The Center for Collaborative Education (CCE) is seeking a senior associate with experience in education measurement and a broad interest in education policy, especially related to equity and accountability, to join the organization as a Project Director for the Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment (MCIEA). This is a full-time position reporting to CCE’s Senior Director of Programs with joint oversight and support provided by the MCIEA Director of Research, currently on the faculty at UMass Lowell (UML). The Project Director will split time between CCE’s Boston office, an SQM research office at UML, and on-site in schools and districts as needed.

The Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment

Founded in 2016 and convened with the support of CCE, the Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment is a partnership of Massachusetts public school districts and their local teacher unions committed to creating a fair and effective accountability system that is guided by a set of principles and that presents a more dynamic picture of student learning and school quality than a single standardized test. MCIEA seeks to increase achievement for all students, close prevailing achievement gaps among subgroups, and prepare a diversity of students for college, career, and life.

Responsibilities of the Project Director

The Project Director will oversee all aspects of the School Quality Measures (SQM) program, including the collection of school- and district-level data, maintenance of an online dashboard, data analysis in collaboration with research partners, and facilitating school, district, and community-based data inquiry.

The specific tasks for which the Project Director will be responsible include the following:

• Manage annual data collection from MCIEA district partners
• Maintain SQM data instruments, refining instruments to ensure valid and reliable student and teacher survey scales and meaningful administrative data indicators as needed
• Coordinate the merging and cleaning of large datasets of student and teacher surveys
• Oversee the building and maintenance of a dynamic online dashboard for displaying, visualizing, and analyzing school-level data on a range of school quality measures
• Partner with member districts and schools to pilot data inquiry tools using the SQM data dashboard to drive school improvement
• Partner with CCE’s Research, Evaluation, and Policy team to document case studies of MCIEA schools that have used SQM data to lead school improvements
• Coordinate with the MCIEA Director of Research to design, carry out, and write empirical studies of SQM’s impact on schools, districts, and policy
• Supervise the work of graduate research assistants at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and other affiliated research institutions
• Document the impact of SQM tools and activities in a range of media – research papers, policy memos, conference presentations, public testimony and more
• Act as a liaison between the SQM program, the MCIEA Governing Board, and the MCIEA Project Management Team
• Participate as a member of the MCIEA staff team and ensure synergy between the Quality Performance Assessment and School Quality Measures areas of the MCIEA accountability system
• Participate as an active and collaborative member of the CCE community

Qualifications

The successful candidate for the position of Project Director should have the following qualifications

• A strong commitment to the mission of CCE and the vision of MCIEA
• At least a Master’s degree in education, social science, or a related field (e.g., evaluation, measurement, policy), Ph.D. preferred
• At least 5-7 years experience working in education (especially in the domains of teaching, measurement/evaluation, policy, or community partnerships)
• Experience working in school, district, or community partnerships and managing relationships among high-level decision makers
• Previous research experience (quantitative or qualitative, ideally both)
• Experience developing and/or modifying data collection tools (e.g., surveys, interview protocols)
• Demonstrated experience cleaning and organizing large datasets of student- and school-level data
• Demonstrated experience using statistical and survey software (especially Stata, R, Qualtrics, Excel)
• Skill facilitating adult learning and/or professional development
• Experience and comfort working both independently and in collaboration with others
• Excellent communication, writing, interpersonal, and organizational skills
• Ability to manage deadlines and competing timelines

Salary

Salary and benefits are competitive.

Application

Interested applicants should submit a cover letter and resume online at https://formstack.io/4D867. This position will ideally start in early August 2019, but will remain open until filled. CCE is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer and is committed to diversity in the workplace by maintaining a staff that represents the voices of the communities we serve.

Background to the Center for Collaborative Education

CCE’s mission is to transform schools to ensure that all students succeed. We partner with educators and leaders to develop strategies, processes, and tools that support our vision of schools that prepare every student to achieve academically and make a positive contribution to a democratic society.

We fulfill this mission in three primary ways:

• Creating, supporting, and sustaining learning environments that are collaborative, democratic, and equitable
• Building capacity within districts and schools to adopt effective practices that promote collaborative, democratic, and equitable learning for students and educators
• Catalyzing systemic change at the state, district, and school levels through policy, research, and advocacy work