Brian M. Stack's School Leadership Blog

This article was written originally for MultiBriefs Education . In a recent Edsurge blog article, Giancarlo Brotto makes a strong case for why the future of education depends on social emotional learning (SEL), which he sees as a critical indicator to predict college and career readiness. He writes, “social and emotional abilities are said to be indicators of how well a person adjusts to his or her environment, adapts to change and, ultimately, how successful she or he will be in life.” He does on to suggest that early success mastering SEL skills and competencies helps young children develop into happy, fulfilled, contributing members of society. Brotto went on to reference this “Ready to Lead,” Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report which was based on a national principal survey that looked at how SEL prepares children. The report suggests data that supports the need for SEL in schools, such as a 2011 meta-analysis that found that “students who re...

This article was written originally for MultiBriefs Education . For at least the last decade, there has been a push in our profession nationally to find ways to engage more girls in STEM-related courses and careers. This push has not gone unnoticed to me in my own New Hampshire high school, where currently more than 50% of students enrolled in AP Calculus and 80% of students enrolled in AP Biology are girls. The statistics are similar for other high-level STEM courses. What is more, girls are performing as well, if not better academically in these courses than boys. I attribute some of our successes in this area to decade-long K-12 emphasis on performance tasks and the engagement by all learners in authentic learning tasks that measure deeper learning. Our approach is backed by research that offers schools strategies on how to engage girls in STEM. In a recent EdWeek blog , Sarah Sparks reported out on a recent study in the journal Psychological Science which concluded tha...