is Lewis-Sebring Director of the Urban Education Institute at the University of Chicago. The mission of the Institute is to create new educational models to address one of the nation's most enduring questions: How do we produce reliably excellent schooling for urban American children? Previously, Knowles served as Lewis-Sebring Executive Director and Senior Research Associate of the Center for Urban School Improvement. He was also deputy superintendent for teaching and learning at the Boston Public Schools, where he was responsible for school improvement, professional development, community partnerships, and supervising principals and staff. He was co-director of the Boston Annenberg Challenge, a $30 million literacy-instruction effort, and has served in a number of other positions, including founding director of a full-service, K-8 school in Bedford-Stuyvesant, New York.

Aspen Ideas, Inspirational, Education Reform, Educational Motivational, Education Reform, At-Risk Youth, Community Improvement