Liz Cohen

Raised in Portland, Oregon, Liz stumbled into education policy more than 20 years ago. In 2003, she signed up as a volunteer summer-school teacher in DC’s Anacostia neighborhood. She then changed her career plans and never looked back. Today Liz serves as vice-president of policy at 50CAN, a national non-profit with a mission to build the dynamic, student-centered American education system of the future that provides a high-quality education for all kids, regardless of their address, by focusing on state-level policy and advocacy. She is the author of The Future of Tutoring: Lessons from 10,000 School District Tutoring Initiatives (Harvard Education Press, October 2025) and writes The Future of Tutoring substack. Liz has worked as an analyst and advisor for foundations, districts, and nonprofit organizations in the K-12 education space, first at the District of Columbia Public Schools’ Office of Data and Accountability and then at the Office of the State Superintendent in the District of Columbia. She has also worked at FutureEd at Georgetown University, Whiteboard Advisors, the Urban Institute, and was a strategic data fellow at Harvard University’s Center for Education Policy Research. She has served on the Strategic Data Project Alumni Advisory Board, the Maryland READS Expert Advisory Delegation, the U.S. Department of Education Mid-Atlantic Regional Advisory Committee, and the board of Sela Public Charter School in Washington, D.C. Liz lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland with her husband and three children.