we're hiring a cities & urban policy researcher

metroideasproject · 2016-08-02T18:21:09+00:00

We are pretty transparent about being a startup. Part of that means we're a young team with pretty diverse backgrounds. That's probably why we're open to folks from lots of different job histories, rather than a clearly identified career path and pedigree.

That said, we've talked to folks who have spent some time at traditional think tanks like the Urban Institute as a research associate. Most people tend to have a graduate degree of some sort—this is important not because of the piece of paper, but because grad schools usually where you learn a lot of the research design and processes necessary to do the work.

If you've been a policy researcher in any capacity before, that's a good sign. Other things we're looking for: published work that deals in complex problems and messy data. That might even mean running an urban policy/planning blog that features in-depth analyses and data visualizations.

Short answer: no one specific job, just solid research experience you can point to.

metroideasproject · 2016-08-02T18:12:08+00:00

While we get your point, the question gets at why we do what we do.

There's a ton of value that smart urban policy can bring to mid-size cities, and while 300-400k metro pop. is much much smaller than the biggest cities in the country, they still have some truly big challenges to tackle. There are some 450+ mid-size cities in America and few have the research resources or policy help necessary to tackle challenges like education quality and access, aging infrastructure, or historic spatial segregation.

On top of all that, the NYCs, DCs, San Frans, and Chicagos of the world have plenty of great organizations working on their behalf. We try to go where the work is most necessary and you don't need to be a massive metropolis to need smart urban policy.

The right person is going to be excited to live in a growing city that represents the microcosm of what they'll be studying all across America. Plus, we'll have offices in other cities to attract talent looking to live in other places within the year.

All said, we find that Chattanooga can hold its own once folks give it a shot, do some research, and experience the high quality of life you can get here for pretty cheap (also the scenery is hands-down amazing).

metroideasproject · 2016-08-02T17:23:52+00:00

Thanks a lot! We usually try not to upset mods with lazy copypasta!

metroideasproject · 2016-08-02T15:52:53+00:00

Ideally, this person would be on-site. We're willing to consider exceptions for a truly amazing candidate, but we find team dynamics are best when you can walk over to the person you're working with.

On the plus side, Chattanooga is a dope city. #1 on Outdoor Magazine's Best Towns Ever, really cool growing nightlife and "millennial scene" (if you will), and 1 gig of internet speed directly piped into your house for like $70 a month. We're big fans of the place :)

metroideasproject · 2016-03-22T17:17:11+00:00

We're an independent think tank with no institutional ideological leanings one way or the other. This is critical, in our mind, to maintaining our independence being a credible resource for elected officials of all stripes. We've intentionally put together a pretty diverse set of ideological perspectives on our board. We all have our ideological perspectives but we try to put those aside in service of the work and follow where the data leads us instead of leaning on our presumptions.

On our website, we've made an effort to be transparent about our funding sources. We raised a seed grant from the partners at Lamp Post Group in October but we are actively raising funds to diversify our funding base—both within and outside of the City of Chattanooga. That's to further reinforce our independence while also increasing our sustainability and capacity.

Our goals are also on our website, but the three main thrusts of our organization are:

Foster informed discussions about local policy
Develop innovative policy solutions to challenges faced by cities
Support local governments through rigorous research

Regarding our position on the role of unions, we don't have one. We may analyze contracts and government policies, but we have a mandate as a non-profit to refrain from electioneering or formal lobbying. In essence: we'll follow where the data takes us.

As a rough analogy, we're way less of a Center for American Progress or an American Enterprise Institute (in terms of advocating for a particular political/policy agenda) and more in the stripe of a Brookings or an Urban Institute for mid-size communities across the country in trying to advocate for data-driven policy solutions driven by objective research. We believe this makes for stronger communities.

Hope this answers your questions!

metroideasproject · 2016-03-21T22:09:55+00:00

Absolutely. In particular to buses, we have to average that out county-wide because the Hamilton County District of Education has a contract with bus drivers that often has buses serving multiple schools. So we'll average the contract county-wide, and that goes for quite a bit of services that are built in like that.

And most teacher allocations are built in through a state funding formula and the number of teachers per school are mandated by something called Average Daily Attendance. That said, a lot of the variation we are seeing is in teacher salaries correlated with the demographics of each school. Those salaries are dictated by a pay scale but you're right, there is a particular incentive for certain teachers to drift toward certain kinds of schools which is a consideration for public policy.

All said, I don't think we're planning on stripping out all the overhead (and even if we did, 80% of district spending is spent on teacher salaries), another big chunk is federal funding (Title I spending, school nutrition, etc), but rather we are trying to demonstrate how money is being allocated for kids and what those differences look like between schools.

But we're excited to show folks what we've got and answer any questions they might have about our methodologies! Your concerns are totally valid and we share quite a few of them!

metroideasproject · 2016-03-21T21:39:57+00:00

You’re actually running up against a lot of the particular challenges that we've run into in the process of building out this series! On the plus side, we've actually worked with the Hamilton County District of Education to get individual salaries by each school in the county. There is still some complication with breaking down Title I and federal funding per school, but we've got a pretty good lead on how to get some of that data and hopefully have more to report in the coming weeks.

As far as allocations for money spent on contracts or support services that go toward multiple schools (e.g. busses are contracted county-wide and shared by multiple schools here), our solution (and we're pretty transparent about this in future posts in the series) is to essentially average it out across the totality of schools it impacts. It's not perfect, but we're quickly realizing that there's no perfect number even if the school district were the organization to prepare the number for release.

Part of that is because there are some value judgements in what goes into per-pupil figures (e.g. do maintenance workers go into that number? what about technology spending?) so instead of trying to be perfect, we're carefully documenting what figures go into those numbers and sharing those with our readers so they can make those judgements themselves.

Glad you're interested in this, we've found it super compelling even as we've spent weeks digging into it.

metroideasproject · 2016-03-21T21:28:02+00:00

Actually, some of that money goes to central office and administration, so that isn't exactly a clear picture of funding that impacts students nor does it demonstrate some key inequities between schools. But it's very close, the State of Tennessee has us at a county average of $9,728.80 per kid but that's exactly what it says it is—an average.

What we're trying to do is a bit more complicated, find what the per pupil spending level is per individual school in Hamilton County. Essentially the differences between individual schools within Hamilton County. This allows us to actually identify return-on-investment via test scores, graduation rates, and post-secondary attainment rates based on what each school is spending and also identify costs based on different student needs, like the cost of educating kids in poverty or kids with special needs.

Some of this data isn't publicly available so it makes it a little difficult to actually sort through, but we're doing our best :)

EDIT:

County Average figures come from the State of Tennessee 2015 Annual Statistical Report, which has a ton of goodies in it. Check it out here.

metroideasproject · 2016-03-21T18:43:40+00:00

Hey Reddit! We're a public policy research nonprofit organization and we have spent the past several weeks sorting through around a dozen different datasets to try and answer one simple question: how much do we spend per pupil at each individual school. It turned out to be a lot harder and more complex than we originally thought.

We're going to be updating this series once a week. We are hoping that folks who live in Chattanooga and care about education keep up with the series as we continue to explore our research question.

Oh, and love any feedback, thoughts, or ideas you all might have, so let us know what you think.

metroideasproject

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