RENEWING OUR MISSION—PURSUING OUR PURPOSE
Charles W. Fowler, HML President 2015-2016
Dr. Charles Fowler, President of the Horace Mann League
In this, my valedictory thoughts as Horace Mann League President, I am reflecting on the renewed sense of purpose that vibrated throughout the room at our annual luncheon held this year in the Phoenix Sheraton during the AASA Conference. Yes, it was the 94th time the members of The Horace Mann League have gathered for fellowship and networking during a national meeting of public school leaders. Yet, there was something different permeating the table discussions and the remarks of those whose leadership we honored. It centered around a very real, deeply-felt concern for the future of America’s public schools at this mid-point of the second decade of the 21st century.
The HML’s Outstanding Friend of Public Education, Dr. Andy Hargreaves
We heard from Boston College’s renowned educational scholar Andy Hargreaves, whose publications have lifted up the need for transformational leadership of our public schools. Our former President Gary Marx was recognized for his contributions to the League while his own seminal publication released this year speaks to the national and international future for which public education is preparing its citizens. Much of this was all brought into even sharper focus by this year’s Outstanding Public Educator Gene Glass who addressed the whimsical question “Would Horace Mann tweet?”
This dynamic and thought-provoking program followed and built upon a nationally-recognized effort by the League, together with the National Superintendent’s Roundtable, to stimulate a conversation about the importance of, and challenges to the public schools of the United States as reflected in the results of international assessments of student learning. Through Jim Harvey’s leadership, that report, “The Iceberg Effect”, made its debut at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. and went on to be frequently cited in both the popular and scholarly media for months afterwards.
All of this resonates as an imperative for the current League and its members: to extend the zeal for public education which Horace Mann felt and wrote about, recognizing that our public schools are the key lynchpin between our nation’s highly-diverse peoples and their opportunities for social and economic success. It has never been more true in our young country’s 240-year history that “as goes public education, so goes the future of our nation and its people.”
The Horace Mann League’s Outstanding Public Educator: Dr. Gene Glass
If you click here you will be taken to the full text of Gene Glass’s provocative remarks (“Advancing Democratic Education: Would Horace Mann Tweet?”). Consider these few examples of factors cited by Glass which challenge the very future of our system of public schools:
- National and state legislation built upon erroneous conclusions about the success of students and teachers in our schools
- The unique economic and sociological challenges which the diverse students and families supported by public schools face and which beg for Federal and state policy solutions
- The diversion of badly-needed resources from public schools into multiple forms of support for private education and into corporate profits for an emerging, for-profit sector of educational commerce
We left this year’s luncheon convicted that the Horace Mann League cannot simply be a vehicle for professional and social networking at an annual luncheon. We must renew and advance the Mission laid out for us by Horace Mann and, as Glass opined, we will have to confront these challenges through tweets, blogs, Instagrams, and Facebook pages, and through more dialogue like that stimulated by the “Iceberg Effect”. It is truly an exciting time and the opportunities for transformational leadership for the League and its members are multiple. Please join us and do your part to help sustain the critical work of The Horace Mann League.
A Year of Achievement, Progress, and Pursuing the Future
by Gary Marx, President of the Horace Mann League
February 2014-2015
The Horace Mann League (HML) is an honorary organization of educators and thought-leaders who are committed to the improvement and continued existence of a high quality public education system to serve all students. Our members are dedicated to making sure students are prepared for life in a fast-changing world. All know that the future is in school today.
I’m pleased to let you know that, while HML may have a way to go, 2014 was a year of achievement, progress, and pursuit of a promising future. As president this past year, I’d like to share a few highlights of the organization’s accomplishments. Through your HML membership and your dedication to public education, you make it all possible.
Horace Mann League Planning for the Future. During June, the Horace Mann League Board got together for HML Stanford 2014, our annual planning meeting. We were hosted by HML board member Linda Darling Hammond. Past-President Ken Bird facilitated intense, spirited activities that led to on-the-spot sharing of a wealth of possibilities focused on communication, marketing, and identity; membership; and funding. Those down-to-earth, far-reaching, but doable ideas were merged into a roadmap to guide the League moving forward. Many of those ideas have already become or are on their way to becoming reality. Determined to make a fresh start, an Operations Task Force, made up of officers, guided us in meeting a number of both urgent and longstanding needs. Those needs ranged from securing tax-exempt status to shaping League Bylaws and Policies for the 21st century.
2015 Annual Meeting and Awards. If you haven’t already registered for the HML Annual Meeting and Luncheon, 11:45 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., Friday, February 27, at the Marriott Marquis in San Diego, I urge you do it now. Our 2015 award recipients, Gene Carter, Pedro Noguera, and Mark Edwards will be with us. Register at https://hmleague.org/2015/mtgreg/.
International Indicators for Education Project. Study Released at National Press Club News Conference. With flying colors, HML has accomplished an ambitious long-term goal set during its 2010 summer planning meeting. That goal focused on identifying forces in society that have a profound impact on student and school performance, providing a broader scope than simply a barrage of test scores, ratings, and rankings. Those indicators were released during a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on January 20, 2015. The following day, members of our Indicators Task Force met with the Learning First Alliance (LFA) to present and discuss results of the study. LFA includes top officials from 14 national education leadership organizations, such as: AACTE, AASA, AFT, ASCA, ASCD, ISTE, Learning Forward, NAESP, NASSP, NEA, National PTA, NSBA, NSPRA, and PDK.
The study, School Performance in Context: The Iceberg Effect, was a collaborative project of the Horace Mann League and the National Superintendents Roundtable, with counsel and assistance from the National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA). Media coverage of the study has been extensive and findings are already being used in policy circles.
Here are a few observations from the indicators study:
• We have developed a scoreboard mentality. Many people think they can get education scores the same way they get box scores for a baseball, basketball, football, or hockey game. It isn’t that easy.
• International assessments often rank nations as if they were in a horserace, leaving the impression that education in various countries can be easily compared, when, in reality, students, schools, and education systems are strongly influenced by an array of social, economic, and cultural factors. The U.S., for example, has the greatest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the world and the highest GDP per capita of the nine nations included in the Iceberg study. However, the country also has the dubious honor of being among leaders in economic inequity, social stress, and lack of support for families with young children.
• Sound education policy is important, but it must be reinforced by appropriate social and economic policy.
An Indicators Task Force involved HML President-Elect Chuck Fowler, Immediate Past President Joe Hairston, HML board member and National Superintendents Roundtable (NSR) Executive Director and member of the HML board, Jim Harvey, HML President Gary Marx, HML Executive Director Jack McKay, and National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA) Executive Director Rich Bagin. Harvey served as principal researcher and writer with counsel and editing support from task force members. The group developed strategy, shared research, did presentations and listened for feedback, developed both full and a summary reports, and released them nationwide and worldwide.
Copies of the full and summary reports are available online at www.hmleague.org, at www.superintendentsforum.org, and at 
www.nspra.org, as well as at numerous other web sites. Each HML member was scheduled to receive a hard copy of the summary report as a service. Additional copies of the 20-page summary report, The Iceberg Effect, are available at 25 copies for $100 plus postage and handling. To order, contact Jack McKay at jmckay@hmleague.org.
This project is a massive accomplishment and the information should help education and other leaders build better public understanding of the need to encourage and support the best possible education for our future generations.
Membership. During 2014, HML welcomed 86 new members, approximately a 20 percent increase over the number who joined us during each of the previous two years. Our HML board was generous in making nominations, as were those who responded to our Every-Member-Get-A-Member Campaign. Retaining our members is also important, so we’ve sent personal letters to those who may not have renewed lately and have significantly increased our member communication. Expect increased member engagement through periodic surveys, projects, opportunities for writing, and other possibilities. We urge you to not only maintain your membership but also to recommend others whose work and lives reflect support for the best in public education. Vice President Christine Johns-Haines, is developing a membership strategy for our consideration moving forward.
Communications. Communication is the weave in the very fabric of any organization. The League has made significant progress in improving internal communication with members and external communication with other publics. However, communication will always need to improve. Here are highlights.
• HML Post and HML Blog. Each week, Executive Director Jack McKay produces and distributes the online HML Post, a collection of fully attributed articles important to public education. He also maintains an HML Blog, which is a work in progress. An aim is to open the blog for members and perhaps others to submit 400-to-600-word posts on key issues or experiences in education.
• HML Update. During 2014, we’ve added another format, an HML Update, that we hope will encourage the sharing of information about what the League is doing on behalf of members and public education. Expect occasional announcements, notices, newsletters, and reports, as they are available, that will help us build our sense of community among members. We also hope it will contribute to membership recruitment and retention.
• HML Board Update. This informal and occasional email update on current activities is emailed to HML board members and recent past presidents. This briefing is prepared and distributed by the League president. Information of this type is particularly important, since the organization holds only two board meetings a year.
• HML Web Site. Jack McKay has improved the general format and interactivity of the HML web site, also a work in progress: www.hmleague.org. We have taken significant strides. The executive director offers an online Cornerstone Flipboard and entries on Pinterest.
• Member Engagement (Listening). We know that member engagement is highly important. The frequency of substantive surveys should be somewhat increased to not only engage but also to glean, make use of, and be guided by the knowledge and opinions that are shared with us. Following the 2014 HML Annual Meeting, participants were asked to share their insights on questions members of the Indicators Task Force might encounter and on how the information could be helpful to them locally and regionally
• Media. One of HML’s first news releases was distributed just prior to the 2014 Annual Meeting announcing award recipients and officer and board changes. The president hopes to develop a basic, proprietary, viable press list that HML can use to share occasional information about the League.
As we’ve mentioned, we held a news conference at the National 
Press Club (NPC) on January 20. Since funding was limited, highly-professional volunteers stepped up to make media contacts. News conference announcements (approximately 500) and news releases (approximately 1,400) were prepared and distributed as a service by the Learning First Alliance (LFA) public relations firm. NSPRA’s Rich Bagin was joined by key communication executives from major national associations and an advocacy organization in making media and organizational contacts. HML’s president contacted several dozen major general and education media outlets.
The National Press Club carried an abbreviated release on its web site for five days and distributed hard copies of the final news release to all organizations with offices in the National Press Building. HML and NSR collaborated on a final release that was broadly distributed to the media, included in press packets, and carried on Public Relations Wire.
Contacts with media resulted in substantial primary and secondary news coverage, commentary, and use of the information in a variety of policy-related documents and publications. Among major media that carried stories were Education Week, the Washington Post, Huffington Post, and Politico.
Since the release, the League has invited some members to prepare and submit Op Ed commentaries to certain influential media. A consideration for follow-up includes pursuing a “Scoreboards to Dashboards” project to make clear that accountability extends to those who make social and economic policy and can’t be simply summed up in a single set of test scores.
A firm employed by NSR, Rhenda Meiser Communications, was involved in some media efforts and in staging a collaborative HML-NSR webinar on January 16 to prepare local school leaders to make the most of the information.
Our indicators project has given us an opportunity to communicate on behalf of the League with major media, build our identity, share valuable information and ideas, and become a serious player in conversations about education issues. This project and others, such as our awards program, help address aims that emerged from the HML Stanford planning meeting related to taking on at least one far-reaching and visible project each year and to “holding critical conversations with educational influencers.”
• Viral Communication. In releasing the indicators report, HML members, media, education organizations, and others were encouraged to consider doing stories and sharing links with an array or individuals and organizations, asking them to do the same. This approach can lead to a report or certain information becoming viral.
• Identity. A draft identity statement was developed by the Stanford on-site committee devoted to communication, identity, and branding. You’ll find it reflected in the opening line of this President’s Column.
• Advisory Council. Our newly adopted Bylaws permit establishment of an HML Advisory Council. We hope to bring this possibility to life as we move into the future.
Funding. As a dues-based organization, while reasonably stable financially, HML has generally faced funding challenges. Generally we have more to accomplish than always valuable voluntary efforts can adequately cover. We know that the League needs to develop additional non-dues sources of revenue, from additional products and services to a more strategic approach to attracting funding from individuals and organizations that want to support HML and its public education mission.
We are grateful to dedicated members who help with funding and hope to develop funding clusters of specific areas where support is needed. We also hope to identify members of a Funding Task Force, made up of members and others who have historically been successful in these types of efforts. HML’s new Bylaws more clearly define funding possibilities and relationships, such as sponsorships, partnerships, collaborations, and contributions, to name a few.
HML is an IRS 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization which means appropriate deductibility is possible with dues and contributions. It is also a not-for-profit corporation. A limited amount of advertising, the type we see from other education organizations, may also be a possibility and a necessity.
Tax-Exempt Status. The good news is that HML received a fresh Letter of Determination from the IRS on November 20, 2014, declaring our 501(c)(3) tax-exempt, nonprofit status. After getting past efforts to reinstate, since needed documents were not available, Past President Ken Bird and the law firm, Fraser-Stryker, assured completion of the application for a fresh start. The Letter of Determination was then issued fairly quickly and is now included among About Us items on the HML web page. Incorporation was renewed in July. Both of these entity markers had lapsed.
Bylaws and Policies. HML Vice President Chuck Fowler, working with the Operations Task Force (officers), led a process to renew the League’s Bylaws and Policies to guide the organization toward an even more sustainable future. Included, among other things, are a job description and evaluation process as well as a more in-depth annual financial review, longtime needs that are now being addressed. The Policies were adopted electronically by the HML Board and the Bylaws approved for presentation and a further vote at the February 27, 2015, Annual Meeting in San Diego. These projects are among major League accomplishments.
HML 2015 Award Recipients. We are pleased that Gene Carter, a seasoned superintendent and longtime (recently retired) executive director of ASCD, accepted our invitation to receive the HML Outstanding Public Educator Award. Gene was the first National Superintendent of the Year. Pedro Noguera, a professor at New York University, an experienced public educator and internationally recognized scholar and eloquent spokesperson for the cause, will receive the HML Outstanding Friend of Public Education Award. Both are planning to be at the HML Annual Meeting on Friday, February 27, 2015, and to make brief remarks. Past president Mark Edwards will be recognized as an Outstanding Friend of the Horace Mann League.
HML Annual Meeting Promotion. The HML Annual Meeting has faced an attendance challenge, especially in light of lower overall conference attendance. That situation must be a consideration as we promote the meeting. A more strategic approach to promotion has been suggested that highlights the reasons people should attend but should not even consider missing the event. Our hope is that highlighting the meeting’s strengths can help us fortify attendance. Conventional paper as well as current online registration opportunities might be needed. (Timing and changes in venue have also been considered.)
HML Programs at National Conferences. The Horace Mann League has arranged and will be presenting programs at upcoming 2015 annual conferences of AASA, ASCD, and NSBA. The February AASA program in San Diego, devoted to international indicators, will feature board members Christine Johns-Haines, Charles Fowler, James Harvey, and Robert Martin, also of the Utica Community Schools in Michigan. During March, at the ASCD Annual Conference in Houston, board members Christine Johns-Haines and Laurie Barron will present, “Personalizing in a High Stakes World.” At NSBA in Nashville, also during March, board members James Harvey and Steven Webb will be joined by HML past president Mark Edwards and Vancouver, Washington, Public Schools board member Edri Geiger for a program focused on “Understanding International Indicators.”
A 2014 HML program during March at ASCD in Los Angeles featured board members James Harvey, Martha Bruckner, and Gary Marx addressing “An Indicator System for American Education.” During 2011, 2012, and 2014, HML also presented programs at the ASCD Annual Conference.
Onward to the Future.
We can take great pride in the mission and accomplishments of the Horace Mann League. This venerable organization, now off to a fresh start, is constantly challenged to make the most of its historic dedication to supporting the best possible public education. HML is noted for honoring those who have made and continue to make supreme contributions to our future. Since we are an honorary organization, that includes every member.
I appreciate the opportunity to serve as HML president this past year. I am grateful to the outstanding officers and members of the Board who provide inspiration and support for the organization and do it, for the most part, at their own expense, because they believe so deeply in HML’s mission. We also appreciate the many contributions of Executive Director Jack McKay.
I know that you join me in welcoming Chuck Fowler to the presidency of the Horace Mann League during our 2015 Annual Meeting on February 27. Thank you for your leadership and your commitment to the Horace Mann League and public education.
Gary Marx, 2014 President, Horace Mann League, gmarxcpo@aol.com
All of us continue to be inspired by our namesake, the reputed father of public education, Horace Mann, who declared,
“Let us not be content to wait and see what will happen, but give us the determination to make the right things happen.”
