A former teacher and coach at the middle and high school levels, Dave Brown is coathor of What Every Middle School Teacher Should Know, Second Edition (Heinemann, 2007) and the author of Becoming a Successful Urban Teacher (Heinemann, 2002). He is a former middle school teacher with years of experience teaching and coaching sixth through eighth graders. He regularly conducts research with middle-level teachers and young adolescents as a professor at West Chester University of Pennsylvania and provides in-service sessions nationally on young-adolescent development, appropriate middle-level design, and culturally responsive teaching.