Strategy, Monitoring, and Compliance (SMC) Business Analyst

Commonwealth of Massachusetts • Everett, MA

5d • Hybrid

About The Position

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) seeks an experienced contractor to support the design and initial implementation of a restructured organizational office focused on research, evidence, effective practices, monitoring, strategic planning, and continuous improvement. The final design and initial implementation processes will be handed off to existing DESE staff for sustained implementation. The central purpose of the new office will be to strengthen DESE’s ability to identify, understand, and support the use of effective practices in Massachusetts schools and districts. Building on DESE’s established research and evaluation capacity within the Office of Planning and Research and the Office of Effective Practices, the restructured office will create stronger connections between rigorous research and evidence about effective policies and practices and qualitative learning about how those practices are implemented in real educational settings. The contractor will help DESE design an integrated evidence-to-practice learning system in which the agency identifies high-priority problems of practice and questions; draws on existing research, evaluation, data, monitoring, and practitioner knowledge to understand what is known; uses qualitative and mixed-method inquiry to investigate how promising and effective practices are implemented in Massachusetts; translates findings into actionable guidance, tools, supports, and policy decisions; and learns from subsequent implementation and outcomes to continuously strengthen the evidence base and DESE’s support to the field. This work will include developing a purposeful approach to qualitative studies, case studies, and bright-spot analyses. Such work should go beyond highlighting examples of success. Potential bright spots should be investigated in relation to research-informed questions and practices, with attention to implementation, context, mechanisms, and outcomes. Findings should clearly distinguish among illustrative examples, promising practices, research-based practices, and practices supported by stronger evidence of effectiveness. The contractor will also help apply this approach to several high-priority DESE initiatives, including the Accelerating Achievement Partnership (AAP), the development of a new AAP monitoring system, and efforts to create a more coherent and consolidated approach to district and school planning.

Requirements

• Substantial experience in identifying, studying, translating, and disseminating effective or evidence-based practices in K–12 education or a related field.
• Synthesizing research and data and translating findings into practical tools, guidance, resources, and supports for practitioners and decision-makers.
• K–12 school and district improvement, including understanding how practices move from adoption to implementation and sustainability.
• Designing systems for organizational learning, including approaches for capturing practitioner knowledge and identifying promising practices.
• Strategic planning and the use of evidence in strategy selection and resource allocation.
• Organizational and operating-model design, preferably within a public-sector or education context.
• State education agency operations, accountability, assistance, or state and federal education requirements.
• Leading complex cross-functional projects and facilitating organizational change.
• Moving from conceptual design to practical implementation.
• Qualitative and mixed-method research, including case studies, interviews, observations, focus groups, and comparative analysis.
• Research, program evaluation, implementation science, improvement science, knowledge translation, or evidence use.
• Monitoring, continuous improvement, and performance-management systems.

Nice To Haves

• Qualitative and mixed-method research, including case studies, interviews, observations, focus groups, and comparative analysis.
• Research, program evaluation, implementation science, improvement science, knowledge translation, or evidence use.
• Monitoring, continuous improvement, and performance-management systems.

Responsibilities

• Build DESE’s evidence-to-practice learning function: Develop a proposed framework and operating model for how DESE will systematically identify, study, validate, translate, and disseminate effective practices. Establish processes for integrating research, evaluation, quantitative data, qualitative inquiry, monitoring evidence, and practitioner knowledge in agency decision-making and learning. Develop approaches for synthesizing existing research and evidence to identify priority practices, implementation conditions, and problems of practice that merit deeper investigation. Develop transparent criteria and methods for identifying potential bright spots using quantitative and qualitative evidence, recognizing that strong outcomes alone do not establish the effectiveness of a particular practice. Design approaches for qualitative and mixed-method studies, including case studies, interviews, focus groups, observations, document review, and comparative bright-spot analyses, to understand how and why promising practices operate in particular contexts. Establish methods for triangulating qualitative findings with existing research, implementation evidence, monitoring data, and student outcomes. Develop approaches for distinguishing and communicating different levels and types of evidence, including whether a practice is research-based, promising, well implemented, associated with stronger outcomes, or supported by stronger causal evidence. Identify the organizational and contextual conditions that influence successful implementation and the extent to which practices may be adapted or transferred to other settings. Develop approaches for translating evidence into usable products and supports for districts, schools, and DESE staff, such as practice guides, case studies, implementation tools, exemplars, decision-support resources, and professional learning. Create feedback loops through which implementation of disseminated practices generates new evidence, questions, and opportunities for improvement.
• Design the organizational model needed to sustain this work: Assess existing responsibilities, staffing, processes, tools, partnerships, funding, and organizational relationships across relevant DESE teams. Develop a proposed mission, theory of action, scope, and set of core functions for the restructured unit. Recommend an organizational and staffing model, including roles, responsibilities, governance, decision rights, partnerships, and relationships with other DESE offices. Clarify how research and evaluation, effective-practice identification and dissemination, monitoring, planning, technical assistance, grantmaking, and program implementation should interact. Identify opportunities to consolidate, simplify, discontinue, or redesign duplicative processes. Develop a phased roadmap for launching and maturing the office within the broader Strategy, Monitoring, and Compliance unit.
• Connect planning and monitoring to evidence and effective practice: Develop a common approach connecting strategic priorities and theories of action to evidence-based or research-informed strategies, implementation measures, leading indicators, outcomes, and improvement decisions. Help DESE develop a more coherent approach to district and school planning that reduces unnecessary burden while encouraging a focus on a manageable number of priorities and strategies grounded in evidence. Connect needs assessment, planning, resource allocation, implementation, monitoring, evaluation, and technical assistance so that these functions operate as components of a continuous improvement cycle rather than as separate compliance processes. Design and begin implementation of an AAP monitoring framework that assesses implementation, changes in practice and organizational conditions, leading indicators, student outcomes, and the effectiveness of DESE supports. Ensure AAP monitoring also helps DESE identify which strategies and practices appear to be contributing to improvement, under what conditions, and with what implementation supports. Develop approaches for using AAP and other monitoring findings to identify potential bright spots, improve DESE assistance, and generate questions for further research and evaluation.
• Pilot the model and build DESE capacity: Translate the organizational and evidence-to-practice design into an actionable first-year work plan. Identify a small number of priority problems of practice or initiatives through which to test the new approach. Design and conduct or support initial qualitative or mixed-method studies that demonstrate the intended evidence-to-practice model. Develop and test tools, protocols, products, and routines with DESE teams and selected districts and schools. Establish routines through which DESE leaders and staff review evidence, identify lessons, make programmatic decisions, and determine what should be studied, supported, or disseminated more broadly. Use early implementation to refine the operating model and supporting systems. Build DESE staff capacity and transfer responsibility for ongoing work so the function can be sustained following the contractor engagement.
• Other duties as assigned.
• Based on assignment travel throughout the Commonwealth may be required.

Benefits

• Contracted employees are not paid for the twelve scheduled holidays.
• Contracted employees do not receive any paid, vacation, personal leave benefits.
• Contracted employees do not contribute to the State Retirement System or Social Security.
• Must participate in direct deposit.
• Must contribute towards the Commonwealth of Massachusetts State Alternate Retirement Plan ('OBRA Plan').

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Part-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed