Rudy Crew is a nationally acclaimed educator and author whose career has spanned from the classroom to the chancellorship of the nation’s largest school district, New York City Public Schools, where he served from 1995 to 1999. He was also the superintendent of Miami-Dade County Public Schools, the nation’s fourth-largest school district. Crew transformed the district through such innovations as the Parent Academy, the School Improvement Zone, and the Secondary School Reform initiative, while student achievement scores continued a trend of significant improvement.

Prior to his appointment in Miami-Dade, Crew served as director of district reform initiatives at the Stupski Foundation and as executive director of the Institute for K-12 Leadership, a partnership of the University of Washington in Seattle and San Francisco–based WestEd.

A native of Poughkeepsie, NY, Crew holds an EdD in educational administration and a MEd in urban education from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He earned his BA in management from Babson College in Wellesley, MA. Crew has received many honors, including being named the 2008 National Superintendent of the Year by the American Association of School Administrators.

He serves on several boards and task forces including the Carnegie-IAS Commission on Mathematics and Science Education, the Al Shanker Institute, USC Rossier School of Education Board of Councilors, the National Superintendents Roundtable, and the National Research Council’s Committee on Scientific Principles of Education Research.

Crew is as an associate at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he has been part of the Urban Superintendents Program since 1992. His recently published book is called Only Connect: The Way to Save Our Schools.