Linda Nathan
Co-director, perrone-sizer institute
Linda Nathan, EdD is Executive Director of the Center for Artistry and Scholarship. She oversees key initiatives including the Perrone-Sizer Institute for Creative Leadership (PSi), a yearlong training program for emerging leaders in public urban education.
Dr. Nathan is an Adjunct Lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she teaches a course called “Building Democratic Schools: Studio Design Workshop.” As an experienced leader in education, Dr. Nathan actively mentors teachers and principals, and consults nationally and internationally on issues of educational reform, leadership, teaching with a commitment to racial justice and equity, and the critical role of arts and creativity in schools. Dr. Nathan facilitates workshops and conversations about issues of race, equity, and culturally relevant pedagogy for school leaders, teachers, parents, and students across the nation. She blogs about many of these issues at www.lindanathan.com.
Dr. Nathan’s widely praised book, The Hardest Questions Aren’t on the Test, about teaching and leadership in urban schools, was published in 2009 in both English and Spanish. Her second book, When Grit Isn’t Enough, was released by Beacon Press in October of 2017.
Dr. Nathan previously served as Faculty Director of the Creative Educational Leadership Institute at Boston University School of Education. Her prior positions also include Special Advisor to the Superintendent of Boston Public Schools, and Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Arts in Education. Dr. Nathan was also the Founding Headmaster of the Boston Arts Academy, Boston’s first public high school for the visual and performing arts, and the Co-director of Fenway High School, one of the first pilot schools in the Boston Public Schools. Dr. Nathan founded two nonprofit organizations: El Pueblo Nuevo, which focused on arts and youth development, and the Center for Collaborative Education, which works on issues of school reform. She began her teaching career in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and then came to Boston to work as a bilingual middle school teacher.
Dr. Nathan holds a Doctor of Education degree from Harvard University, master’s degrees from Emerson College and Antioch University, and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley.