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Bill Jackson
Founder, CEO, GreatSchools
Bill Jackson is the CEO and founder of GreatSchools, a national nonprofit that helps millions of parents find great schools, support great learning, and guide their kids to great futures.
The organization’s flagship www.GreatSchools.org website is the nation’s leading guide to preK-12 schools, with profiles of about 200,000 public and private schools and more than one million ratings and reviews by parents, teachers, and students. The website provides parents with information that helps them find and advocate for high quality good-fit schools. In 2014 over 59 million people visited the website, representing over half of American parents.
GreatKids, www.GreatSchools.org/gk/, the organization’s newest effort, inspires parents to aim high for their children’s education and mobilize a movement of Parent Champions. GreatKids provides a wealth of resources to ensure parents have the most up-to-date academic and social emotional learning tools, including Milestones videos, a free online collection of videos that help parents understand grade-level expectations in grades K-5.
Headquartered in Oakland, California, GreatSchools partners with several cities and states and hundreds of media, research and advocacy organizations across the country.
Prior to founding GreatSchools, Jackson spent five years managing engineering development and marketing for two computer networking firms, including Whistle Communications, which was later sold to IBM. A graduate of the Coro Foundation Public Affairs Fellowship program, Jackson also spent three years teaching -- two in China and one in the United States. Jackson has served as a member of the California P-16 Council, the board of the Yale-China Association, a director of the San Francisco Education Fund, and as treasurer for two San Francisco school financing measures.
Jackson received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Yale University. He is a Fellow of the fourth class of the Entrepreneurial Leaders for Public Education Fellowship, a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network and an Ashoka Fellow.