Teach For America is in the process of transforming into a learning organization. As Director, External Research & Insights, you’ll work closely with the Managing Director and Vice President, External Research & Insights and key leaders across the organization to support our vision for engaging external researchers and contributing to the broader education landscape. You will support and/or lead external research projects and external research collaborations which contribute to our learning agenda. Your work will ensure that our organization is on the front lines of facilitating and contributing to research that continuously improves educational equity. The role will report directly to the Managing Director, External Research & Insights.
Areas of Responsibility:
- (5%) Drive an external learning agenda that helps TFA significantly improve its work with applicants, corps members, and alumni and enables us to more rapidly make progress toward TFA’s priorities
- (30%) Manage the execution and quality of rigorous federally-funded evaluations and regional evaluations of AmeriCorps
- (10%) Oversee quality and timeliness of external research projects and external research collaborations which support our external learning agenda
- (20%) Critically synthesize research findings into clear learnings that are accessible and actionable for the broader Teach For America and external community
- (5%) Monitor and process research and data sharing requests
- (5%) Critically review and synthesize methodological and staff quality of research proposals submitted to TFA
- (10%) Liaise with other teams at Teach For America to support them in their external learning work (e.g., manage partnerships with external evaluators on institute projects, support communications and government affairs in building brand externally, help regions identify external evaluators/partners that meet their needs, etc.)
- (15%) Conduct quantitative and qualitative analysis (e.g., data analysis, interviews and focus groups, case studies, literature reviews) related to any of the above workstreams
Educational Background:
Advanced degree required
Skills/Experience:
- 5+ years of work/academic experience
- Significant experience conducting complex quantitative research using multiple research methods (e.g., multiple regression, hierarchical linear modeling, difference-in-differences model, propensity score matching, etc.) and software (e.g., STATA, SAS, R, Mplus) and analyzing large-scale data sets
- Distinctive impact/progression of increasing responsibility in previous work
- Strong knowledge of research and evaluation design
- Ability to critically review, design, and conduct quantitative research and evaluation studies
- Distinctive skill and knowledge in specific areas of educational research (e.g., education equity issues; measuring student outcomes, etc.)
- Demonstrated cultural competence, critical consciousness, and ability to work across lines of difference
- Working understanding of historical roots of education inequity and ideally experience connecting that understanding of history into your research
- Deep critical thinking and problem-solving skills, driven by clear, rigorous logic
- Strong motivation to achieve impact and ability to work independently and take initiative to achieve goals
- Ability to manage and prioritize portfolio of research projects at various stages
- Strong ability to communicate research findings to non-experts, so that your work drives real changes in human behavior and actions
- Deeply invested in and inspired by Teach For America’s core values and understands that the work that we do has an extraordinary impact on teachers & children
Work demands
- Working with colleagues who are based all over the country – using remote technologies (e.g., Zoom)
- Able to travel about once per quarter
Job Function:
Organization Info
Listing Stats
Post Date:
Jun 16 2018
Active Until:
Jul 16 2018
Hiring Organization:
Teach For America
industry:
Nonprofit