Brian M. Stack's School Leadership Blog

This fall, the daughter of one of my co-workers was eager to start her first school year as a new teacher in a nearby urban school district. After she was hired over the summer and received her classroom keys, she was eager to get into the room to start decorating her space in anticipation of the first day of school. To her dismay, she was shocked to open her classroom door to find an empty, barren room with paint peeling from the walls and stains on the ceiling tiles. Her principal told her there was no money in the budget to paint the room but agreed to let the new teacher fund the project on her own. With that she set to work, painting her classroom a cheery blue color as a backdrop for her posters and classroom decorations. On her first day, she learned one of the hardest lessons of any new teacher: It is expensive to be a teacher. With budget deficits a hot button issue in many school communities, teachers are often left to make up the difference to provide what is nece...

Earlier this month, President-Elect Donald Trump named Michigan's Betsy DeVos to be the next secretary of education. DeVos, a strong advocate for school vouchers and school choice in her home state, is expected to bring this topic to center stage when she begins her term in Washington in the coming months. Israel Ortega of Forbes Magazine listed five ways that DeVos could become a transformative leader . First, Ortega suggests DeVos could reauthorize the Washington, D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, a federally-funded voucher program to support low-income families by providing them with private school options. Second, DeVos could redirect Federal Title 1 dollars to follow low-income students, not schools, thus allowing families to use these funds to cover tuition costs at private schools. Third, Ortega suggests that DeVos could reform the network of schools for Native American students by providing families with education savings accounts to pay tuition at private sc...