain employers' liberty to operate exactly as they please. Unions also bargain higher wages and benefits and give employees some workplace rights not to be ordered about like indentured servants-thus cutting into potential profits, in the private sector. 

 

 

Father's education level strongest factor in child's success at school - study by Richard Adams  on the Guardian (UK) blog

A father's level of education is the strongest factor determining a child's future success at school, creating a self-reinforcing cycle of poverty and lack of achievement passed down from parents to children in Britain, according to research.  The report from the Office for National Statistics claims that children are seven and a half times less likely to be successful at school if their father failed to achieve, compared with children with highly educated fathers.

 

More teachers are souring on Common Core, finds one survey  by Emmanuel Felton in the Hechinger Report

The percentage of teachers who are enthusiastic about Common Core - a set of academic guidelines in math and English that more than 40 states have adopted - is down from 73 percent last year to 68 this year, according to a poll of 1,600 teachers across the country. And while more teachers continue to believe that the standards will help not hurt their students - 48 percent compared to 17 percent - the percentage of teachers in the survey who think the Common Core standards will be good for most of their students is down sharply from 57 percent in last year's poll. 

 

 

The Most Read Article from last week's HML Post

The Fatal Flaw Of Education Reform by Matthew Di Carlo 


Note to HML Members:  The HML Post is membership benefit, however you can share future HML Post editions with a colleague.  (We hope that your colleague will find the information worthwhile and join the League.)   Before sending the email address of the colleague, check to make sure that he or she is agreeable to receiving the HML Post each week.  Send the name and email to jmckay@hmleague.org.  Thanks.

 

The Greatest Discovery print 
Greatest Discovery
 The 11 * 18 inch print is available for individual or bulk purchase.  Individual prints are $4.00.  Discount with orders of 50 or more.  
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A Gift:  On the Art of Teaching   by Horace Mann

In 1840 Mann wrote On the Art of Teaching. Some of HML members present On the Art of Teaching to new teachers as part of their orientation program.  On the inside cover, some write a personal welcome message to the recipient.  Other HML members present the book to school board members and parental organizations as a token of appreciation for becoming involved in their schools.  The book cover can be designed with the organization's name.  For more information, contact the HML (Jack McKay)
 
  
  

  

 
 



The Horace Mann League website (click here) contains information about the League's projects, activities, past events, galleries, publications, and much more.
 
 The HML Notes -Spring 2014 Edition, click here to download
 
All of the past issues of the HML Posts are available for review and search purposes.
 
Finally, 6 (Flipboard online) magazines that may be of interest to you.
Jack's Fishing Expedition in British Columbia - short video

 

 

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: 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.