Barbara Cervone  ·  Work & Publications  ·  Personal Writing  ·  Progressive Education

Barbara Cervone

Barbara Cervone is a lifelong supporter of progressive education, advancing schools where students are deeply known, actively engaged, and treated as creators of knowledge rather than passive recipients. Through her work founding schools, directing large-scale reform efforts, supporting students as problem-solvers, and publishing books co-authored with students, she has spent five decades elevating youth voice and reimagining what learning can look like.

In the 1970s, Cervone founded a national network of more than eight alternative high schools. In the 1990s, she coordinated Walter H. Annenberg’s $500 million Challenge to reform American public education. In 2001, she created What Kids Can Do (WKCD), a national nonprofit dedicated to championing the vision and contributions of our nation’s adolescents.

Thanks to generous foundation support, Cervone and What Kids Can Do were able to “push the envelope” with regard to engaging youth as contributors in their communities and schools. A three-year grant from The Gates Foundation, for example, supported 50 student-led $5,000 “research grants for action” in 17 states. A multi-year grant from The Met Life Foundation engaged students in five cities in developing a “school climate” survey for their classmates and teachers. The survey results became the basis for citywide summits that brought together educators, students, and community members around improving schools.

Through WKCD’s publishing arm, Next Generation Press, Cervone produced more than 15 books with student co-authors. WKCD also worked with major publishers. Fires in the Bathroom (The New Press, 2003), by WKCD co-founder Kathleen Cushman and a group of 20 students nationwide, was the best-selling teacher education book for two consecutive years. Cervone and Cushman’s most recent book, Belonging and Becoming (Harvard Education Press, 2015), has gained widespread attention for its examples of how social and emotional learning can transform high schools.

Cervone’s work also included international media projects in which youth in China, Eastern Europe, Ethiopia, India, and Tanzania documented their communities through photography, digital storytelling, and photo essays.

Cervone holds a B.A., summa cum laude, from Radcliffe College and both an M.A.T. and Ed.D. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. In 2008, she received the prestigious Purpose Prize from Civic Ventures for her contributions to elevating youth voice in education and community life nationwide.

She now lives in Ashland, Oregon, where she writes Postcards from the Rogue Valley, a personal essay blog on nature, community, education, and life in Southern Oregon — as well as contributing as a journalist to various local newspapers, mentoring college and high school students, championing links between local small farmers and schools, and more.