He received a B.A. in history and a teaching credential in social studies from Brown University (1988); and a Ph.D. in history from New York University (2002). He is nearing completion of a book manuscript on race, social class, and urban school reform since World War II, with a focus on the African-American educator Marcus Foster, assassinated by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) in 1973. The Ph.D. dissertation on which his book manuscript is based received the Claude Eggertsen Prize from the History of Education Society. John's work as an historian and teacher are informed by five years of experience as a high school and middle school history teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area and by consulting and professional development work for the City University of New York (American Social History Project) and the University of Pittsburgh.]