Keith is a graduate of Harvard Divinity School (M.T.S., religion and education), and Columbia University (Ed.D., philosophy and education). In 1993, while teaching writing at Harvard College, he helped J.B. Schramm create and run a weekend college admissions workshop that became the noteworthy PeerForward summer workshop. As the organization’s Co-founder and first Chief Academic Officer, he created PeerForward’s national Education Department and led PeerForward’s expansion to begin serving students 9th – 11th grades. In 2014, Keith became PeerForward’s second CEO and led the organization’s design and launch of its student-driven college success initiative.
From 2010-2015, Keith led the design and implementation of the expansion of the King Center Charter School, a K-8 school on the east side of Buffalo. Keith has also served as the Assistant Headmaster of the Browning School in New York City and the Headmaster of the Elmwood Franklin School in Buffalo, NY. During this time, he also led the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded College Knowledge Challenge resulting in the launch of 19 free postsecondary navigation apps, many now can be found at linkforward.org. In 2014, this work was featured at the White House’s Datapalooza as one of the top education innovations of the year.
Keith is the co-editor of The Columbia Book of Civil War Poetry (Columbia University Press, 1994), which the Wall Street Journal named as one of the top five war poetry books of all time. He has written two award-winning books on parenting and education, “What Not to Expect: A Meditation on the Spirituality of Parenting” (Crossroad Publishing, 2005) and “How’s My Kid Doing? and Other Frequently Asked Questions about Schools and Education” (Crossroad Publishing, 2008). He sits on several boards, including America Achieves, the King Center Charter School, Teach for America – Buffalo, and the St. Joseph Collegiate Institute. He is also a life member of the Elmwood Franklin School’s Corporation and a Pahara-Aspen Education Fellow.
