- Connecticut principal and current NYC educator Michael Pisseri draws on 26 years of public school experience to address the misconceptions that most commonly derail school improvement efforts.
Five Myths About What Makes Schools Better
Connecticut, USA, 8th April 2026, ZEX PR WIRE — After more than two decades leading and teaching in public schools across Connecticut and New York, Michael Pisseri has observed the same patterns emerging again and again in struggling buildings. Most of them come down to mistaken assumptions about where improvement actually starts.
Myth 1: Curriculum is the primary driver of academic improvement.
New curricula get adopted in struggling schools on a cycle that is nearly predictable. A program is purchased, rolled out, and partially implemented before the next adoption begins. Pisseri’s experience at Davenport Ridge Elementary in Stamford, which earned a State of Connecticut School of Distinction designation in 2019, suggests that climate precedes curriculum. When staff believe the school is working and students feel safe, the curriculum has an opportunity to function as intended. Without those conditions, even well-designed materials produce inconsistent results. When staff feel valued and listened to, great things happen for students.
Myth 2: Strong leadership means having all the answers.
Pisseri describes his early years at Davenport Ridge not as a period of confident direction-setting, but as one of deliberate listening. The staff of a school carries institutional knowledge that no incoming administrator possesses. Leaders who arrive with solutions before they have understood the challenges tend to generate resistance rather than momentum. Trust-building, which is unglamorous and slow, is the actual precondition for strategy. Being a good listener is key when establishing a plan to move a school forward.
Myth 3: STEM is a program you add.
Pisseri has been affiliated with STEM for over 15 years. He has collaborated with the Design Team for STEMFest in Stamford and has presented on elementary STEM implementation at NSTA conferences and at the Johnson Space Center in Houston in 2024. His position is consistent: STEM is not a subject or a period. It is an inquiry-based posture toward learning that either permeates a school culture or does not exist in any meaningful way. Treating it as a plug-in produces events, not outcomes. When it is truly embedded into the work of the school, you see amazing collaboration and results for students. Sometimes these results are not overnight; they take years to develop on the secondary level. But, when you start in the early years, you establish a solid foundation for success.
Myth 4: School turnaround is about changing what students do.
Turnaround work, in Pisseri’s framing, is almost entirely about what adults do. The adults in a building determine the climate, the expectations, the consistency, and the belief that students internalize. At Davenport Ridge, the school’s 2016 PBIS Banner School Award for positive climate preceded its academic recognition. That sequence was not coincidental. The staff was amazing and worked extremely hard to focus on continuous improvement for the students.
Myth 5: Returning to the classroom is a step backward.
Pisseri made the move from 14-year principal to classroom teacher in the 2025-26 school year, joining a New York City Public Schools middle school in Harlem. For him, the return is consistent with a career defined by staying close to students. The skills built over a long administrative career do not disappear at the classroom door. They change what a teacher is capable of offering.
What to Try This Week
Audit your building or classroom for the climate conditions that precede academic outcomes. Ask whether the adults in the space are modeling the behaviors they expect from students. If you lead a school, identify one decision you made based on urgency rather than process this month and consider what a process-first alternative would have looked like.
About Michael Pisseri
Michael Pisseri is a Social Studies and Intervention Teacher with New York City Public Schools and a veteran K-12 educator based in Fairfield, Connecticut. He spent 14 years as Principal of Davenport Ridge Elementary School in Stamford, CT, where the school earned two state-level recognitions. He holds degrees from Fairfield University and Sacred Heart University and has presented at national STEM conferences. More information is available at michaelpisserieducator.com.
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