Lynn Olson

Lynn Olson worked in the K-12 program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation from 2008 to 2017, serving as a senior program officer, senior adviser to the director, and deputy director for knowledge management and strategic alliances. Prior to joining the foundation, Olson was an award-winning writer and editor for over two decades at the national newspaper Education Week, and earlier in her career she was a writer, editor, and policy analyst at the Children’s Defense Fund in Washington, D.C. She is a graduate of Yale University.

Work by Lynn Olson

Teachers Like Us: Strategies for Increasing Educator Diversity

A report outlining the research and recommendations for building a more diverse teacher workforce

A New Bipartisan Education Agenda

A blueprint for new secondary and post-secondary pathways, based on students’ passions and purposes

Invisible Students: The Information Crisis in Early Education

How to build stronger early learning systems post-pandemic

How D.C. Public Schools Improved Teacher Quality, Diversity

Many states and school districts are working to bolster their teacher workforces as educators endure a third school year under the pandemic…

Changing the Narrative: The Push for New Equity Measures in Education

The movement to introduce new indicators of school performance

In Demand: The Real Teacher Shortages and How to Solve Them

Post-pandemic teacher supply and demand trends and strategic solutions to shortages

Right From the Start: D.C.’s Groundbreaking Teacher Hiring Strategy

A model teacher-hiring system

Teaching Innovation: New School Staffing Strategies Inspired by the Pandemic

School staffing strategies that developed during the pandemic, the conditions that enabled them, and how educators overcame barriers to the innovations