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

Work and Publications

Organizations and Initiatives

• Alternate Learning Project (1971–1974) — A public school “without walls” in Providence, RI started in 1971 with funds from the national ESEA Title III program for innovative education. Served as evaluator and advisor.
• Alternative High School Network (1975–1978) — Founded alternative schools in eight states across the United States, modelled after the Providence Alternate Learning Project.
• Youth Grant in the Humanities (1979–1981) — Received a two-year fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities to study the rise of compulsory education and its impacts in Rhode Island from 1890–1980.
• Rhode Island College (1982–1983) — Special assistant to President David Sweet; helped “stand up” one of the first Honors Colleges in the country.
• Rhode Island Foundation (1984–1992) — Served as Grant Officer and Associate Director. At the time, the Rhode Island Foundation was one of the ten largest community foundations in the country.
• Annenberg Challenge to the Nation (1994–2000) — Served as coordinator of the $500 million Annenberg Challenge, at the time the largest private grant to support public education in the nation’s history. The grant was distributed across thirty-five states through eighteen locally designed challenge projects over a period of five years. Funds went to urban school districts in New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Houston, Chicago, Boston, and the Bay Area, as well as rural districts in several states. Ultimately the challenge grant funds spread to 24,000 public schools, reaching more than 1.5 million students and 80,000 teachers. In response to Ambassador Annenberg’s call for the U.S. education support, more than 1,600 businesses, foundations, colleges, universities, and individuals gave $600 million — more than matching the Annenberg Foundation’s challenge.
• Harvard Graduate School of Education (2000–2001) — Research on “place-based” education.
• What Kids Can Do, Inc. (2001–2016) — Founded the national nonprofit What Kids Can Do, dedicated to documenting and broadcasting youth voice and focusing on young people marginalized by poverty, race, and language. For fifteen years — with generous support from major foundations including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Lumina Foundation, MetLife Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, and Novo Foundation — WKCD launched hundreds of projects in large and small cities nationwide that supported students and teachers as allies in improving their schools and communities. Concurrently, WKCD produced a website with stories and student work that grew every six weeks, along with a raft of books and other publications. WKCD generated over 250 articles in local and national newspapers, from The New York Times to the Sacramento Bee, along with radio appearances across the country featuring youth collaborators. Next Generation Press books were reviewed in the Los Angeles Times, Teachers College Record, News Photographer, and other national publications. WKCD was also a founding member of Adobe Youth Voices, working with youth across the U.S. and six other countries.

The WKCD “banner” also included:

• Next Generation Press — WKCD’s nonprofit publishing imprint. Published 15+ titles with youth as co-authors, with over 175,000 copies in print.
• How Youth Learn — A website featuring resources on social-emotional learning, motivation, and personalization.
• First in the Family — A website featuring videos, planning checklists, useful links, and more for high school students and first-year college students who are the first in the family to go to college (with three-year support from the Lumina Foundation).
• In Our Global Village — An extension of the “In Our Village” photo essay series, inspiring 60+ student photo essay books created by teachers and students worldwide.

Books with Major Publishers

• Belonging and Becoming: The Power of Social and Emotional Learning in High Schools — Barbara Cervone and Kathleen Cushman. Harvard Education Press, 2015.
• Fires in the Mind: What Kids Can Tell Us About Motivation and Mastery — Kathleen Cushman. Jossey-Bass, 2010.
• Fires in the Middle School Bathroom: Advice for Teachers from Middle Schoolers — Kathleen Cushman with Laura Rodgers. The New Press, 2008.
• Fires in the Bathroom: Advice for Teachers from High School Students — Kathleen Cushman. The New Press, 2003. Best-selling teacher education book for two consecutive years.

Selected Articles and Book Chapters

• “A Conceptual Framework for Parent Involvement” — Barbara Tucker Cervone and Kathleen O’Leary. Educational Leadership, 1982.
• “Student Attitudes Toward Studying History” — Barbara T. Cervone. The Clearing House, 1983.
• “A.W. Tucker: Some Reminiscences” — Barbara T. Cervone, Bill Duren, J. J. Kohn, J. Laurie Snell, and Marjorie L. Stein. Notices of the American Mathematical Society, 1995. A memorial tribute to her father, the Princeton mathematician Albert W. Tucker.
• “Moving Youth Participation into the Classroom: Students as Allies” — Barbara Cervone and Kathleen Cushman. New Directions for Youth Development, 2002.
• “Student Research for Action: Restoring Hope Where It’s All But Gone” — Barbara Cervone. National Civic Review, 2006.
• “Baltimore’s Urban Debates Prove the Word Is Mightier than the Sword” — Barbara Cervone. National Civic Review, 2006.
• “When Reach Exceeds Grasp: Taking the Annenberg Challenge to Scale” — in Reconnecting Education and Foundations: Turning Good Intentions into Educational Capital, edited by Ray Bacchetti and Thomas Ehrlich. Stanford University Press, 2007.
• “Powerful Learning with Public Purpose” — Barbara Cervone. New Directions for Youth Development, 2010.

Reports and White Papers

• “Citizens Changing Their Schools: A Midterm Report of the Annenberg Challenge” — Kathleen Cushman and Barbara Cervone. Annenberg Institute for School Reform, 1999.
• “Youth Acts, Community Impacts: Stories of Youth Engagement with Real Results” — Joel Tolman, Karen Pittman, Barbara Cervone, et al. Forum for Youth Investment, 2001. Funded by the Ford Foundation.
• “A Future That Works: First Person Accounts of Community Colleges That Change Lives” — Kathleen Cushman, Barbara Cervone, Lisa Rowley. Jobs for the Future / MetLife Foundation, 2003.
• “Teachers at Work: Six Exemplars of Everyday Practice” — Barbara Cervone and Kathleen Cushman. Students at the Center series, Jobs for the Future / Nellie Mae Education Foundation, 2012.
• “You’re Constantly Revising Yourself: The Dispositions of a Student-Centered Teacher” — Barbara Cervone and Kathleen Cushman. Students at the Center series, 2013.
• “Integrating Social-Emotional Learning Into High School” — Barbara Cervone and Kathleen Cushman. Education Week, 2014.

Next Generation Press Books

First in the Family Series

Supported by the Lumina Foundation for Education, this series elevated the experiences of first-generation college students. The books sold over 200,000 copies combined and continue to be used by students entering institutions from community colleges to the Ivy League.

• First in the Family: Advice About College from First-Generation Students — Your High School Years — Kathleen Cushman. 2005.
• First in the Family: Advice About College from First-Generation Students — Your College Years — Kathleen Cushman. 2006.

Youth Voice and Student Life

• What We Can’t Tell You: Teenagers Talk to the Adults in Their Lives — Kathleen Cushman and the youth of WKCD. 2005.
• Sent to the Principal: Students Talk About Making High School Better — Kathleen Cushman and the students of WKCD. 2005.
• Hip Deep: Opinion, Essays, and Vision from American Teenagers — Edited by Abe Louise Young with the youth board of Next Generation Press. 2006.
• Forty-Cent Tip: Stories of New York City Immigrant Workers — Students of three New York public International High Schools. Introduction by Marcelo M. Suarez-Orozco. 2006.
• Pass It On: Interviews by Youth with Mentors That Matter — Students of WKCD, edited by Kathleen Cushman. 2008.
• SAT Bronx: Do You Know What Bronx Kids Know? — Students from Bronx Leadership Academy 2, with Shannon O’Grady, Kristin Ferrales, and Kathleen Cushman. 2008.
• The Motivation Equation: Designing Lessons That Set Kids’ Minds on Fire — Kathleen Cushman with the students of WKCD. 2013. Enhanced multimedia e-book (no longer available).

Photo Essay Books

These books grew out of international media projects in which young people documented and reflected on their communities through photography and writing. (Note: These are no longer in print.)

• In Our Village: Kambi ya Simba Through the Eyes of Its Youth — Students at Awet Secondary School, Tanzania. Edited by Barbara Cervone. 2006. Sold over 7,500 copies.
• Perspectives of San Diego Bay: A Field Guide — Students of High Tech High. Foreword by Jane Goodall. 2006.
• India in a Time of Globalization: A Photo Essay by Indian Youth — A project of Adobe Youth Voices and WKCD. Edited by Barbara Cervone. 2008.
• Crisis and Hope: Youth Turn a Lens on the World — A project of Adobe Youth Voices and WKCD. Edited by Barbara Cervone. 2010. Youth photos from four continents and 16 countries.
• Art and Life in Rural Japan: Toho Village Through the Eyes of Its Youth — Edited by Cyrus Rolbin. Bilingual English/Japanese.
• Boto, Ethiopia Through the Eyes of Its Youth — Edited by Barbara Cervone.
• In Our Village: San Francisco’s Tenderloin Through the Eyes of Its Youth — Edited by Barbara Cervone, with youth at the Boys & Girls Clubs of San Francisco.

Small Publications

• Learning Outside the Lines: Six Innovative Programs That Reach Youth, 2002 (with WK Kellogg Foundation)
• Taking Democracy in Hand: Youth Action for Educational Change in the San Francisco Bay Area, 2002
• The Schools We Need: Creating Small High Schools That Work for Us, 2003 (with the Carnegie Corporation)
• A Future That Works: First-Person Accounts of Community Colleges That Change Lives, 2003 (with MetLife Foundation)
• First Ask, Then Listen: How to Get Your Students to Help You Teach Them Better, 2003 (companion to Fires in the Bathroom)
• Students as Allies in Improving Their Schools, 2004 (with MetLife Foundation)
• Walking the Talk: Community Colleges Where Everyone Wins, 2005 (with MetLife Foundation)
• A Guide to Creating Teen-Adult Conversations in Your Community, 2005 (with MetLife Foundation)
• Making Writing Essential to Teen Lives, 2006
• My Dreams Are Not A Secret: Teens in Metropolitan Detroit Speak Out, 2007 (with Skillman Foundation and University of Michigan)
• Documenting Immigrant Stories in Your Community, 2008
• You Don’t Know Me Until Now: Latino/a Middle School Voices, 2010 (with National Council of La Raza)
• Cultural Conversations Through Creative Writing: A Mini-Curriculum for Teachers, 2010
• Queer Youth Advice for Educators: How to Respect and Protect Your Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Students, 2011
• Profiles of Politically Active Youth, 2012

Speaking & Media

• Purpose Prize acceptance — Civic Ventures / CoGenerate, 2008. Video profile recognizing Cervone’s work elevating youth voice through What Kids Can Do.
• “Giving Voice to Youth” — Humankind on Public Radio, interview and feature segment, 2007.
• Psychology Today — Contributor page with Kathleen Cushman, 2016–2018.
• Featured speaker and workshop presenter at education conferences throughout the United States on topics including youth engagement, school reform, student-centered learning, and first-generation college access. Opinion commentaries for The Boston Globe and Providence Journal.

Videos

• “Who We Are: First-Generation College Students Speak Out” (2009). The challenges, big and small, facing first-generation college students, prepared for U.S. Congress hearing on renewing the Pell grants.
• “How Youth Learn: Ned’s GR8 8” (2012). In this funny and fast-paced 6-minute “NED talk,” this hand-drawn adolescent brain — complete with backpack, zits, and a journal he keeps about school — knocks out eight powerful conditions of learning that can change everything for students from rural Vermont to New York City (where the owner of Ned’s voice goes to high school).
• “This is my place”: middle schoolers on social and emotional learning (2013). In this audio slideshow, middle schoolers at School of the Future in New York City give their own examples of how everyday interactions between students, peers, and adults affect how they learn in the classroom.
• “Just Listen” — Over 200 short video clips in which high school students speak directly to viewers about teaching and learning — from the teacher-student relationship to how schools help kids become adults.
• “Boto Village, Ethiopia” (2013). Video documenting the youth photo essay project in Ethiopia.