Alan Blankstein | Founder of the HOPE Foundation and Original Founder of Solution Tree

Alan Blankstein

Founder of the HOPE Foundation and Original Founder of Solution Tree

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New York, NY

Alan Blankstein
Biography

Award-winning author and educational leader, Alan Blankstein served for 25 years as President of the HOPE Foundation, which he founded and whose honorary chair is Nobel Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu. A former "high-risk" youth, Alan began his career in education as a music teacher. He worked for Phi Delta Kappa, March of Dimes, and Solution Tree, which he founded in 1987 and directed for 12 years while launching Professional Learning Communities beginning in the late 1980s. He is the author of the best-selling book Failure Is Not an Option : Six Principles That Guide Student Achievement in High-Performing Schools, which received the Book of the Year award from Learning Forward. Alan is Senior Editor, lead contributor, and/or author of 18 books, including Excellence Through Equity with Pedro Noguera. He also authored some 20 articles in leading education print including Education Week, Educational Leadership, The Principal, and Executive Educator. Alan has provided keynote presentations and workshops for virtually every major U.S. Ed Org, and throughout the UK, Africa, and the Middle East. Alan has served on the Harvard International Principals Centers advisory board, and the Jewish Child Care Agency, where he once was a youth in residence.

Alan Blankstein
Featured Videos

Current: Celebration of Teaching & Learning

Time 12:12

More Videos From Alan Blankstein

Celebration of Teaching & Learning
Time 12:12
ASCD Exerpt
Time 08:54
One on One with JC Hayward
Time 03:18

How Quality Changed the Course of US Education, How We’ve Lost Direction & What’s Next

The “quality movement” in U.S. education began in the late 1980’s and soon became what is now commonly called Professional Learning Communities. Award-winning author and Founder of both Solution Tree and the HOPE Foundation, Alan Blankstein has the inside story on the rise of this movement, where it is today, and a vision of what is on the horizon. Backed by two decades of practical research and field-tested approaches and drawing from his classic texts Failure Is Not an Option and The Answer is in the Room, Blankstein provides a clear, compelling picture of what is possible in these challenging times and how to go to the next level.

The Answer is in the Room Where Failure is Not an Option®
A Foundation for Creating a High-Performing School Culture

Presentation on how to build leadership communities within and between schools and districts, how to create schools where failure is not an option, and what it takes to turn schools around and continually improve schools that are already good. The session is for everyone and is an engaging, humorous keynote that provides a foundation for creating a high-performing school culture based on Failure Is Not an Option: Six Principles that Guide Student Success in High-Performing Schools. Examples go from teaching to leadership strategies. Content is based on two decades of research and one decade of field-tested practice in districts throughout the world – much of which is encapsulated in the award-winning Failure Is Not an Option ®, and the newly released The Answer Is in the Room: How Effective Schools Scale Up Student Success.

Excellence Through Equity
Five Principles of Courageous Leadership to Guide Achievement for Every Student

While the movement for standards and accountability has largely succeeded in bringing greater attention to disparities in student achievement, surprisingly little attention has been given to what it takes to create conditions in schools that will make achievement for all students more likely. Missing from much of the policy debate related to achievement is how to place equity at the center of education reform, and how that, in turn, supports the most effective teaching in schools.

Excellence Through Equity: Five Principles of Courageous Leadership to Guide Achievement for Every Student will describe principles and practices that have proven effective in meeting the needs of a wide variety of learners, and how practitioners can avoid the zero-sum scenario which leads some to believe that we have to choose between the pursuit of excellence and equity.

You will learn:

1. The changing demographics and economics that call for a more effective approach to addressing disparities and inequities;
2. Why the path to excellence is through equity and what we can do to make it happen;
3. How courageous leaders build commitment to high-performing school cultures; and
4. An instructional approach to engaging learners, building relations and personalizing learning across ethnic, cultural, and linguistic divides.

Failure Is Not an Option
6 Principles That Advance Student Achievement in Highly Effective Schools

This presentation focuses on how to build leadership communities within and between schools and districts, how to create schools where failure is not an option, and what it takes to turn schools around and continually improve schools and entire districts that are already good. Content is based on two decades of research and one decade of field-tested practice in districts throughout the world – much of which is encapsulated in the award-winning Failure Is NOT an Option ®, (Third Edition released at the Convention) and the newly released The Answer is in the Room: How Effective Schools Scale Student Success. It’s not about Common Core – it’s about Common Implementation. While CCSS, Professional Standards, RTL and many other initiatives du jour have our attention, the secret to tackling them all is in the lead team that is capable of shaping school culture and advancing instruction system-wide. This requires relational trust, clarified purpose, and a common language, method and framework for action. This engaging, humor-studded session is for leaders at all levels. It provides a foundation for creating a high-performing school culture, and leadership teams throughout the district capable of handling almost any challenge.

AASA on Courageous and Uplifting Leadership - Part Two

(the following is an excerpt from a forthcoming issue of The School Administrator.  See AASA.org) Part 2: Face the facts and your fears. Data reflecting poor performance,...
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AASA on Courageous and Uplifting Leadership - Part One

(the following is an excerpt from a forthcoming issue of The School Administrator.  See AASA.org) It was Monday morning and the middle school had flooded over the weekend....
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Building Trust in Schools

The pioneering work around the importance of building trust in schools is more critical now than ever due to our current political climate, growing xenophobia, and the...
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Alan Blankstein

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