After his studies at the University of Virginia, he taught at the Webb School in Bell Buckle, Tennessee, at Temple University, and at the University of Pennsylvania; and then undertook graduate studies at the University of Michigan. From 1992 to 2001, he taught expository writing in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, where he also edited non-fiction for the "Harvard Review". While at Harvard he became involved in education reform as a consultant to the Massachusetts Board of Education, helping to reshape curriculum frameworks and assessment in English Language Arts. He has been a Visiting Fellow at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, and at the American Enterprise Institute; an Ella Baker Fellow at Antioch New England Graduate School; a consultant to the John Templeton Foundation; and from 2001-2004 a staff member at the American Academy for Liberal Education, where he created new K-12 programs. Furthermore, he has been a consultant to the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence, which offers an alternative route into the K-12 classroom for liberal arts college graduates and career-switching professionals, and also to the education reform organization Achieve, which has launched the American Diploma Project to raise academic expectations in American high schools.