Dr. Laurie Olsen

Dr. Laurie Olsen is the Executive Director of California Tomorrow, a non profit research and technical assistance organization committed to building a fair and inclusive multicultural society. Her career spans three decades of work throughout the nation as a researcher, writer, speaker, advocate, and provider of professional development and technical assistance to communities and educators on creating equitable, high achieving schools that meet the needs of English Learner, immigrant and language/cultural minority communities - preschool through higher education - and that honor and celebrate the cultures and languages of all children. A major focus has been high school reform, immigrant education, and educational access. Her dozens of books, videos and articles include the award winning Made in America: Immigrants in U.S. Schools, And Still We Speak: Stories of Communities and Schools Maintaining Culture and Language, “We Speak America”, and a series of publications for equity-centered school reform. Since 1986, she has served as the architect and director of California Tomorrow’s research agenda and equity-centered school reform work at the school site, district, community and policy levels. She is currently providing technical assistance and training to school change coaches and school-design teams on issues related to small schools and English Learners, conducts Secondary School Leadership for English Learner Success Institutes, is a leading partner in two initiatives - the Los Angeles County Office of Education’s Biliteracy Initiative, and the Promise Initiative (a six-county collaborative to develop new models for English Learner students). Dr. Olsen holds a Ph.D. in Social and Cultural Studies in Education from U.C. Berkeley, has served on the Board of the National Coalition of Advocates for Students, was founding President and a current Board member of Californians Together (a statewide coalition for English Learners).