[2] As one of the world's leading child psychiatrists, he is best known for his efforts to improve the scholastic performance of children from lower-income and minority backgrounds which led to the founding of the Comer School Development Program in 1968.
[4] He is the author of ten books, including the autobiographical Maggie’s American Dream: The Life and Times of a Black Family, 1988; Leave No Child Behind: Preparing Today's Youth for Tomorrow's World, 2004; and his most recent book, What I Learned in School: Reflections on Race, Child Development, and School Reform, 2009.
He is a co-founder and past president of the Black Psychiatrists of America and has served on the board of several universities, foundations, and corporations.
[5] He has also lectured and consulted widely not only across the United States at different universities, medical schools, and scientific associations, but also around the world in places such as London, Paris, Tokyo, Dakar, Senegal and Sydney, Australia.
[9] His father Hugh worked in a steel mill factory while his mother Maggie was a stay-at-home mom.
[4] Because of the many social conditions he witnessed throughout time, instead of practicing general medicine, he went on to the University of Michigan to get a degree in public health where he earned his M.P.H in 1964.
Over the past 40 plus years, the SDP model has been implemented in more than 1000 schools in 26 American states, the District of Columbia, Trinidad and Tobago, South Africa, England, and Ireland.
Though a principal-led but shared management framework, organizationally and/or primarily by the school staff, organizational, management, and communication issues are pulled together in a way that promotes collaboration, assessment, capacity building, and a focus on teaching in a way that leads to the integration of student development and academic learning.