The Research Alliance for New York City Schools views teaching and learning as the centerpiece of both its research initiatives and its work environment. Housed at New York University, one of the nation’s leading applied research universities, we are committed to the highest standards of scholarship and to ensuring that our work contributes to both policy and practice in the NYC schools. This means that Research Alliance staff and our collaborators are people who combine advanced training and experience in cutting edge research methods with a deep knowledge of the concerns of teachers, administrators, policymakers, and parents.
The Research Alliance’s internal staff and collaborators work together in ways that ensure that our collective contribution to the improvement of New York City’s public schools is greater than the sum of our individual roles and expertise. Achieving these goals requires a commitment to our core principles:
- Research Rigor
- Relevance to Policy and Practice
- Partnership and Collaboration
- Outreach and Communication
In addition, we value diversity and continuous learning.
Diversity
Our commitment to diversity means that our staff reflects a wide range of education and training backgrounds and professional and personal experiences. We look to attract women and men from the fields of economics, statistics, sociology, psychology and other social and applied sciences. We recruit those who have experience as policy analysts, program evaluators, and field researchers as well as those who have served as administrators, teachers, and policymakers. Importantly, we value the contributions of men and women who have direct experience with the limitations of our public and private institutions, especially in education, as well as those who have had the benefit of the best that these institutions have to offer.
The ideal Research Alliance staff member has training and experience in multiple disciplines. Each person’s experiences reflect a wide range of the challenges and opportunities presented by the nation’s education and economic systems.
Continuous Learning
We strongly encourage and support our staff’s formal professional development and build a work environment that promotes interdisciplinary collaboration. Housed in one of the nation’s leading research universities and utilizing partnerships with other top institutions of higher education and policy research, the Research Alliance provides an ideal environment for professional development and exposure to cutting edge ideas and methods. The full range of NYU’s resources is available to our staff. More importantly, our staff are deeply committed to building project teams that maximize productivity while promoting learning, professional, and personal opportunities. We also actively solicit guidance and feedback on our work from technical advisory groups and technical consultants.
