Research

Work: 212 678 3787
Cell: 617 799 7481
E-Mail: bobw9090@gmail.com

Education:

Boston University, Boston, Mass.
Doctor of Education -- Administration, Planning and Policy Studies, September, 1986
Dissertation: “Voices From the Schoolhouse: An Ethnographic Study of a K – 8
School in Lowell, Massachusetts”… Served as staff assistant/editor at the Institute for
Responsive Education at Boston University

Northeastern University, Boston, Mass.
Certificate of Advanced Graduate Study - Pupil Support Services Administration
and School Psychology, June, 1978

The New Jersey Urban Education Corps, Montclair State College, Upper Montclair, New
Jersey, June 1970 – January 1972; one and a half-year program, preparing college
graduates with liberal arts degrees to be teachers in the urban centers of New Jersey;
Master of Arts in Teaching, January, 1972

Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Penn.
Bachelor of Arts -- English/Journalism, January, 1969
Editorial Page Director and editorial columnist of the school newspaper, Brown and
White; Elected to Arcadia , the school’s student government; Varsity Golf Team

Throughout my career, I participated in ongoing professional development with
organizations such as Teachers as Scholars (Mass.), National Endowment for the
Humanities (Washington, D.C.), Primary Source (Mass.), Southern Poverty Law Center
(Georgia), Harvard Principals Center (Mass.), Alan November Associates, Minority
Student Achievement Network, and The College Board

Experience:

Professor of Practice, Programs in Education Leadership
Teachers College, Columbia University  September, 2011 - present
Teach Educational Leadership courses and mentor students in TC's Summer Principals Academy (SPA) and Urban Education Leaders Program (UELP)

Headmaster, Brookline High School, Brookline, Mass., August, 1992 - June, 2011
Overall leadership responsibilities for this metropolitan high school with 1750 students
(10% African-American students; 10% Hispanic students; 15% Asian/Asian-American
students; 30% of students do not speak English as their primary language; 13% of the
students participate in the free/reduced price breakfast and lunch program);
As part of my expectation that every administrator teaches at least one class, I teach
one section of Freshman English; I founded, and serve on the Board of Directors of
the Brookline High 21st Century fund, a venture capital fund that supports innovation at
Brookline High, and has raised over $8 million in twelve years.

Lecturer, Boston University Graduate School of Education, January, 1991 – May, 2008
I developed and taught two graduate leadership courses -- “Supervision”
and “Community Relations”

Trustee, Member of the National Academic Council, the Membership Committee, and
the Nominations Committee, The College Board, New York, New York, 2002 - present

Assistant Headmaster, Brookline High School, Brookline, Mass.,
July, 1989- July, 1992; responsible for academic policies and school operations

Principal, John Runkle School, Brookline, Mass., July, 1988- June, 1989; responsible
for the overall operation of this K – 8 public school in this urban/suburban community;
created a student governance system whose story appears as a chapter in Moral,
Character, and Civic Education in the Elementary School

Principal, City Magnet Micro-Society School, Lowell, Mass., July, 1981 - June, 1988;
I was the founding principal of a K – 8 magnet school whose curriculum, “micro-society,”
is based in John Dewey’s book, Experience and Education. The City Magnet School
is part of Lowell’s voluntary desegregation plan, and was selected as one of the top 50
elementary schools in the nation in 1988.

School Psychologist/Teacher, Lowell High School, Lowell, Mass., Sept., 1978- June,
1981; responsible for academic and psychological testing, individual and group
counseling, and the development and supervision of alternative education settings for
at-risk students at Lowell High School

English Teacher and Project Director, STEP Program, the alternative high school for atrisk
students at Arlington High School, Arlington, Mass., February, 1975 - June, 1978

Counselor, Massachusetts Advocacy Program, Concord, Mass., and City of
Somerville, Mass., Feb., 1974 - Feb., 1975

Travel in Europe and Asia and Work/Study on Kibbutz Sdot-Yam, Israel, June, 1970-
December, 1972

English Teacher, Totowa, New Jersey and New York City, Sept., 1970- June, 1972

Publications:

“Meaningful Participation and an Effective School: Students, Teachers, and Parents
Run Their Own Micro-Society” Equity and Choice Magazine, Boston University, 1984

“Development and Practice of Democracy in a K- 8 School” in Moral, Character, and
Civic Education in the Elementary School, Jacques Benninga, Editor, Teachers College
Press, 1990

“Magical Realism” in The Collected Works, The Writer’s Eye, The National Endowment
for the Humanities, 1990

“Beyond Special Education: A New Vision of Academic Support,” with Julie Joyal
Mowschenson, in Phi Delta Kappan Magazine, June 2009

Awards:

Robert I. Sperber Award for Administrative Leadership, May 2008, Brookline,
Massachusetts

Leadership in Micro-Society Education, Micro-Society, Inc. 2007