Director, EC-12 Education Policy

Director Of Early Childhood Education-12th Grade (Ec-12) Policy

Helping advance strategic public policy to expand opportunity for Texas students from early childhood through 12th grade.

The Commit Partnership, the largest regional educational "backbone" organization in the country with more than 70 employees and an annual operating budget exceeding $40 million, is seeking a passionate, strategic, and policy-driven team member to serve as the Director of Early Childhood Education-12th grade (EC-12) Policy. This role will support the Managing Director, Policy and State Coalitions, to improve educational outcomes across the early childhood through high school continuum by advancing strategic investments in policies that improve student outcomes, facilitating cross-section collaboration, and helping share the state's educational landscape through thoughtful engagement. The Director will play a pivotal role in developing and executing Commit's EC-12 policy strategy, most notably within the foundational years (ages 3-8), by leading legislative communication, engaging state agencies on rulemaking, and coordinating policy coalitions. This role is ideal for a professional with at least 4 years of direct experience in public policy, advocacy or governmental relationships, preferably in Texas, who is eager to translate local and regional insights into lasting statewide impact. The annual salary range for this role is $110,000 - $139,000.

Essential Duties And Responsibilities

Policy Agenda Formation

• Work with the internal policy team and programmatic partners as well as key external stakeholders and coalitions to develop, refine, and execute a state-level EC-12 policy agenda (both regulatory and legislative) that improves student outcomes, closes student achievement gaps, and increases workforce readiness.
• Determine relevant rulemaking opportunities and monitor opportunities for other regulatory or legislative engagement.
• Develop a strategy to mobilize broad and diverse coalitions to support these policy priorities, including strategies for interim charge approval and hearings, rulemaking opportunities, and other opportunities as made available.
• Work with the Communications team to develop and activate relevant communications strategies.

Relationship Management

Management Of Relevant Team Members And Team Strategy

Qualifications And Skills Required

Education And / Or Experience Required

Language Skills

Knowledge, Skills And Abilities

Work Environment

The Director generally works in an office environment but is often required to perform job duties outside of the typical office setting, including the Texas Capitol. The noise level in the work environment is usually quiet to moderate. The employee is not exposed to any adverse environmental conditions.

Physical Activity & Requirements

While performing the responsibilities of the job, the employee is required to talk and hear. The employee is often required to sit and use repetitive motions of the wrists, hands and / or fingers. This is a sedentary position, however, the employee is occasionally required to stand, walk, reach with arms and hands, grasp, climb or balance, and to stoop, kneel, crouch or crawl and lift up to 10 pounds. Hearing, talking and vision abilities required by this job include perceiving the nature of sounds at normal speaking levels with or without correction, expressing or exchanging ideas be means of the spoken word and close visual acuity to perform an activity such as preparing and analyzing data and figures, transcribing, viewing a computer terminal and extensive reading.

Job Requirements

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed must be representative of the knowledge, skills, minimum education, training, licensure, experience and / or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

About The Commit Partnership

We believe that through our actions, Dallas County which educates 10% of Texas and 1% of the nation can be an inclusive and prosperous region where economic opportunity is shared equitably. That's why our true north goal is that by 2040 at least half of all 25-34-year-old residents of Dallas County, irrespective of race, will be provided the opportunity to earn a living wage.

To increase living wage attainment, we must equitably increase educational success aligned with high-demand jobs, maximizing the cumulative impact from early education all the way to college, career, and / or military readiness and accessing and completing a strong postsecondary education. Our staff aligns community stakeholders around this shared future roadmap analyzing data to lift up strategic initiatives that improve policies, practices, and funding that grow our community's capacity to serve every student more effectively.

Founded in 2012, this partnership is the nation's largest educational collective impact organization, composed of backbone staff and over 200 partners across Dallas County and the state of Texas working collaboratively to solve systemic education challenges. Our staff aligns community stakeholders around a shared future roadmap analyzing data to lift up strategic initiatives that improve policies, practices, and funding that grow our community's capacity to serve every student more effectively.

Together, we work to advocate for excellent and equitable public education that ensures all students regardless of race, place, or socio-economic status have the power to determine their future and earn a living wage. We do this work through several ventures including Early Matters Dallas, North Texas Tutoring Corps, Dallas County Promise, Texas College Bridge, Dallas Thrives, Commit's Policy Team, the Texas Impact Network, and several coalitions.

Our True North Traits creates a mission-driven environment and champions us to do our best work each day