Senior Director, Research and Development

This is a full-time remote position from anywhere in the continental 48 United States with national travel expected up to 50%. 

What You’ll Do

Instruction Partners is committed to using data to drive continuous improvement of our instructional leadership services and to test innovative strategies for improving teaching and learning so that all students can be successful. We have four data teams dispersed across the organization to design and deliver customized data systems, analysis, and reporting support for Partnership core services, Program learning and research projects, integrated State services, and our People, Finance & Strategy enabling business functions. The Senior Director of Research & Development reports to the Chief Program Officer and is responsible for:

• Advising and supporting the CEO and Partnership and Program senior leaders with goal-setting, progress monitoring, evaluation, and coordinated reporting of Instruction Partners’ service impact goals to the Board, funders, and the public
• Leading the cross-functional Data Governance Committee in support of the committee’s determination and quality assurance of data definitions, sources, security, calculations, and interpretation of organizational service data leveraged across our four data teams
• Strategic guidance and support of the Director of the Program Measurement and Evaluation’s management of programmatic learning and research initiatives, specifically focused on engaging external peer and partner organizations for public collaboration and communication of Instruction Partners’ programmatic learning and research on core, pilot and emerging services.
• Org-wide Impact evaluation strategy 
  • What service lines do we intend to impact student achievement
  • What is the quality of implementation of that service across contexts, in order to detect whether and to what extent variation in implementation has a relationship to the level of impact on student achievement. 

Responsibilities:

• Research & Evaluation: 
  • Collaborates with organizational leaders to identify and prioritize new or rescoped research studies and pilots aimed at generating learning to improve teaching and learning for all students
  • Provides strategic guidance for  organizational research and evaluation cycles for all Instruction Partners service lines, especially related to the “book ends” of designing learning questions and metrics at the beginning and strategies for analysis and reporting at the end
  • Lead learning and advice for relevant functional and cross-functional teams, including the Partnership and Program Leadership Group (PPLG), to design and facilitate internal discussions of data and findings to inform programmatic improvements for all service lines
  • Provides thought partnership to the directors of all organizational data teams on analysis and research methods, including specifying Theories of Action, defining metrics, identifying data sources, analyzing data, and reporting findings
  • Initiates and oversees fulfillment of legal and funding requirements for collaborative partnerships with external research organizations managed by the Director of Measurement & Evaluation to design and implement rigorous research studies
  • Collaborates with the Chief Program Officer and executive leadership to write and publish data-informed thought leadership articles and reports
• Quality Assurance and Data Governance: 
  • Facilitates Data Governance Committee to define the vision, strategy, and change management for the implementation of consistent, evidence-based practices for organization-wide data collection, storage, security, analysis, and reporting 
  • Assures quality (i.e., accuracy and validity) of quantitative and qualitative data shared by the organization for thought leadership, inspiration, marketing,  org learning and evaluation
  • Serves as a liaison between executive leadership and the Data Governance Committee, efficiently involving leaders in data governance and data architecture decision-making 
• Team Management and Cross-Team Advisory and Facilitation: 
  • Manages 1-2 Data Directors who directly supervise their teams of data analysts and support staff to meet team goals
  • Promotes a team culture of antiracism and inclusion, learning and building deep, meaningful relationships
  • Creates an environment of innovation, rigor, teamwork, and customer service
  • Establishes and/or reinforces structures and processes to maximize team collaboration and efficiency in partnering with internal team partners (“clients”)
  • Defines team structures and individual job responsibilities by optimizing the complementary talents and resources of team staff
  • Promotes individual growth and development of team members by actively understanding each individual’s strengths, areas of growth, and career aspirations, and providing opportunities for development (such as stretch assignments, access to coaching, and structured professional development) to grow desired skills

Required Candidate Qualifications:

• Advanced degree with advanced coursework on education research and evaluation, specifically including research methodologies (PhD or Doctorate preferred).
• 5+ years building, leading, mentoring, and developing teams 
• 12+ years professional experience in:
  • leading quantitative and qualitative research studies through the complete lifecycle from conception to report writing and publishing or presentation
  • facilitating teams’ adoption and collaborative management of data systems and processes that inform programmatic and operational implementation decisions and monitoring/evaluation of short and long term outputs and outcomes, including: (1) , statistical programming applications (e.g., Stata, SAS), (2) data warehousing and analysis technologies (e.g., Python),  and (3) Business intelligence or data visualization tools (e.g., Tableau, Google Analytics)
  • participating in and facilitating data architecture decision making processes
• Ability to communicate technical information to non-technical audiences via writing and data visualization
• Experience leading organizational learning processes to inform continuous improvement  
• High cultural competence with a commitment to equity and antiracism
• Outstanding collaboration skills with experience leading cross-functional teams 
• Ability to compel others to action through influence and information

Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Hiring

At Instruction Partners, we know that difference enhances, transforms and strengthens our ability to serve students and schools. We invite and celebrate diversity of all perspectives, and we are deeply committed to ensuring equitable access and voice throughout our organization. Instruction Partners is proudly an equal opportunity workplace, and we value the inclusion of persons who have experienced poverty and/or for whom English is not their first language, and every race, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, culture, ancestry, religion, national orientation, age, marital status or Veteran status. Join us, and let's work together to support great teaching and accelerate learning for every student.

Compensation:

The salary for this role is $143,750.00. Detailed information about the organizational compensation philosophy can be found here. Competitive benefits and private retirement investment options are available, as well as a generous vacation policy. See our detailed benefits package here: 2023-2024 Benefits in Brief Overview.

Our Vision

All students experience an excellent education that prepares them to contribute to their community, achieve economic security, and pursue their dreams.

Our Mission

We strengthen instructional leadership in schools, school systems, and states to ensure teachers have the support they need to improve learning experiences and learning outcomes for students - with attention to students of color, students experiencing poverty, multilingual learners, and students with disabilities.

Our Core Values

Live Big-Hearted

We care deeply about ourselves, each other, our work, our partners, and the students we serve. We value the differences each other brings to the table because we know diversity of voice, thought, and experience makes us better. We operate joyfully and without ego, collectively focused on the broader good.

Choose Optimism

We believe that, with the right support, every student can succeed. We have the courage to lean into challenges and believe in the possibility of overcoming obstacles while holding a high bar for ourselves, partners, educators, and students. As we advance antiracist actions, our path may not be smooth, but we will walk it anyway because we have faith that the journey will make our team and our education system better.

Advance Antiracism

We create and uphold space for all team members, partners, and students so they are seen, valued, and heard. We lift the voices and experiences of Black, Latinx, Native, and Asian American and Pacific Islander people. We actively look for and confront patterns and systems that cause inequitable harm in order to create more equitable outcomes within our organization and with partners. We embrace diverse expressions of excellence that make our team more inclusive and effective.

Be Honest

We are open, authentic, and truthful with ourselves, teammates, and partners. Our trust in each other and our work gives us the courage to lean into difficult conversations, put forth new ideas, and give and receive feedback through the lens of equity of voice and experience. We understand the intense and gripping nature of our work, so we name our needs to ensure we are practicing self-care and love within our beloved community.

Get Practical

We believe support should be thoughtful by meeting people, schools, and systems where they are. We leverage the voices, strengths and stories of families, educators, partners and teammates to find answers, because we know there isn’t a “one size fits all” solution to the challenges of our education system. We always look for ways to work smart, focus on the most relevant impact, and reduce friction to make it easier to take action while grounding our progress in equity.

Keep Learning

We know and love that we don’t yet have all the answers because we are nerds for learning, even when it’s hard or ambiguous. We actively pursue new knowledge, research, and evidence so that we can leverage the latest insights and best practices in our work, then we put that knowledge to work in partnership with our team, our partners, and the students and communities we serve. We respect the learning that springs from our own anti racist journeys, and vow to activate our knowledge in pursuit of equity and excellence.

How We Work

Instruction Partners is a nonprofit organization dedicated to excellent instruction for all students, with a focus on students in poverty, students with disabilities, students learning English, and students of color. We keep one foot in practicality and the other in evidence-based best practices, because we believe that leveraging high-quality, grade-level content and providing just-in-time supports will accelerate learning for all students.

Instruction Partners spends time getting to know the needs of the educators, leaders, and systems it serves, allowing the team to custom-build service plans to support partner goals. Partnerships include on-the-ground support, and partnership team members serve as thought partners to the school systems they serve, a team educators can reach out to and feel supported by.

Instruction Partners provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetics. In addition to federal law requirements, Instruction Partners complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.

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