Michele Cahill

Michele Cahill has more than 35 years of experience working in the areas of education reform, youth development and urban affairs. Most recently, Cahill was vice president, national program coordination and director of urban education at Carnegie Corporation of New York, where she led the philanthropy's strategy to expand educational opportunity through systemic change across K-12, to increase graduation and degree completion by urban and low-income students, and to support expanded pathways to citizenship, civil participation and civic integration for immigrants and disconnected youth. Cahill co-chaired the Carnegie Corporation’s Institute for Advanced Study Commission on Transforming Mathematics and Science Education that published the Opportunity Equation report in 2009, and she led the subsequent mobilization that included the collaborative development of the Next Generation Science Standards, and “100kin10” partnership for STEM teaching that has been recognized by the White House and by the Clinton Global Initiative America.

Prior to rejoining Carnegie Corporation in 2007, Cahill served as senior counselor for education policy in the New York City Department of Education under Chancellor Joel Klein. She was a member of the Children First senior leadership team where she played a pivotal role in the development of Children First reforms in secondary education, district redesign, new school development and the pioneering multiple pathways to graduation initiative, targeting accelerated learning and graduation by overage and disconnected youth. These secondary education reforms resulted in more than a 20% gain in the graduation rate and recent research confirms increased postsecondary enrollment and progress by New York City graduates. Cahill also served as a vice president of the Fund for the City of New York from 1991-1999 where she founded and led the Youth Development Institute, the Beacons Initiative and co-founded the Partnership for After School Education (PASE). In her early career Cahill co-founded the Public Policy Program at St. Peter’s College in Jersey City, teaching urban studies for a decade, and receiving a Mina Shaughnessy Scholars Award from the U.S. Department of Education recognizing this work for innovative and effective methods of teaching social science to nontraditional students.