Spent nearly four decades working in public education as a teacher, principal, writer and public advocate. She is widely considered to be the founder of the small schools movement and founded a number of public elementary and secondary schools in New York and Boston that serve predominantly low-income African American and Latino students. She won a MacArthur Genius Award in 1987 and is the author of many books, including The Power of Their Ideas, In Schools We Trust and Many Children Left Behind. She serves as principal emeritus of Mission Hill School in Boston, co-chair of the Coalition for Essential Schools, and is currently a senior scholar at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Education.