Sharon Lewis is the Director of Research of the Council of Great City Schools. Mrs. Lewis is responsible for developing and maintaining a research program that articulates the status, needs, attributes, operation and challenges of urban public schools and the children whom they serve. The director also maintains a comprehensive database on Council member districts.

Mrs. Lewis has been involved in assessment related activities for past 30 years. Mrs. Lewis has served as an international educational consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense Dependents Schools, Germany region. Additionally, she was a State of Michigan delegate to the Soviet Union and the Peoples Republic of China. She has served on numerous state and national committees including the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing; National Academy of Sciences, NAEP Evaluation; National Academy of Sciences, Appropriate Use of Test Results; Advisory Council, U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Educational Statistics; Advisory Panel, Congress of the U.S., Testing in Americas’ Schools; Technical Advisory Board, National Center for Education in the Inner Cities; and the Technical Review Committee for the Michigan Assessment Program to name a few. She has also worked for 30 years in the Detroit Public Schools and served as its Assistant Superintendent for Research and School Reform.

In her tenure as Research Director Mrs. Lewis has collaborated on many reports including Beating the Odds I & II, Closing the Achievement Gap, Ten Year Trends in Urban Education 1987-1997, Critical Trends in Urban Education, Making the Grade: A Report on SAT I Results in the Nation’s Urban Schools, Ending Social Promotion: Early Lessons Learned, Great Expectations: Reforming Urban High Schools, and the Council’s most recent report Foundations For Success: Case Studies of How Urban School Systems Improve Student Achievement.