Dave Marcus

Dave Marcus Speaker Biography

Pulitzer Prize Winner and Education Expert

Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist David L. Marcus has been a high school teacher, a visiting professor, and an educational consultant. In between, he wrote two highly-praised books about education and parenting.

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Reporter

Dave was an education writer for U.S. News & World Report and a staff writer for Newsday, The Miami Herald, The Boston Globe, and The Dallas Morning News.  He covered everything from wars and coups to immigration and terrorism in nearly fifty countries. He wrote about the breakup of the Soviet Union, the U.S. military invasion of Panama, the Gulf War, the return of Hong Kong to China and civil wars in El  Salvador and Angola.  He shared the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for a series about violence against women around the world.

Education Reform Speaker

Dave speaks about education reform, teaching, parenting, struggling teenagers, and college admissions. He also gives inspiring talks to educators, parents and struggling students about finding success beyond the classroom.

Publications

He writes about education for “The Choice,” a New York Times blog, and freelances for publications including Newsweek and Forbes.com. The Today Show featured him, and he has been a guest on Talk of the Nation and other National Public Radio shows.  His personal essay in the New York Times, “Confessions of an Ivy League Dad,” has led to speaking engagements across the country to audiences concerned about pressures at school and home.

Popular Speaker

Dave is a funny, fast-moving speaker who engages audiences. He tells the stories of his own college rejections and struggles with ADHD.   He ultimately studied at two Ivy League universities, yet he found his life-changing class far away, studying Spanish in a Florida community college. That led him to be a foreign correspondent, based in Mexico City, Bogota, and Rio de Janeiro.

College Admissions

Dave is the author of a book about college admissions: Acceptance: A Legendary Guidance Counselor Helps Seven Kids Find the Right College – and Find Themselves. Bloomberg News called it “excellent and A+.” It’s the true story of a diverse group of students in a journey of self-discovery as they consider colleges.

What It Takes To Pull Me Through

Before that, Dave wrote What It Takes to Pull Me Through: Why Teenagers Get in Trouble and How Four Got Out.  For his research, Dave volunteered as a teacher at a boarding school for teens who did drugs, ran away from home or quietly suffered depression.  The book is an uplifting account of what happens when a dedicated counselor helps teens and their parents.

Academic Career

Dave later spent a year teaching high school as the Wilson Visiting Fellow at Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts. He also taught at Ithaca College, the University of Massachusetts-Amherest, and the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. As an educational consultant, he coached students and parents through the college admissions process.

Education

At Brown University, he was elected president of the senior class and graduated with honors. During a respite from journalism, he spent a year as Nieman Fellow at Harvard, studying urban planning and immigration.  He lives on Long Island with his wife and four children.