The Center on Reinventing Public Education is seeking a highly skilled and strategic professional to serve as Special Assistant to the Director. This role combines executive-level administrative excellence with strategic thinking, serving as a trusted extension of the Director’s leadership capacity. The Special Assistant will serve as the Director’s primary liaison, gatekeeper, and strategic support, requiring exceptional judgment, diplomacy, and the ability to represent the Director’s interests across various internal and external settings. The ideal candidate will be a proactive problem-solver who can anticipate and respond quickly to needs, manage complex priorities, and execute high-level communications and materials development with minimal supervision. The successful candidate will demonstrate a commitment to CRPE’s mission and possess the strategic acumen to make sound decisions about priorities, resource allocation, and stakeholder engagement. They will excel in fast-paced environments while maintaining the highest standards of professionalism and confidentiality. Candidates will possess an entrepreneurial mindset (i.e., flexible, resourceful, and creative) and motivation to drive toward high-quality outcomes.
About CRPE
The Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) is a nonpartisan research center founded in 1993 and affiliated with Arizona State University’s Mary Lou Fulton College for Teaching and Learning Innovation.
CRPE believes inequities are hard-wired into our public education system in both obvious and subtle ways. Our core business is studying efforts to rewire the system for ongoing improvement and excellence for every student—moving from the classroom to the school and policy implications. We envision a public education system that truly prepares every student for the challenges of the future.
We fulfill this mission through:
- Research: We produce world-class research that’s interesting, significant, and trustworthy.
- Thought leadership: Our analysis looks around the corner, comments on relevant issues, and proposes new ideas.
- Engagement with leaders: We prioritize learning from city, state, and nonprofit leaders in their communities, and we inform their work with evidence.
CRPE seeks team members who are passionate about systems change and embrace the idea that public education is a goal, not a set of institutions. The following core values guide our work:
- Equity: We are committed to an ongoing and active fight against racism and injustice
- Curiosity: We ask questions that “look around the corner”
- Excellence: We do world-class research that’s interesting, significant, and trustworthy
- Teamwork: We’re clear, focused, and productive together
- Ownership: We’re all responsible for CRPE’s success
- Communication: We’re clear and honest with each other
- Camaraderie: We appreciate each other
- Integrity: We’re professional and ethical
CRPE has played a national role in studying the impact of the COVID pandemic on school systems and policy, and we study new methods of schooling that will inform rebuilding efforts post-pandemic, such as innovative teacher preparation approaches, Artificial Intelligence, and novel school governance models. To learn more about our work, visit CRPE’s publications page, which features our most recent thinking on education issues in play today.
CRPE stands at the intersection of enduring challenges (like educational inequity) and emerging ones (like technological disruption). While areas of focus vary over time, the Research Analyst will support projects specifically focused on 1) the conditions necessary for school systems to sustain bold innovation and 2) building a national research agenda and conducting responsive research on AI in education.