Deborah Meier

Deborah Meier is an American educator credited as a founding figure of the modern small schools movement in American public education. Born in 1931, she worked as a kindergarten teacher in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York City before founding Central Park East, an alternative public elementary school in East Harlem built on John Dewey's progressive educational philosophy, in 1974. She went on to found two more East Harlem elementary schools and co-founded Central Park East Secondary School in 1984, then moved to Boston in 1996 to establish the Mission Hill School. Her books, including The Power of Their Ideas and In Schools We Trust, argue for democratic, student-centered schools kept small enough for teachers to know every student well. In 1987 she became the first classroom teacher or principal to receive a MacArthur Fellowship.