Camille A. Farrington

Camille A. Farrington is a Senior Research Associate at the University of Chicago, Consortium on School Research. Her work focuses on policy and practice in urban high schools. She is most interested in how kids experience school and how kids' experiences influence their behaviors, their beliefs, and their learning. She holds a Ph.D. in Policy Studies in Urban Education from the University of Illinois at Chicago and is a leading expert on the role of "noncognitive factors" (meaning everything that's not on the test) in school performance.

Before returning to the university, Camille was a high school teacher for 15 years in Oakland, CA; small-town Oregon, WI; and the South Side of Chicago. She taught English and humanities and earned National Board Certification in Social Studies/History. After almost 25 years of teaching in high schools, conducting research in high schools, supporting teachers in high schools, and surviving the experience of parenting two teenagers through high schools, Camille is completely convinced that the American high school is misaligned with adolescent learning and development, and too often crushes the spirits and aspirations of kids and teachers alike. We can do so much better. Her research and writing are devoted to that cause.

Camille is the author of Failing at School: Lessons for Transforming Urban High Schools, lead author of Teaching Adolescents to Become Learners: The Role of Noncognitive Factors in Shaping School Performance - A Critical Literature Review, and co-author of Foundations for Young Adult Success: A Developmental Framework. She lives in Chicago with her husband and is thrilled to spend much of her summers in the Sierra Nevada of California.