David has over 40 years of experience in education.  He has taught elementary, middle school and high school students in public and private schools as well as community college and teacher preparation courses in New York City and Vermont. 

David along with Meredith founded two innovative model schools in New York City.  In 1985, they joined other teachers to found New York Prep, a junior high school in East Harlem. In 1991, they founded the Family Academy.  David served as the school’s Principal and lead curriculum designer for the first twelve years of the school.

During that time, in addition to overseeing the curriculum, staff and programs, David was responsible for developing the Family Academy curriculum, which now exists in part as www.Readworks.org. Articles by the Libens describing the school model and full curriculum have appeared in Educational Leadership and Phi Delta Kappan and will be the subject of an upcoming book.

Since 2010, David has worked with Student Achievement Partners and has focused his work on publishers interested in making high quality, comprehensive ELA programs that are aligned to College and Career Readiness. He has also developed many training courses and has consulting and coached many districts and schools, working with educators on how to teach students to learn independently from complex text. David synthesized the research behind the CCSS and is currently, the Senior Fellow in Literacy at Student Achievement Partners.