Posted on October 18, 2012

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Manager, National Student Survey Project

Organizational Overview:

YouthTruth is a national survey project that gathers comparative feedback from high school and middle school students about what is and isn’t working in their schools. YouthTruth then shares students’ feedback with school leaders, district/network leaders, education funders, and students themselves to enable more informed decisions in pursuit of better long-term outcomes for youth. YouthTruth was developed by the Center for Effective Philanthropy, with seed funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2008, and has rapidly expanded. YouthTruth has surveyed 125,000 students from 215 schools across 28 districts. Eighty-five percent of school and district leaders report they are making changes based on YouthTruth data and insight to improve student engagement, academic rigor, teacher-student relationships, and college and career readiness.

YouthTruth is poised to become a leading national student survey project. Our comprehensive five year sustainability plan details how the project will reduce its reliance on philanthropic capital and transition to a much more significant earned revenue strategy by 2016. During this time, we are making major changes to our data analysis, reporting, and operations as we expand the project from serving 100 schools annually to more than 500, surveying more than 750,000 students cumulatively by 2016. YouthTruth has secured multi-year philanthropic funds from leading education funders to support this next phase of the project’s advancement.

For more information about YouthTruth, please visit www.youthtruthsurvey.org.

Position Overview:

YouthTruth is seeking a dynamic and experienced Manager based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Reporting to YouthTruth’s Executive Director, the Manager will work with both internal and external stakeholders to oversee and ensure quality in survey administration, data generation, analysis and report creation processes. This position supervises three (3) research analysts, improves work processes, and leads operational improvements required to bring YouthTruth to scale.

The successful candidate will possess outstanding data analysis ability, communication skills, and capability to create efficiencies during a time of significant growth. The Manager must be comfortable in a work environment in which the highest standards of analysis and quality control are expected, both when producing his or her own work and when supervising the work of others.

Responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Extracting meaningful conclusions from large amounts of information and effectively tailoring recommendations to various audiences, including school administrators, teachers, students, funders, and other educational partners
• Developing high quality survey tools and meaningful client reports, managing accurate data collection, and performing rigorous data analysis
• Managing a team of research analysts to foster their development and to ensure that YouthTruth’s work is of consistently high quality
• Working effectively with vendors during implementation and maintenance of data integration, data warehouse, and reporting solutions
• Managing multiple critical deadlines while adapting quickly and confidently in a fast-paced environment
• Contributing positively to the YouthTruth team by demonstrating a commitment to the mission and our belief in the power of student feedback as a key component of educational change

Qualifications and Requirements:

• A minimum of five years of relevant professional experience is required for this role. At least one year of previous staff management experience is strongly preferred.
• Outstanding analytical ability, including comfort with large datasets and statistical analyses (i.e., T-tests, ANOVA, factor analysis)
• Exceptional project management skills, including experience managing a small team across multiple dynamic work streams
• Demonstrated experience developing and managing client-facing online reporting platforms
• Aptitude with platforms and applications that facilitate collection, reporting, and use of data (e.g., Salesforce, SPSS, Excel).
• Demonstrated expertise in rigorous and professional survey design
• Demonstrated experience with high quality writing, such as email correspondence with vendors, clients, and colleagues, written reports, client instructions, and review of final written deliverables
• A Bachelor’s degree is required for this role
• This position has an anticipated travel requirement of up to 15% of the year

Desired Professional Qualities

We seek an individual demonstrating the following qualities:

• Detail-orientation and organization with an ability to manage multiple priorities simultaneously
• Consideration for and appreciation of the client perspective and needs in the design of systems and deliverables
• Highest level of personal integrity and commitment to excellence
• Belief in the role that data can play in improving the performance of education improvement efforts
• A passion for contributing to the improvement of student engagement, academic rigor, teacher-student relationships, and college and career readiness.

Application Instructions

Please upload a resume and thoughtful cover letter, outlining how your skills and experience meet the qualifications of the position and stating how you heard about this opportunity, in Word or PDF format, addressed to Marny Sumrall to the above site.