Welcome to the February 2nd  edition of the POST and Happy New Year
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"School Performance in Context:  The Iceberg Effect" by James Harvey, Gary Marx, Charles Fowler and Jack McKay.

To download the full or summary report,

Summary Report, Click here

Full Report, click here

To view in an electronic magazine format,

Summary Report, click here.

Full Report, click here


 


Review of "School Performance in Context:  The Iceberg Effect" 

on the Boston.com site 

WASHINGTON, Jan. 20, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A new study released today challenges the practice of ranking nations by educational test scores and questions conventional wisdom that the U.S. educational system has fallen badly behind school systems abroad.


 Arthur Costa: the value of high stakes testing?  

Interview with Arthur Costa
Interview with Arthur Costa

  "What was educationally significant and hard to measure has been replaced by what is educationally insignificant and easy to measure.

 

So now we measure how well we taught what isn't worth learning."
- Arthur Costa, Emeritus Professor at California State University


 


 

Thank you for Your Leadership is a unique look toward getting leaders at all levels to work, interact, examine impact, and learn from implementation. In it the author shows how the digital conversion initiative at the Mooresville Graded School District (MGSD) has worked successfully through integration with pedagogy and by interlocking leaders throughout the system. In this new book Dr. Edwards discusses a practical new view of leadership he calls "second-order leadership" that integrates leadership into every aspect of district life, from hiring procedures to student and parent leadership.
 

The Common Core Is Taking Away Kids' Recess--And That Makes No Sense  by by Arthur L. Caplan & Lee H. Igel  on the Forbes magazine site
  The NBC TODAY show recently reported on 23 elementary schools in Orange County, Florida, that have been reducing recess to minutes per day or canceling it all together, so that more time can be spent in the classroom. Whoa. Let's get a grip, folks. In a nation of increasingly obese kids, getting rid of recess makes no sense.  Orange County schools aren't alone in the drive to keep kids locked in class all day. School administrators across the United States are making similar schedule changes. Why? Apparently, the drive to dismantle the jungle gyms of America is in response to Common Core examinations.

Are digital textbooks worth it?   By Mary Axelson  on the eSchool News site

   It has been nearly three years since the FCC and Education Secretary Arne Duncan rolled out the Digital Textbook Playbook and challenged schools to go digital within five years. It's safe to say schools are not there yet. While going digital looks certain, arrival in two years looks doubtful.

The potential benefits for schools transitioning to digital curriculum-specifically, replacing their print textbooks with digital ones-remain compelling. As schools move to the Common Core, and Pluto shifts in and out of planetary status, information can be updated on the fly.


 

My Statement of Professional Conscience  by Julianna Krueger Dauble  on the Living the Dialogue website 

   Public Education Stakeholders,

Are we willing to stand by while 2/3 of our children fail a state mandated test?

Are our children so similar to business commodities like electrical sockets that we must standardize them by looking to profiteering systems aimed to 'reform' schools?   Do we need a standardized test that harms students self-esteem to more clearly draw the lines of poverty?   I am an accomplished educator; the Renton School Board named me Outstanding Elementary Educator of the Year in 2011 and I work in many leadership roles for curriculum development and implementing best strategies in classrooms. When I imagine myself administering the Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBA), I picture my students struggling and failing. And not because they are academically weak - but because test designers have created a test meant to yield this failure.


 

   With the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) comes an opportunity to address the valid concerns of students, parents, teachers, and communities regarding the quantity and quality of federally mandated standardized tests.

As Georgia's School Superintendent, I have a constitutional duty to convey those concerns and provide ideas on how to move my state and our nation forward. Georgia recently entered into a $108 million contract to deliver federally mandated standardized tests to our students. That figure does not include the millions of dollars spent to develop and validate test questions and inform the public about the new tests.

 

Some fiscally stressed Pennsylvania public school districts have come up with new approaches for combating a primary pressure point: competition from charter schools, Moody's Investor Service says in a new report. Some of the plans would be transformative, such as a proposal to send all students to other school districts and pay tuition, or to operate a public school district as all-charter.

It's easy to miss the scale of equity as an "issue," because unlike assessment, curriculum, teacher pay, class sizes, educational technology, or any other persistently evergreen edu-choke point, equity never stops affecting. It's both the center and periphery of everything because we're always who we are and where we are.
 


 


How to Get Your State Democratic Party to Oppose Common Core?
  by Anthony Cody on the Living the Dialogue website
  Yesterday afternoon, a miracle happened in Washington State. The Washington State Democratic Party became the first Democratic State Party in the nation to pass a resolution opposing Common Core! This is huge because Washington State is not only the home state of Bill Gates. It is also the home state for the SBAC Common Core test. If Washington state pulls out of Common Core, it could bring the entire project crashing to the ground.

 

   Poverty hurts children and our nation's future. This stark statement is backed by years of scientific research and the more we learn about the brain and its development the more devastatingly true we know this to be. Childhood poverty can and does scar children for life. Yet in the largest economy on earth we stand by as 14.7 million languish in poverty. Here's a snapshot of who our poor children are today:

  • Every other baby is a child of color. And 1 in 2 Black babies is poor - the poorest child in America.
  • 1 in 3 Hispanic children under 5 is poor during their years of rapid brain development.
  • More than 1 in 4 urban children and nearly 1 in 4 rural children is poor.
  • 1 in 5 of all children in America is poor-14.7 million children.

Gates Foundation. Good Charity or Bad Charity? Final Thoughts  Mike Warner on the Education Under Attack website

    David Tyack and  Larry Cuban's book 

Tinkering toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform

 is one of my favorite books.  They chronicle how Americans have viewed public education as a means to building a better society.  From one-room schoolhouses in the 1800s to the influx of immigrants in the early 1900s to the response to Sputnik in the 1950s, Americans have shaped the purpose of public education.  Americans - not just one person. Not a foundation.When did we, as a society, give up our responsibility to determine the purpose of public education?


 



 

9 Things to Know About School Choice  by Peter Greene on the Curmudgucation website

   To help kick off School Choice PR Week, Forbes ran a puff piece about choice entitled "Kicking Off School Choice Week With 9 Things You Need To Know"
. The piece comes from contributor Maureen Sullivan
 who in 2009 was elected to the the Hoboken school board arguing "for lower taxes and higher standards" during her "nearly" four year term (Sullivan was elected as a member of the Kids First team, then defected because she found them insufficiently reformy, leading to a great deal of fiscal grandstanding and wrangling in Hoboken.

Her 9 things make a nice compendium of what choice advocates offer as arguments these days. Let's consider them in the order she presents them.
 


 

  U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, the chairman of the Senate education committee, Tuesday said Washington must encourage-but not mandate-teacher and principal evaluation systems if they want to improve the nation's 100,000 public schools.   "My experience is that finding a way to fairly reward better teaching is the holy grail of K-12 education-but Washington will get the best long-term result by creating an environment in which states and communities are encouraged, not ordered, to evaluate teachers," said Senator Alexander.  "Let's not mandate it from Washington if we want them to own it and make it work."


 

Political Cartoon for the Week


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Horace Mann Prints

 The 11 * 18 inch print is available for individual or bulk purchase.  Individual prints are $4.00.  Discount with orders of 50 or more.  

For additional information about this or other prints, please check here.

 

    


 

 

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 the past issues of the HML Posts are available for review and search purposes.
 
Finally, 6 links 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.