Research and Policy Vice President of Policy and Research
Job Description
A+ Colorado seeks a team-oriented, Vice President of Policy and Research. This person will be responsible for managing and carrying out the organization’s research agenda, and connecting the work to the organization’s policy issue areas. The Vice President of Policy and Research plays an important leadership role at A+ Colorado, ensuring findings from our research are connected to lessons for policy and practice, and that our policy agenda is rooted in research on what best supports student learning. At our core, A+ Colorado is a research driven organization and this role is the heart of the work that we do. A+ Colorado is primarily focused on the educational regulatory environment, the Colorado Department of Education and Colorado school districts with particular attention to Aurora and Denver.
Responsibilities:
- Oversee research agenda: Scope, manage, and conduct organization’s research agenda. Includes defining research areas for inquiry, executing on annual reports (analysis and writing), and conducting short-term research projects in response to organizational needs. A+ Colorado is a small team, and this person will be responsible for ensuring the research gets done, conducting analyses, supporting other A+ teammates, and/or overseeing contractors.
- Manage research team: Serve as supervisor of research and policy analysts, with a focus on executing research agenda and developing staff.
- Help set the policy agenda: Work with the President and Advocacy Director to translate research into policy and advocacy strategy. Collaborate with partners to respond to policy opportunities primarily focused on the State Board of Education, and school district leadership across the state.
- Contribute to Strategic Planning: Collaborate with President, A+ Board of Directors, and A+ team to set long-term strategic goals for the organization.
- Assist with Development: Work with the Development team to secure funding for projects and the long-term organizational objectives.
- Other Projects: In addition to managing the research agenda and staff, the Vice President of Policy and Research is a thought leader and public face for the organization often participating in external partnership work, thought leadership through blogs and public statements, and sharing expertise both informally and formally via panels etc with community stakeholders including media.
Qualifications and Experience:
- Commitment to finding, understanding, and advocating for policies and practices that improve students’ access to excellent public educational opportunities and increasing achievement across Colorado, with a particular focus on students from low-income families and students of color.
- Five to ten years experience in education research and policy. Experience can include aligned work experience and/or relevant graduate education.
- Track record in developing research questions and analytic approaches to answer questions through quantitative and qualitative analyses. A successful candidate will have experience producing and interpreting inferential statistics and/or experience with qualitative data collection and analysis.
- Superb writing skills.
- A deep understanding of, and commitment to, the relationship between research and advocacy, including a record of success in leveraging data and research to compel diverse groups and decision makers to action.
- Knowledge of and expertise in implementation of major policy strategies that Colorado and local school districts pursued in the past decade including but not limited to: academic standard setting, school and district accountability, school funding, school budgeting, teacher compensation, school governance, board governance, school improvement and turnaround, family engagement, unified enrollment, community-driven school design.
- Familiarity and/or experience of how schools and school districts work.
- Familiarity and/or experience of policy making processes, including in the regulatory space.
- Strong project management skills including the ability to drive toward deadlines, and balance medium and long-term goals with short-term and responsive projects.
About A+ Colorado
The mission of A+ Colorado (A+) is to harness the power of civic leadership to build public will and advocate for the changes necessary to dramatically increase student achievement in public education in Colorado. A+ Colorado is a growing advocacy, policy, and research nonprofit looking for a new member to join our team who is excited about building relationships with education stakeholders across the state.
