Nínive Clements Calegari is an educator in the
United States. Following ten years of classroom experience in public schools, she became an author and founded a national literacy program,
826 National. She also founded
The Teacher Salary Project. Currently she is the CEO of
Enterprise for Youth, an organization that empowers young people to prepare for and discover career opportunities in the San Francisco area through a three-phase program model of job-readiness training, paid internships with college credit, and ongoing career development and networking support.
Calegari was a co-founder of
826 Valencia in April 2002 and the founding executive director.[2] The group and the seven other related chapters, including
826NYC, 826LA,
826 Seattle (which later moved on to become
The Greater Seattle Bureau of Fearless Ideas),
826 Chicago,
826 Ann Arbor,
826 Boston and finally
826DC, all of which are a part of
826 National (which she also co-founded and headed) are a group of non-profit writing centers for students ages 6–18. Subsequently, 826-like models have been duplicated in 40 places around the world, including in London, Dublin, and Mexico.
Calegari, along with
Dave Eggers and Daniel Moulthrop, co-authored The New York Times bestselling book Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America's Teachers, published by
The New Press in 2005.[2] It argues that increasing teachers' salaries is a critical part of a vibrant and functioning society, and essential to ensuring US students receive education from quality teachers.[3]
Calegari founded and serves as CEO of
The Teacher Salary Project, a non-profit designed to build the political will necessary to transform how US society values effective teachers.[4] The project uses
film,
social media, and the general public to communicate its mission. The Teacher Salary Project's film, American Teacher, held its first preview screening in May 2011 at the
San Francisco International Film Festival. It was also featured in numerous other film festivals, including the United Nations Association Film Festival and Philadelphia International Film Festival.[4] The film was produced by Calegari and Eggers, and directed and produced by filmmaker
Vanessa Roth.[5]
The film is narrated by actor
Matt Damon with music composed by San Francisco musician
Thao Nguyen.[6]
In 2008, Calegari was appointed by San Francisco Mayor
Gavin Newsom to the San Francisco Arts Commission.[7] She served on the board of Learning Points Associates (which later was merged with
American Institutes of Research),[8] as an advisor to the George Lucas Education Foundation.,[9] and then a board member for
18 Reasons.
In 2014, Calegari gave a
TEDx talk at
Santa Catalina School on the importance of valuing teachers.[10] In 2015, Calegari and the Teacher Salary Project released two short films,
Laney's story and
Kory's story, which follow two teachers struggling to make ends meet on a teacher's salary.[11] The two short films were featured in a video on ATTN: which received over 12 million views.[12]