Data & Policy Analyst

TSNE • Southington, CT

1d • Hybrid

About The Position

The School and State Finance Project (schoolstatefinance.org) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit policy organization that works collaboratively with policymakers, communities, and other key stakeholders to develop data-driven solutions that ensure all public school students receive equitable education funding that supports their learning needs. Our Mission: To eliminate racial and economic disparities in Connecticut education funding. Our Vision: All Connecticut students have equitable funding, access, and opportunities — no matter their race, socio-economic status, learning needs, or zip code. Since our founding in 2015, we have secured an additional $770 million in need-based funding for Connecticut students, directly engaged nearly 15,000 community members, and led the effort to implement a comprehensive, student-centered funding formula. We are an independent and trustworthy source of high-quality research and accessible analysis, and serve as a bridge between those who demand equity for all students and the elected leaders who are charged with making policy. Although not a member-based organization, the School and State Finance Project actively works with a diverse group of stakeholders and communities across Connecticut. The School and State Finance Project aims to serve as a trusted resource for state and local policymakers, school district officials, community leaders, and all people looking for transparent, accessible, and approachable information about education funding and state finance. The School and State Finance Project is a fiscally sponsored project of TSNE (tsne.org).

Requirements

• Valid driver’s license and access to car.
• Ability and willingness to travel throughout Connecticut.
• Candidates must hold a graduate degree in public policy, economics, business administration, statistics, or a related field from an accredited university, or have at least two years of experience in an environment related to public policy;
• Experience in quantitative or qualitative analysis of public policy, public finance, or education policy;
• Excellent written and verbal communications skills, including the ability to communicate complex, technical information to non-expert audiences;
• Interest in education finance and a willingness to grow policy development and policy analysis skills over time;
• Commitment to credible and independent policy research and analysis, and attention to detail and accuracy;
• Strong Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint skills;
• Experience or willingness to learn cloud storage and computing tools;
• Willingness to learn and use data analysis and visualization tools & programming languages such as R, Python, SQL, Tableau, Shiny, or Leaflet.

Responsibilities

• Reporting to the Director of Data & Analysis, the Data & Policy Analyst will analyze and help develop policy proposals that advance the Project’s goal of creating a more equitable, transparent, and unified school finance system, and address the State of Connecticut’s longstanding state fiscal and budgetary challenges.
• The ideal Data & Policy Analyst will have outstanding research and analysis skills, a familiarity with public finance and education policy, and the ability to make complex information easily digestible to broad audiences.
• The individual must be tactful and able to work with individuals and organizations who have diverse perspectives that may not always align.
• The Data & Policy Analyst should be passionate about fixing how schools in Connecticut are funded and the structural issues at the heart of Connecticut’s fiscal picture.
• The role is designed to prioritize data analysis skills up front, allowing the analyst to build strong understanding of the data driving school finance before taking on deeper policy development responsibilities over time.
• The analyst will also work closely with the organization’s Policy team, under the Director of Research & Policy, to support the organization’s policy development and research efforts.
• Modeling and analyzing the fiscal impacts of various policy proposals for both internal policy development efforts and for use during the state’s legislative session;
• Maintaining and updating internal data systems containing education, economic, and budgetary data series for use in research and policy efforts;
• Creating, maintaining, and updating data visualizations and other public-facing tools to communicate complex information to the public;
• Synthesizing large and complex datasets to identify key takeaways and communicate findings to non-technical stakeholders and audiences;
• Performing quantitative and qualitative analyses to develop equitable school finance policy solutions that could be successfully implemented in Connecticut;
• Working in collaboration with members of the organization’s Data and Policy teams to complete research projects from end to end, including: developing research questions and designs, collecting and cleaning data, analyzing data and policies, surfacing best practices, and presenting findings through written reports, presentations, web tools, and data visualizations;
• Supporting the Policy team through data analysis and fiscal modeling related to policy development and research;
• Executing and communicating well-defined analyses in an independent manner;
• Documenting tasks, methods, data, and findings to a high level of precision and ensuring accuracy and efficiency in all work;
• Providing analytical support to help nonprofit and governmental partners achieve their mission and goals by participating in organizational consulting work.

Benefits

• Generous Paid-Time-Off (PTO): 16 paid holidays, 3 weeks of paid vacation, 5 paid personal days, paid sick time, paid health leave, and paid volunteering time off;
• 80% employer-paid, offering some $0 deductible health insurance through Harvard Pilgrim along with several low-deductible plans;
• Low-cost Dental and Vision insurance;
• Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) for health and dependent care;
• Employer-paid Life, Long- and Short-Term Disability Insurance;
• Employer contribution to pension plan through TIAA;

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level