Skip to main content
Announcement
Press Release

For Immediate Release
Contact: Seong-Ah Cho
University of Chicago 
Urban Education Institute 
773-834-8684

March 19, 2014—William Olsen, a leading Chicago educator, has been named Senior Director of the Urban Education Institute’s (UEI) teacher education and charter school initiatives. In his new role, Olsen will oversee the University of Chicago Urban Teacher Education Program (UTEP) and the University of Chicago Charter School, advancing exemplary urban school practice and teacher preparation across Chicago and the nation.

Olsen’s appointment will contribute to UEI’s ambitious work to improve urban schooling nationwide. UEI operates a high-achieving prekindergarten to 12th grade charter school serving students from across the South Side, trains exemplary teachers, conducts rigorous applied research, and designs and distributes school-improvement tools across the country.    

“We want the transformative work underway at the Urban Education Institute to be the very best in the field, to create reliably excellent schooling at national scale,” said Timothy Knowles, the John Dewey Director of the Urban Education Institute. “Bill will work in close collaboration with UEI leadership to take our work to the next level, expanding and enhancing our impact in Chicago and nationally,” said Sara Ray Stoelinga, UEI Senior Director and Clinical Professor.

Olsen has served as a teacher, principal, and trainer of teachers and school leaders for 18 years. For the last eight years he served as the principal of the flagship campus of the Noble Network of Charter Schools, one of Chicago’s highest performing charter management organizations.    

Under Olsen’s leadership, Noble Street College Prep has delivered exceptional results on a wide range of measures including the ACT, student retention and graduation, the percentage of students taking advanced coursework, as well as college enrollment and persistence rates. Olsen was instrumental in the design of key aspects of the Noble Network, including systems for recruiting, hiring, and developing teachers, improving student culture, and using data to drive practice. Olsen also mentors school leaders nationwide and regularly shares best practices with educators across the country. 

Olsen’s new position will combine his expertise developing practicing and aspiring educators and leading sustained school improvement, with his unequivocal commitment to UEI’s mission to improve the quality of urban schooling at scale.   

“I am greatly looking forward to joining UEI, another excellent team of adults dedicated to serving the incredible young people of Chicago,” said Olsen. “Noble and UEI are both giving deserving students opportunities to learn and grow—beyond the age difference, the kindergartners at UChicago Charter NKO and Donoghue share the same love of learning that Noble seniors and college graduates have. Furthermore, as an alumnus of the University of Chicago, I am happy to see that the University that played a critical role in my development is playing such a critical role deepening educational opportunity in the Kenwood and Woodlawn neighborhoods, and urban schools nationwide.”

Uniquely positioned at the intersection of research and practice, UEI’s impact on education policy and practice has grown rapidly over the last few years. Graduates of the University of Chicago Urban Teacher Education Program remain teaching in urban schools at more than double the national average, and the UChicago Charter School, which serves more than 1,800 students in grades PreK-12, recently celebrated the highest college persistence rates of all non-selective Chicago high schools according to National Student Clearinghouse data. UEI’s applied research entity, the University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research, has informed education policy and practice in Chicago and nationally for two decades and the Consortium model has inspired replicas in New York City, Los Angeles, Newark, Baltimore, San Diego, and other major cities. UEI’s not-for-profit UChicago Impact delivers tools and training to thousands of schools in 55 cities and 23 states nationwide, with recent adoptions across Illinois, Kansas City, Baltimore, Detroit, the Twin Cities, and elsewhere.

Olsen’s work will hone UEI’s practice in urban schooling and teacher preparation, developing models with national significance to improve teaching, learning, and leadership across America.

Olsen joins the Urban Education Institute in August 2014.

 

Tags