Penny Bender Sebring

Penny Bender Sebring is a senior research associate at the University of Chicago and co-founder of the University of Chicago’s Consortium on School Research. Sebring has contributed to numerous Consortium publications on school organization, leadership, and students’ participation in digital media. She is a co-author of How a City Learned to Improve Its Schools (Harvard Education Press, 2023) and Organizing Schools for Improvement: Lessons From Chicago (University of Chicago Press, 2010). Sebring also is president of the Lewis-Sebring Family Foundation. She has been a Peace Corps volunteer and high school teacher. Sebring graduated from Grinnell College and was a longtime member of its Board of Trustees. She received a master’s degree from the Pennsylvania State University, a Ph.D. in education and policy studies from Northwestern University, and an honorary doctorate from Grinnell. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Chicago Public Education Fund and Kids First Chicago and is a member of the Policy Advisory Board of the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern.