Richard Lee Colvin

Richard Lee Colvin is executive director of Education Sector, an independent think tank that challenges conventional thinking in education policy. Colvin joins the organization after having directed the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media at Teachers College, Columbia University. Under his leadership, the Institute created The Hechinger Report, a source of in-depth, nonpartisan journalism about education.

Prior, Colvin spent many years writing about education for newspapers in California, including the Los Angeles Times, where he reported on state and national education issues. Before that he worked for the Oakland Tribune, the Hayward Daily Review and the Associated Press. Colvin earned a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College and a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Michigan. He has won numerous national awards for his coverage of education. He was twice selected as a media fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and in 2000 won a Knight-Wallace fellowship for mid-career journalists at the University of Michigan.