Alan Blankstein

Founder and Past President of Solution Tree & HOPE Foundation, Award-Winning Author, Film Producer & Educational Leader

Alan Blankstein

Founder and Past President of Solution Tree & HOPE Foundation, Award-Winning Author, Film Producer & Educational Leader

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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 was 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 his book Excellence Through Equity with Pedro Noguera, which takes an inspiring look at how real-world educators are creating schools where all students are able to thrive, and his latest work Breakthrough Leadership: Six Principles that Guide Schools Where Inequity is Not an Option. Alan has completed his first multi-award-winning documentary, Petersburg Rising, which is now serving as catalyst to community-building around support for equitable public schools.

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.

Speaker Videos

Petersburg Rising Trailer

One on One with JC Hayward

ASCD General Assembly Keynote

How I Became Involved in Equity

Failure is Not an Option

Celebration of Teaching & Learning

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Speech Topics

It Takes a Community…

Learn how successful district and school leaders are reclaiming their communities, schools, and students.

This can be done by building relational trust, and using processes, like collective impact, to focus on the needs of youth:

Going from Conflict to Healing and Harmony
Creating Common and Equitable Goals, Plans, and Actions for All Students’ Success
Engaging the Community Around the Voices of Students and Meeting their Real Needs & Underlying Conditions of Challenge (e.g. Poverty)
Building Effective, Communitywide Supports for All Students
Assuring Successful Teacher and Leader Recruitment and Retention (includes strategies for individual and collective stress reduction and energy management).

Recovering Learning Loss

Underlying the challenges children now face in recapturing the learning they would have otherwise gained were they in school steadily since 2020, are additional needs that must be addressed while also rethinking the delivery of instruction. Depending on the student and context, the issues may include poverty, trauma, isolation, and grief. This presentation focuses on adapting instructional strategies to reclaim and engage students, their families, and the community so that the conditions for enhanced learning can be collectively created.

Courageous Leadership for Breakthrough Results

There is a time for adaptive responses to a new challenge. At other times, the fundamentals of the situation have shifted significantly and require Breakthrough leadership, whereby leaders see the status quo as unworkable must rethink previous assumptions. In all cases courage is required to act.

Very few of us were trained to lead through the crises that have befallen all of our schools, communities, children and families these past few years. This keynote points to models we can learn from successful leaders who have prevailed during times of extraordinary challenge.

Testimonials

“Always an inspiring presenter, with a deep concern about equity and a host of ways to make it practical.”

- Andy Hargreaves, Thomas More Brennan Chair, Lynch School of Education, Boston College

“Alan Blankstein’s presentations are consistently relevant and inspiring to educators. His work addresses the most important issues facing schools in America today, and his approach is both practical and powerful.”

- Pedro Noguera, Distinguished Professor of Education at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, UCLA

“Alan's was the best and most highly rated leadership event we have ever had!”

- Kate Harris, Chief Academic Officer, Saint Paul Public Schools, ISD

“Alan is an engaging presenter with a highly relevant message. He connects to educators by sharing his personal story and by knowing his audience. I appreciated having the opportunity to speak with Alan about the key issues in our state so that he could tailor his remarks to hit home with our conference attendees.”

- Wendy Zdeb, Executive Director, MASSP

“Alan Blankstein’s presentations involve the audience through creating an internal emotional response that each audience member physically experiences. He is a dynamic, passionate, interesting and above all, real. His presentations are deeply touching and still fun to be a part of.”

- Ben Waxman, Director of Professional Services, Educators for Students’ Success

“Alan Blankstein is an uplifting and inspirational presenter. As a superintendent of three different K-12 school districts, he has provided our teachers and leaders with structures, systems, and best instructional practices that lead to student success. Audiences respond enthusiastically to Alan and his energizing balance of charisma, humor, content knowledge (from several of his bestselling books), and emotional connections.”

- Marcus Newsome, Superintendent, Petersburg Public Schools

“One of the best keynote speakers I’ve heard.”

- Maria Garcia, Communications Officer, San Bernadino Unified School District

"Thank you so much for sharing your expertise in facilitating one workshop and our closing keynote. Your workshop and keynote grounded the whole program, and added an important layer to our theme Joyful Leadership In Traumatic Times. Your closing keynote created an inspirational buzz that many were seeking, and voiced their appreciation as they were departing."

- Ulster BOCES

"Alan provided the Virginia superintendents with an inspirational and thought-provoking Keynote presentation on innovative leadership during the Pandemic that thoroughly engaged our members and inspired their enthusiasm to become transformational leaders."

- Associate Executive Director, Virginia Association of School Superintendents

"I have had the privilege of attending more than one of Alan Blankstein’s brilliant keynote presentations. The entire audience is invariably out of their seats; they laugh, they cry and are uplifted with inspiring examples of equity-based school practices. For decades, Alan has delivered thoughtful, proven approaches to creating sustainable improvement in schools. He joyfully engages his audience completely from start to finish, showing us why and how this important work can be done. Alan is a dynamic, inspiring, and insightful presenter. Be prepared to be mesmerized, if you are lucky enough to have him speak to your organization."

- Director of Academics and Accountability, South Bend Empowerment Zone

"Alan Blankstein is a visionary leader who truly believes that failure is not an option when it comes to educating children! His message of transformation through collectively creating, communicating, and implementing with fidelity a powerful mission and vision has stood the test of time!"

- Superintendent, Roosevelt Union Free School District