Education Research, Evaluation and Impact Director

Description

Love What You Do and Why You Do It!

Since 1987, Participate Learning has partnered with schools and districts to prepare students for career success through cultural exchange, dual language programs, and global learning. We help students build bilingual fluency, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills to apply their learning in real-world settings and any career path.

What You’ll Do:

Participate Learning is recruiting a Director to lead research, evaluation, and impact storytelling for our K-12 global education products. Participate Learning is a leader in global education, supporting schools in over 80 districts nationwide. 

This senior individual contributor role sits at the intersection of rigorous evaluation and meaningful partnership, turning program data into evidence that helps our school and district partners see the impact of the work we do together, and that helps us grow that impact to more schools, teachers, and students. The ideal candidate can write the one-page brief a superintendent will read before a budget meeting, and sit across the table from a district's own research analyst and defend the methodology behind it. We're especially interested in candidates who've spent time on the other side of this work: in a district or state research office, translating student data into board reports and superintendent briefings, as well as those with market research, ed-tech, or applied research backgrounds. This person will also work closely with our Sales and Marketing teams, since the clearest evidence of impact is often what helps current and prospective partners understand what's possible when we work together. The Education Research, Evaluation and Impact Director is a hands-on position, leading the initatives and doing the work. The position reports to the Executive Director, Product & Marketing. 

As a proud Best for the World B Corporation, this role is a key contributor to helping Participate Learning promote engaging learning environments, empower teachers, and inspire students to create impact on a global scale.

Requirements

Essential Functions

• Understand what matters most to our school and district partners, and make sure our evaluation work speaks to it, partnering closely with our sales, program implementation, and marketing teams so that the evidence we gather reflects the real questions partners and prospective partners are asking about impact, and so we can share it in the moments it's most useful to them (renewal conversations, proposals, and new partnership discussions).
• Turn program data into clear, honest, decision-ready stories about impact: one-pagers, school board-ready materials, partner-facing briefs, all written in language that respects a superintendent's or school board's time, without academic hedging or unnecessary jargon.
• Engage as a technical peer with district- and school-level data and research staff, share underlying data, and answer detailed questions from sophisticated analysts, while still being the person who can distill the "so what" for their leadership.
• Build layered materials from a single body of research such as a plain-language summary for a superintendent alongside a technical appendix for a district's own research team, so every audience gets what they need from the same underlying work.
• Partner with internal stakeholders across the organization to develop evaluation plans that reflect both our mission and our partners' priorities.
• Conduct quantitative and qualitative evaluations of PL's educational offerings.
• Lead annual survey development, administration, analysis, and reporting.
• Build internal knowledge of instructional trends and use that knowledge to strengthen our programs and how we talk about them.
• Manage research projects to completion: timelines, budget, and stakeholder coordination.
• Review literature on global learning and dual language education best practices to keep our programs current and grounded in what works.
• Serve as the organization's steward for program data governance by establishing and maintaining standards for the appropriate collection, use, sharing, and stewardship of program data; managing program-specific data sharing agreements; collaborating with IT, Legal, and other stakeholders to ensure compliance with FERPA and other applicable privacy regulations; and promoting responsible handling of confidential program information through training, documentation, and continuous improvement.
• Other duties as assigned.

Experience You Bring

• Master's Degree in educational planning, research, statistics, or related field required. Doctorate a plus, not required.
• 5 years leading evaluations, assessments, or research in a relevant field. We explicitly welcome backgrounds from district/state research and accountability offices, school board reporting, Title I or federal program evaluation, or state department of education roles, alongside market research, ed-tech, or academic research backgrounds.
• Demonstrated ability to translate data into decision-ready narratives for non-academic audiences, evidenced by things like school board presentations, superintendent briefings, public dashboards, or state/federal accountability reports (sales enablement experience is a plus, not a requirement).
• Comfort presenting to and fielding technical questions from peer researchers/analysts embedded in school districts.
• Ability to produce layered documentation: a plain-language summary plus a technical appendix (methodology, sample sizes, effect sizes, limitations) for audiences that want to interrogate the data themselves.
• Experience with K-12 student growth and proficiency data and teacher effectiveness/EVAAS data.
• Working knowledge of statistics (sample design, power calculations, data analysis) and familiarity with statistical software packages such as Stata, SPSS, or SAS.
• Familiarity with Salesforce and Tableau (or similar CRM/data visualization platforms) a plus.
• Demonstrated experience leading major quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-method research studies.
• Ability to think creatively, strategically, critically, and analytically.
• Excellent written, verbal, and interpersonal communication skills.

Preferred Requirements

• Experience in the K-12 education sector
• Familiarity with local, district, state, and national education policy.
• Experience writing for sales enablement, marketing, or executive communications.
• Familiarity with B2B/B2G sales cycles in education.
• Proficient in a second language.

About You:

• Passion for global perspectives — languages, cultures, travel, and the diverse facets of our interconnected world.
• You believe business can be a force for good, and you want your research and analysis to serve that mission, not just sit in a report.
• You're motivated by making a difference today, while building evidence that shapes better decisions tomorrow.
• You're willing to take on work beyond the strict boundaries of your role profile when it serves the team or the mission — and you'll find that same flexibility reciprocated by the company.
• You believe good data, honestly presented, is one of the most powerful tools we have to expand access to global education.
• You believe global education is for everyone.

What You’ll Love About Us:

Headquartered in Chapel Hill, NC, one of the essential measures of the success of our business is the positive impact we make on our employees. Our work inspires everyone to be change agents.

• Attractive benefit coverage for medical, dental, vision
• Company paid long-term, short-term disability and life insurance
• Paid Maternity/Paternity Leave
• Generous Vacation and Separate Sick Time
• Wellness Program
• Adoption Assistance
• Infant-At-Work and Bring Your Dog to Work Program
• Cell Phone Reimbursement
• Fully-Stocked Kitchen
• Volunteer Time Off
• Professional Development Funds