Dan Challener is the president of the Public Education Foundation in Chattanooga, Tennessee. As president, Dr. Challener oversees the Foundation’s efforts to strengthen student achievement in Hamilton County’s public schools. Among these programs are the Benwood Initiative, which has yielded dramatic improvement in the district’s nine most challenged elementary schools, Schools for a New Society Initiative, which brings about innovative improvements in Hamilton County’s seventeen public high schools, and Hamilton County Leadership Initiative, which provides training and learning opportunities for experienced, new, and future leaders in all schools.

Before coming to Chattanooga, Dr. Challener served for seven years as CEO of the Providence Blueprint for Education (PROBE), a community-based advocacy and research project that involved communities in the improvement of public schools in Providence, Rhode Island.

Dr. Challener holds a bachelors degree from Princeton University and a masters and Ph.D. in English from Brown University. He is the author of Narratives of Resilience (Garland Press, 1997), a study of what builds strength in young people. He has taught high school in New Jersey and served as adjunct faculty of both Brown University and Johnson and Wales University.

Dr. Challener is married to the former Melinda Cragg. They have three children, all of whom attend Hamilton County public schools.