Brian M. Stack's School Leadership Blog

A recent Mind/Shift article by Katrina Schwartz highlighted the efforts by San Francisco middle school principal Michael Essien to get classroom behavior under control in his school. Essien described his problem in this way:   “Students weren't learning because students were having challenges in the classroom with their own academic abilities and or behaviors. Teachers who were trying to teach were having a difficult time getting into lessons because they were dealing with behaviors. It was challenging to hold collaborative conversations among the teachers because all teachers could deal with in any setting was the overwhelming behavior.” Essien found one solution by helping his teachers develop more engaging, project-based, hands-on learning activities. “I saw that kids who are in public school, if they were exposed to certain pedagogy and had certain content, that they can learn regardless of situation,” Essien said. “Kids had a great time, especially since in the project...

Recently, I co-hosted a chat on Twitter on student engagement for Understood.org , an organization that focuses on giving parents of children who struggle with learning and attention issues the tools and supports they need to be successful. As we get ready to embark on a new school year, I thought an opportunity to summarize the chat and the resources that were shared would be timely. You can review the entire chat, which was held on 7/11/2018 at 12:00 PM eastern time, at the hashtag #ldchat . The staff at Understood opened the chat by asking the question, “What does a motivated child look like? What does a non-motivated child look like?” The staff of Understood noted that motivation can often lead kids to keep trying even when they face hurdles, and shared the article, The Importance of Staying Motivated for Kids With Learning and Attention Issues as a resource for educators and parents to consider. It was noted that children develop self-esteem by experiencing repeated succe...

This blog was written originally for the NASSP Principal's Blog School of Thought . I have spent more than a decade as the principal of a high school that has gained national recognition as an early adopter of a competency-based learning model. As one who has been a part of this transition and implementation since its beginning, I am always happy to offer practical advice to fellow principals on the topic. The most popular question I am asked is how to start a conversation to introduce the idea of competency-based learning to parents and other stakeholders who do not work in the education field. To date, I have found no better way to do this than to relate it to a very common assessment experience that most adults have in common: Obtaining a driver’s license. Think about this: Driving a car is a life or death skill, and as a result, states have developed a very reliable system to ensure that people are not issued a driver’s license until they can prove that they are p...

In an article last month, Education Week’s Stephen Sawchuk highlighted an initiative now four years old in the San Francisco schools where middle and high school students are heterogeneously grouped for math instruction. The city has leveled the playing field by enrolling all students in math courses of equal rigor in middle school all the way through Algebra 1 in high school. There are no “honors” classes. There are no accelerated programs where students can take Algebra 1 in 8th grade. Once students reach Geometry, the brakes are released and students have the opportunity to be tracked into programs that move at different paces. This practice was not implemented without controversy. As Sawchuk explained, “San Francisco has done away with one of the key avenues that the well-connected use to give their children an academic advantage. Fallout was swift. Parents, concerned about rigor and whether their children would be able to take calculus by senior year, barraged everyone fr...