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Develops and implements education testing programs that benefit students, parents and public officals.

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Works with the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the government's primary source for collecting and analyzing data about public education.

Helps to provide all children with access to a quality education, and empowers people, organizations, and communities to bring about social change.

Is committed to helping clients improve the effectiveness of their workforce through a wide range of management, organizational, and business improvement efforts.

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Produces, maintains and disseminates systematic reviews of the effects of social and behavioral interventions.

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Joseph Olchefske

Managing Director

Joseph Olchefske joined AIR in 2004 as Managing Director in the School District Consulting Practice. Mr. Olchefske focuses on consulting with large urban school systems and state departments of education in the development of large-scale reform strategies to increase student achievement and eliminate the achievement gap. Mr. Olchefske’s work at AIR includes:

Leading a major project on behalf of the Texas High School Project to develop high school reform strategies for several urban school districts throughout the state.
Advising the Microsoft Corporation on the development of its philanthropic strategy regarding K-12 education, with an initial focus on math/science education in eight school districts in the Puget Sound area.
Assisting the World Bank in advising the government of Chile in the improvement of their educational accountability system and the development of a new national Superintendent of Schools.
Led an AIR team for the Chicago Public Schools in the development of a system-wide high school reform strategy
Developed a choice-based student assignment plan for the Oakland Unified School District.
Advised a community task force regarding governance and strategy options for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District.

Prior to joining AIR, Mr. Olchefske served as the Superintendent of Seattle Public Schools from 1998 to 2003. As Superintendent, he served as the chief executive officer of a public school system with 47,000 students, 100 schools, 7,000 employees and an annual operating budget of $435 million. During his tenure as Superintendent, students experienced significant improvements in student achievement across every major outcome measure. There were increases in student performance on the district’s three major large-scale assessments: the Direct Writing Assessment, the Iowa Test of Basic Skills and, most importantly, the Washington Assessment of Student Learning. Also, there were significant declines in the dropout rate, the truancy rate, suspension/expulsion rates and in safety/security incidents.

Prior to his appointment as Superintendent, Mr. Olchefske served as the Chief Financial Officer of Seattle Public Schools. As CFO, he played a key leadership role in the transformation of the District into a market-based school system. One of his major accomplishments as CFO was the development of the Weighted Student Formula, a new method of funding schools within the school system. He led the creation of a new neighborhood choice student assignment plan, and he led the District through a financial crisis that entailed a $35 million reduction (or 10%) over a three-year period.

Before joining the Seattle Public Schools, Mr. Olchefske spent 12 years as an investment banker in the public finance department at Piper Jaffray, where he served as an underwriter and financial advisor to a wide variety of local governments throughout the Pacific Northwest. Mr. Olchefske graduated with honors from the University of Chicago, and he received a Master's Degree in City and Regional Planning from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.