Top LYS Tweets From the Week of April 26, 2015

A number of you in the LYS Nation are now Twitter users.  If you haven’t done so yet, we want you to join us.  To let you see what you are missing, here are the Top 10 LYS Tweets from the week of April 26, 2015.

1. Congratulations to LYSer, Dale Mitchell! He is the new principal at Waltrip High School!! Who will be next? (By @LYSNation)

2. How long will we let our duly elected leaders attack Texas public school teachers as "Godless" without calling out this lie? (By @pastors4txkids)

3. Senate Bill 4 (SB4) gives private schools getting public funds permission to discriminate on the basis of race, gender, religion, and special needs. (By @pastors4txkids)

4. We wonder which private schools will get most SB4 tax credit vouchers? Catholic? Baptist? Mormon? Muslim? Wiccan? Talk about competition! (By @pastors4txkids)

5. Senate votes (SB4) to allow private schools getting taxpayer subsidized tuition to use Common Core standards. (By RatliffT)

6. The Texas Senate has just confirmed that vouchers are not held to same accountability as public education money. (By @pastors4txkids)

7. It’s one thing to pose rigorous questions. It’s a whole different thing to make sure kids can answer them. (By @JohnWink90)

8. So Conservatives are okay with using public dollars to support private schools that can use Common Core Standards? Just another day in the Texas Senate. (By @woscholar)

9. "Tuition tax scholarship?" A fancy name for a tax loophole allowing taxes owed the state for Texas public schools to be given to private schools. (By @pastors4txkids)

10. The Texas Senate guards public education like the wolf guards the hen house. (By @pastors4txkids)

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: TASSP Summer Conference (Multiple Presentations); TEPSA Summer Conference (Multiple Presentations); Texas ASCD Summer Conference; NAESP National Conference; Illinois ASCD Fall Conference (Multiple Presentations) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

Final Weeks - Texas Superintendent Search

LYS Executive Search

~ Superintendent ~

Culberson County-Allamore Independent School District

A West Texas school district is searching for its next Superintendent of Schools

The successful candidate will have

• Demonstrated leadership success as a principal and/or district level administrator
• Demonstrated success educating diverse student populations
• Firm understanding of school finance
• LYS training and experience, preferred

Information of note

• Enrollment - 450 students
• Rural setting
• Two campuses
• Competitive salary and benefits

Qualified and interested candidates submit the following to Search@LeadYourSchool.com

• Letter of interest
• Resume
• Administrator’s certifications
• List of references
• Recent campus/district performance data 

Search Consultant: Robert 'Bob' Brezina

LYS Executive Search

(832) 477-5323

LYS Nation, once again a school district wants YOU!

Think. Work. Achieve.

A Superintendent Writes... Political Lies / Political Truths - Part 2

In response to the 4/22/15 post, “Political Lies  / Political Truths – Texas Senate Version,” a LYS Superintendent shares the following:

SC,

No doubt the legislature will rely on cases like Everson v. Board of Education, which established that public funds can be used for private/parochial activities if a legitimate government need is fulfilled.

That’s a 1947 case however.

Mark Levin has argued in his book, Men in Black, that the interpretations of the 1st Amendment are so convoluted and contradictory no one knows what is permissible and what is not.

His suggestion is to throw out all case law precedent and start over with the basic 1st Amendment. He farther suggests that our Justices should cease their contortionist tricks when handing down rulings.  

SC Response

A quick three things on the Everson v. BOE case.

1. It applied the Bill of Rights to state law.

2. It allowed the reimbursement of public transportation costs incurred by parents when sending their children to school, any school.

3. Though a split decision, the justices were united in affirming that the 1^st Amendment creates a “wall of separation between church and state.” 

Next, like it or not, I think that we must accept the Court will have to contort itself on some decisions. After all, the Court is applying a 18^th and 19^th Century document to a 21^st Century world. Philosophically, I’m a consistently a strict Constitutionalist, until I’m not.  Which I don't see as overly hypocritical. It’s realistic and recognizes the fact that the world is different than what our Founding Fathers envisioned.  What wears me out is the agenda driven interpretation of the Constitution by our current crop of politicians, which can best be defined as “follow the money” and/or "run to the fringe."      

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: TASSP Summer Conference (Multiple Presentations); TEPSA Summer Conference (Multiple Presentations); Texas ASCD Summer Conference; NAESP National Conference; Illinois ASCD Fall Conference (Multiple Presentations) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

A Science Teacher Writes... The Anti-Science Age

An old school LYSer shares the following:

SC,

I’m concerned that we now live in a non-science age.  I just heard one of the science teachers on my campus talking about the "consensus" of climate change science.  As a trained and published physicist, I almost lost it.  Then I read statements in the media like, “settled science”? 

Since when has science EVER been settled?  Science is a current model and we (scientists) continually search for a better model!  Or at least we should.

If this is what our new science teachers know about science, lets just quit teaching science all together because evidently we are just pretending.  Instead just teach practical applications, such as engineering, computer programming and nursing. 

All of this reminds me of an interview with Einstein during the time of Nazi Germany.  Einstein was told that the Nazi’s had put a team of scientists together to disprove his theories and the reporter wanted to know what Einstein thought about it.

Einstein's response: If I am wrong they will need only one scientist. 

And that's the way real science works. Science is not consensus.  So for the record, how many valid experiments or valid, consistent contradictory data points are needed to disprove a model?  One.

Rant over. I guess I’ll go get ready to teach Newton’s Third SUGGESTION of Motion.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: TASSP Summer Conference (Multiple Presentations); TEPSA Summer Conference (Multiple Presentations); Texas ASCD Summer Conference; NAESP National Conference; Illinois ASCD Fall Conference (Multiple Presentations) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

A Superintendent Writes... Political Lies / Political Truths - Part 1

In response to the 4/22/15 post, “Political Lies  / Political Truths – Texas Senate Version” a Superintendent asks the following:

SC,

While I appreciate and support your position.  Can you show me where in the Constitution the words, "separation of church and state" are located?

SC Response

The concept of a “separation of church and state,” is based on the reading of the 1^st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which is as follows:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Now, by both their word and deed, there are those in the Texas Senate who don’t view the 1^St Amendment as applicable to their law making. For those Senators, I refer them to the source documents written by our Founding Fathers. In this case, I specifically highlight Jefferson’s Letter to Danbury Baptists. 

...Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. (T. Jefferson, 1802)

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: TASSP Summer Conference (Multiple Presentations); TEPSA Summer Conference (Multiple Presentations); Texas ASCD Summer Conference; NAESP National Conference; Illinois ASCD Fall Conference (Multiple Presentations) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

A Principal Asks... How Do We Stack Up

The following is a conversation between me and a LYS Principal:

SC,

In your most honest opinion, in terms of implementation of Fundamental 5 practices, how do we compare to other schools in our state and schools across the nation? I would like to discuss this at my next staff meeting.

SC Response

You know that I always give you my honest opinion. We have discussed this topic informally, but here is something more concrete to work with.  

Don't compare your high school to other schools in regards to implementing best practice.  By doing that you are committing to:

1. Just being better than average.

2. Allowing yourself to be satisfied with instruction that is not optimal for maximizing student opportunity.

You have almost 100 teachers, all good people.  But they are not your primary concern.  They are paid professionals.

You have 1,454 students.   They are your primary concern.  

Your high school is the last, best chance to improve their future.  The level of their adult success is a direct reflection of the success of your high school and your tenure as principal.  This awesome responsibility is what makes the principalship so worthwhile.  You are directly responsible for shaping lives on a massive scale.

Which means that to allow best practice to be ignored in the classroom (for any reason) has a daily detrimental impact on your 1,454 students.

Which is why you don't compare your high school to other schools.  You compare your school to what it is capable of doing against what it is currently doing. And based on that comparison, your high school can get incrementally better, every day (as can every school).

This simple truth is what you should discuss in your next (and every) staff meeting.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: TASSP Summer Conference (Multiple Presentations); TEPSA Summer Conference (Multiple Presentations); NAESP National Conference; Illinois ASCD Fall Conference (Multiple Presentations) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook