Joanne Weiss is an independent consultant to organizations on education policies, programs, and technologies, with a focus on driving systems-level education change through high-impact policymaking, grantmaking, and investing. Her current work centers on improving the academic core in K-12 schools through standards, curriculum, assessment, professional learning, and equity. She works primarily with state policymakers, national nonprofit service providers, foundations, curriculum developers, and school systems.

From 2009-2013, she served in the Obama Administration as chief of staff to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and director of the federal Race to the Top program. Prior to that, Joanne was the Chief Operating Officer and Managing Partner at NewSchools Venture Fund. She began her career in ed tech – first leading curriculum R&D, then leading companies that pioneered technology-based approaches to solving teaching and learning challenges in K-12 and higher education. Joanne is an Expert-in-Residence at the Harvard Innovation Lab; a Fellow for Georgetown University’s FutureEd; a Senior Distinguished Fellow for the Education Commission of the States; a Trustee for the National Council on Education and the Economy; a Director of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools; a former visiting professor in education policy at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School; and a fellow in the inaugural cohort of the Aspen/Pahara Education Leadership Fellowship. She holds a degree in biochemistry from Princeton University and lives with her husband in Washington, D.C. For more information, see www.weissassociates.net.