Ninive inaugurated her career as an education at Drake High School in San Anselmo, and also taught at San Francisco’s first charter school, Leadership High School. Her career in the classroom spanned ten years. In addition, Ninive founded 826 Valencia, a writing program for students from six to eighteen years of age. The project has generated 826 national and numerous local 826 chapters. This project earned the Jim Henson Community Honor in 2010.

Ninive says her goal is to raise awareness of the unheralded struggles that many teachers face in simply doing their job. To better the working lives of her colleagues, she serves as the president of the Teacher Salary Project, a nonprofit organization designed to build the political will necessary to transform how American society values effective teachers. The organization publicizes her belief that increasing teachers’ salaries is essential to meaningful school reform and critical to ensuring that American schools can acquire quality teachers. To meet this goal, Ninive has co-authored the book Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America’s Teachers, published in 2005 by The New Press. Ninive has also lent her expertise as the co-producer of the organization’s film, American Teacher, a documentary by Oscar-winning director Vanessa Roth, with narration by Matt Damon.

For her professional achievements, Ninive received Edutopia’s 2007 Daring Dozen award. She also served on the board of Learning Points Associates, and as an advisor to the George Lucas Education Foundation.She has been the recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, the William Coe Award for study at Stanford University, and the Andrew Mellon Fellowship.

Ninive currently lives in San Francisco with her husband and two young children.