Sam Chaltain is the National Director of the Forum for Education and Democracy, a DC-based education advocacy organization devoted to restoring the public purpose of public education. He is also the founding director of the Five Freedoms Project, a national program that helps K-12 principals create more democratic learning communities.

Previously, Sam spent five years at the First Amendment Center as the co-director of the First Amendment Schools program. Sam 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 Education Week and The USA Today. He is also the 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), Degrees of Freedom: The Art of Creating a Democratic Learning Community (Rowman & Littlefield, October 2009), and We Must Not Be Afraid to be Free: A Narrative History of Free Speech 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.

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