Award-winning author and educational leader, Alan Blankstein served for 25 years as President of the HOPE Foundation.
Cultural Diversity Roster
Find a Presenter
speaker
Alan Blankstein
Founder and Past President of Solution Tree & HOPE Foundation, Award-Winning Author, Film Producer & Educational Leader
Bio
Full Bio
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.
