Director of Action Research and Evaluation

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Read Charlotte is a community initiative that unites educators, community partners, and families to improve children’s reading from birth to third grade. We don’t run programs. We are a capacity-building intermediary that supports local partners to apply evidence-based knowledge about effective reading instruction and interventions, high-quality execution, continuous improvement, and data analysis to improve reading outcomes. Housed under Foundation For The Carolinas, Read Charlotte is a public-private partnership working to solve a collective action problem so that 80% (or more) of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) third graders are reading at College and Career Ready by 2030. The Read Charlotte initiative is designed to sunset in 2030.

Overview:
Complex problems don’t give up their secrets easily. Research and data are at the heart of Read Charlotte’s approach to help our community solve the problem of low third grade reading achievement and persistent achievement gaps. For us this means being serious about the results of high-quality experimental studies to inform our work. “What is the evidence?” is a frequent mantra at Read Charlotte. We are willing to be contrarian and challenge conventional wisdom. We constantly look for clues and insights that others may have overlooked or misinterpreted. We see our work as fundamentally probabilistic. We know that there are many factors that impact reading outcomes by third grade. We’re looking for the few variables we can lean on hard that have the greatest chance of creating positive systems change. Our core focus is turning evidence-based knowledge into strategic actions with high odds of shifting the probability curve for a set of outcomes.

Read Charlotte is seeking a Director of Action Research and Evaluation to help guide our improvement journey. We are looking for someone who believes data is a powerful organizational tool to refine our work, articulate impact, and galvanize support for lasting systemic change. The ideal candidate has previous experience developing, refining, and utilizing data collection tools, running data, data analysis, and successful communication with lay audiences to inform actionable insights. Additionally, this role marries data and research with actions to help to bridge the “knowing-doing gap” so that 80% (or more) students are reading on-level by the end of third grade. We are also looking for someone who can help us know if we are being successful and who believes that what gets measured gets done. If learning is the central driver for improvement, we want someone who will help us to quantify and understand what we are learning. Background in early literacy or education is not required; we will teach you what you need to know. This highly collaborative role will supervise, manage, and inspire the work of our Data Coordinator. You will also work closely with other members of our team.

Duties, Responsibilities, and Qualifications: More details about the position and desired qualifications are available at https://www.fftc.org/careers.