Brian M. Stack's School Leadership Blog

Despite the fact that our country is built on a foundation whereby “all” are created equal, a significant gender gap still divides our country. New York Times parenting blogger Ron Lieber recently stated that “the girls of America seem to know less about money than boys, earn less and have lower expectations for their earnings going forward” in his recent article The Wage Gap Starts With Less Knowledge, and Lower Expectations . He quoted recent survey data from investment companies like T. Rowe Price and Charles Schwab that validated our country’s gender wage gap but suggested that parents are partially to blame for not instilling a higher sense of financial literacy in the home with girls. A lack of attention to money at a young age contributes to a gender equality issue that has plagued the workplace for generations. The push to invest more in girls’ education is not just a national priority, it is a global one. Hong Kong high school senior Megan Foo answers the question W...

The Sanborn Regional School District made the transition from a traditional to a competency based grading and reporting system about five years ago. As one of the early adopters of what has now become a national educational reform movement, my fellow administrators and I often get inquiries from colleagues around the nation who are looking for advice as they make a similar transition in their own school or district. One of the biggest categories of questions we often field from other administrators is on communication with our Sanborn parents about the competency education model. In this article I will share with you some of the most frequently asked questions that we get from our parents and how we typically respond. How is a competency education model different from a traditional one? Competency education is based on the principle that the grades that a student receives measure what it is the student knows and is able to do. Courses are organized into competencies that...

Every teacher wants to be able to say that they are increasing rigor in their classroom. How does a teacher go about doing that? The key is to understand what rigor is, but first we need to understand what it is not. Barbara Blackburn describes the 7 Myths of Rigor in the Classsroom . They include things like increasing homework, doing “more”, not making rigor for everyone, eliminating support, adding resources, including standards, making rigor “one more thing to do.” If any of these phrases resonate with you as a way to increase rigor, then you are looking at the problem all wrong. It isn’t enough for a teacher to make their tests longer, or add a comprehensive project to their curriculum. To increase rigor in the classroom, teachers need to get to the very heart of what rigor is and understand the levels of rigor that exist so that they can evaluate their own teaching practices and build a plan to increase rigor from there. In education today, two models are often applied...