Facilitator's Guide to Failure Is Not an Option® : 6 Principles for Making Student Success the ONLY Option

Demonstrate how six powerful principles can help ensure that failure is never an option!

An ideal companion to the second edition of the bestseller, Failure Is Not an Option®, this step-by-step guide provides staff developers and workshop facilitators with all the tools to help school leaders create successful, sustainable high-performing schools. Aligned with the chapters of Alan M. Blankstein′s award-winning book, these activities, discussion questions, and field-tested resources demonstrate how to avoid 10 common routes to failure and are designed around six guiding principles:

• Common mission, vision, values, and goals
• Achievement for all students through prevention and intervention systems
• Collaborative teaming focused on teaching for learning
• Data-based decisions for continuous improvement
• Active family and community engagement
• Building sustainable leadership capacity

Reflecting the updated edition′s greater emphasis on diversity, assessment for learning, intervention and support for students at risk, and schooling as a community endeavor, the facilitator′s guide features

• Field-tested resources referenced in Failure Is Not An Option®, Second Edition, including tools for applying the six principles
• Workshop activities
• Discussion questions
• Chapter content summaries
• Suggestions for further reading and reflection
• A workshop evaluation form

The Facilitator′s Guide to Failure Is Not an Option®, Second Edition is ideal for staff developers or anyone leading groups of any size―pairs, small workshops, or large seminars.

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 is 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 Excellence Through Equity with Pedro Noguera,.  He also authored some 20 articles in leading education print including Education Week, Educational Leadership, The Principal, and Executive Educator. 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.