In American Schools, Sam Chaltain interweaves the leading ideas from the education, business, and scientific communities to outline a framework for leadership that helps educators and organizational leaders create the optimal conditions for transformational change. By pairing a rich theoretical framework with the stories of communities that have, over several years, tried to create more democratic learning communities, Chaltain does what any reader of this book will have to do - provide enough structure to empower people to do their best work, and enough freedom so that each person's inherent creativity can be unleashed.
Sam Chaltain is a DC-based educator and organizational change consultant. He works with schools, school districts, and public and private sector companies to help them create healthy, high-functioning learning environments.
Previously, Sam was the National Director of the Forum for Education and Democracy, an education advocacy organization. He was also the founding director of the Five Freedoms Project, a national program that helps K-12 principals create more democratic learning communities.
Sam spent five years at the First Amendment Center as the co-director of the First Amendment Schools program. He came to the Center from the public school system of New York City, where he taught high school English and History. Sam also spent four years teaching the same subjects at a private school in Brooklyn.
Sam's first teaching experience was in Beijing, China, where he joined the faculty of the Foreign Languages department at Beijing Normal University as a visiting lecturer. He taught two American History & Literature courses to third-year undergraduates.
Sam's writings about his work have appeared in both magazines and newspapers, including the Washington Post, Education Week and USA Today. A periodic contributor to CNN and MSNBC, Sam is also the author or co-author of four books: "The First Amendment in Schools" (ASCD, 2003), "First Freedoms: A Documentary History of First Amendment Rights" (Oxford University Press, 2006), "American Schools: The Art of Creating a Democratic Learning Community" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009), and "We Must Not Be Afraid to be Free: Stories Of Free Expression in America" (Oxford, 2010).
Sam has a Master's degree in American Studies from the College of William & Mary, and an M.B.A. from George Washington University, where he specialized in non-profit management and organizational theory. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he graduated with a double major in Afro-American Studies and History.
