User:Georgewingate/Ben shuldiner

Ben Shuldiner (born April 19, 1977) is an American social activist and educator. He currently serves as the principal of the High School for Public Service: Heroes of Tomorrow in Brooklyn, New York.

Early life and education
Ben Shuldiner has always considered New York his home, despite the fact that his family moved frequently due to his father's dedication to to helping secure affordable housing for low-income Americans (Joseph Shuldiner eventually served as Director of the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles and an undersecretary of housing in the Clinton Administration). When Ben attended Harvard as an undergraduate, he became involved in labor activism and was selected to join the inaugural class of the AFL-CIO’s Union Summer where he organized day care workers in urban Chicago. On campus, he co-founded Harvard’s Progressive Student Labor Movement to fight for living wages for university employees and was a sports writer for The Harvard Crimson. In addition to his primary study of History of Science, he pursued graduate-level education courses to earn his teaching credentials and graduated Magna Cum Laude in 1999. Shuldiner began his teaching career in England teaching history and poetry after winning the Stowe-Harvard Fellowship. He soon returned to New York and began teaching at Erasmus Hall, a troubled, inner-city high school, and, doubling the passing rate of his students on the History Regents Examinations, was quickly promoted to Chair of the History Department. His experience at Erasmus solidified his belief that students deserved a better education than the public school system was providing.

Foundation of the High School for Public Service: Heroes of Tomorrow
In 2002, Shuldiner and co-founder Marisa Boan received a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to build a high school that better reflected his vision of a fair public education system, and the High School for Public Service: Heroes of Tomorrow opened on the George W. Wingate High School campus in Crown Heights, Brooklyn in the fall of 2003. The school was founded as one of 8 schools opened in New York City that year as part of the New Visions program to replace failing high schools with smaller, more successful ones. When the school opened, Shuldiner became the youngest public high school principal in the history of New York state. The school enjoyed rapid success and today boasts extraordinary passing rates on the Regents Exams, a 94% attendance rate, and a unique on-campus urban farm program.

Political Aspirations
Shuldiner was one of six Democratic candidates in the 2006 race to defeat incumbent Republican Sue Kelly for the 19th Congressional District of New York. His campaign was a very grassroots organization, and focused on ending No Child Left Behind and creating a single payer national health care program. Shuldiner lost the nomination to fellow Democrat John Hall, who went on to beat Kelly in a close election.

Awards and honors
Shuldiner has received national recognition for his public service achievements. A lifelong hemophiliac, he was selected as the keynote speaker for the 2003 annual conference of the National Hemophilia Foundation. In 2005, he was chosen from a nationwide pool as the recipient of the prestigious Jefferson Award for Public Service, “Greatest Public Service by an Individual 35 Years or Under.”