PEF

Section I: Organization Information

Agency Mission: The mission of the Philadelphia Education Fund is to improve the quality of public education for underserved youth throughout the Philadelphia region.

Name/Title of Contact: Jenifer Trachtman and Liza Herzog, Director of Development and Marketing and Senior Research Associate

Address: Seven Benjamin Franklin Parkway

Phone Number: 215.665.1400 ext. 3313

Website: http://www.philaedfund.org/

Email: cfixman@philaedfund.org

Total number of agency staff members: 52

Agency Budget: $5,210,927

Section II: Community Need

Please state in measurable and quantifiable terms the specific community need that the Philly Fellow will address, including the number of people in the community directly affected by the problem.

The School District of Philadelphia (SDP) is one of largest, most socio-economically distressed, urban school systems in the country, with over 164,000 students (preK-12) in 280+ District-run schools, as well as more than 30,000 additional students attending more than 60 different charter schools within the District. An overwhelming majority of these students are from low-income and historically underserved racial minority backgrounds, and large numbers leave high school without graduating. The Philadelphia Education Fund seeks to improve the quality of public education for these underserved youth. Our Research and Development Fellow will play a key role in our work by tracking our measureable outcomes and disseminating our results to the public through a variety of print and online tools and through grant proposals and reports. Our Philly Fellow will strengthen our capacity to communicate to the public in order to develop greater visibility, new public school advocates, and new donors.

Describe how your agency addresses this need, and how the new capacity created by this fellow will help alleviate the problem.

Partnering with school districts, schools, businesses, universities, nonprofit organizations, community stakeholders, and other partners, the Philadelphia Education Fund works toward eliminating poverty by focusing on increasing high school graduation rates and post-secondary success. Our work – programs such as the College Access Program, Philadelphia Teacher Residency, Diplomas Now, ArtsRising, and more – is only made possible through the strong support of the community: from contributions and grants from corporations, foundations, government agencies and individuals. More and more, prospective funders want to support quantifiable outcomes. Despite our nearly 25 year history of wonderful achievement, the Ed Fund has not dedicated significant resources to allow us to codify and measure our impact and share our outcomes with the public. Through the Philly Fellow program, we have been able to put such an effort into place and we seek to continue this important work next year. Our Philly Fellow is directly impacting our ability to reach donors, prospective donors, and advocates with important information about why they should support our effort.

Describe the level of community involvement in the fellow’s project.

Our Philly Fellow will interface with nearly every staff member at the Philadelphia Education Fund, learning every aspect of our work from engaging the public as community advocates for public education, to research and evaluation techniques, to communicating with the public in a variety of media. Some examples from this year of our Philly Fellows community involvement include:
• Being a part of the staff team for a press conference announcing a new initiative which took place in City with the Mayor, representatives from Citi Foundation, and representatives from the School District; • Being a part of the staff team for the EDDYs, the Ed Fund’s annual celebration of the Stars of Public Education;
• Meeting with internal and external stakeholders to develop metrics for each of our program areas and initiatives; and
• Attending School Reform Commission meetings as a representative of the Ed Fund.

Section III: Job Description

Please outline in list form the fellow's duties and responsibilities.

The role of the Research and Development Fellow will be to work under the supervision of the Senior Research Associate to maintain a system to collect and analyze data from Ed Fund staff at regular intervals, to assist Ed Fund staff in data collection, and to analyze and prepare data for internal self-reflective purposes and external communication. Under the supervision of the Director of Development and Marketing, the Fellow will develop the necessary tools to communicate effectively how the organization’s work, as demonstrated by its data, impacts the quality of public education in the region. These may include newsletters, email blasts, grant proposals, grant reports, website text, community learning briefs, social media outreach, briefings, and research reports.

Please outline in list form the skills/qualifications a fellow should have to succeed in the position.

The qualified candidate will have a strong set of basic research skills including the ability to deal effectively with quantitative and qualitative data analysis, will have strong written and verbal communications skills. The candidate will also be able to work independently and in collaboration with a diverse group of colleagues to develop innovative ways for the Philadelphia Education Fund to engage in a continuous evaluation of its impact in the Philadelphia region. This is a growth opportunity for a Philly Fellow who is detail-oriented, has strong organizational skills, can complete tasks accurately and on time, is resourceful, and who cares deeply about the need for quality public education.

Please describe your agency's plan to orient and train the fellow.

Our Philly Fellow will experience the same orientation process as all employees at the Philadelphia Education Fund. He or she will receive the employee handbook, will be introduced to staff, will be given a timetable for all staff meetings, and will receive basic IT training including information on shared calendars, the phone system and email. He or she will also attend several meetings with the Leadership Team. He or she will participate in quarterly all-staff meetings with professional development opportunities.

Section IV: Project Plan

Please describe the proposed project goal(s) you expect the fellow to achieve. These should relate to your community need and reflect the long-term impact of the fellow’s project.

As one of 80 members of the Public Education Network, a national organization, the Philadelphia Education Fund is dedicated to engaging the public as a key way to improve the quality of public education in our region. The project goal is for the Ed Fund as a whole and its individual programs and initiatives to communicate clearly and convincingly about the power of our work through the written and spoken word and through data. In doing so, we will increase our capacity to engage the public in our work and create more public school advocates.

Section V: The Nitty Gritty

Will fellow be working at the same address listed above?

Yes

Please describe the fellow's work environment.

Fellow will have a shared office.
Fellow will have their own desk.
Fellow will have their own computer.

Please list the name and title of the fellow's immediate supervisor.

Jenifer Trachtman and Liza Herzog, Director of Development and Marketing and Senior Research Associate

Please approximate the percentage of time fellow will work:

Independently: 50%
As a team member in a group setting: 30%
As a team leader in a group setting: 20%

Travel:

Will the fellow be expected to travel as part of the position?

Yes

If so, how often and where?

The fellow will be expected to travel within Philadelphia to various special events, but not on a regular basis. The main office will be where the fellow will spend the majority of time working.

Will the fellow need the following to carry out the position?

A driver’s license: No
Their own car: No

Section VI: Supervision/Resources

Please briefly describe plans for supervision of fellow:

Our Philly Fellow will be supervised by Jenifer Trachtman who oversees development and marketing operations and by Liza Herzog, who is the Ed Fund’s lead staff member in research.

Since joining the Ed Fund in July 2003 as Senior Research Associate, Dr. Herzog, in partnership with researchers at Johns Hopkins University, has co-directed research and authored reports on comprehensive school reform, the professional development of teachers, and dropout prevention. She works with a regional team of researchers, practitioners, and social service agencies on the Philadelphia Educational Longitudinal Study (PELS), which follows more than 2,000 8th graders in Philadelphia public schools through to three years past on-time graduation. Before joining the Ed Fund, Dr. Herzog was a Research Associate at the University of Pennsylvania, where she conducted qualitative research in higher education. Prior to her work in education, she was a practicing attorney for four years. Dr. Herzog holds a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Pennsylvania, a J.D. from Temple University, and a B.A. in English from the University of Pennsylvania.

Jenifer Trachtman is Director of Development and Marketing for the Philadelphia Education Fund where she oversees a development and marketing strategy aimed at increasing and diversifying the flow of supporting grants and gifts. Jenifer brings to the Ed Fund over 15 years of fundraising experience including campaign planning, major gift solicitations, alumni relations, annual appeals, special events and development communications. Prior to joining the Ed Fund, Jenifer was the Director of Development for the Library Company of Philadelphia. She also held a14-year tenure as Director of Development at Tyler School of Art of Temple University.

Liza and Jenifer will provide a three month performance review of the Philly Fellow’s performance and then an annual review. At the Ed Fund, performance reviews are co-signed by the employee and his or her supervisor and then are stored in the human resources files. Jenifer and Liza will also complete the quarterly evaluation questionnaires, including a comprehensive year-end evaluation, that are provided by Philly Fellows staff.

What methods, information, or data will you use to evaluate the fellow’s success in their position and your agency’s success in meeting your community need?

The goal of the Research and Development Fellow will be to assist the Philadelphia Education Fund in creating a system to collect, disseminate, analyze, and report on the organization’s important work. We will be successful if we are able to collect our metrics at regular intervals and use them to report out to staff as well as the public through a variety of vehicles including printed pieces power point presentations, proposals, grant reports, community learning briefs, social media, and the website.

Encore: Application wasn’t long enough for you? Please include any additional information you feel would be useful in evaluating your application.

The Philadelphia Education Fund has traditionally served the School District of Philadelphia, more recently, the Ed Fund has extended its reach to the broader 11-county Philadelphia region, including second-tier school districts in neighboring areas. There, the Ed Fund continues its work with underserved populations and is beginning the process of articulating the need for public education to be considered a regional issue. Having an engaged public is a significant part of the Ed Fund’s strategy in becoming more regional in its focus.

One of the largest local education fund members of the Public Education Network, a national association of 80 such funds dedicated to improving public education, the Philadelphia Education Fund has partnered with school districts, universities, business and civic leaders, community-based organizations, and other stakeholders to improve the educational achievement of underserved youth. Throughout its history, the Ed Fund has helped shape School District of Philadelphia policy and practice through collaboration with multiple stakeholders, including state and District leaders, institutions of higher education and community organizations.

Recent accomplishments illustrate how the Philadelphia Education Fund continues to occupy an important role in influencing policy and practice for public school youth. For instance, in March 2009, the Ed Fund was chosen, along with partners Public Citizens for Children and Youth, and the Fleisher Art Memorial, to lead the Arts for Children and Youth Initiative, which seeks to bring arts learning opportunities to children and youth in the Greater Philadelphia region.

In 2008, the Ed Fund was named a partner of Urban Teacher Residency United, a national organization, to replicate a well-established alternative teacher certification program. In this capacity, we initiated Philadelphia Teacher Residency to re-tool STEM professionals to become math and science teachers in Philadelphia schools. In July 2009, this partnership of the Ed Fund, the School District, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers enrolled its first cohort of Residents, who will enter the teaching profession in September 2010.

Our College Access Program was instrumental in our selection, in 2008, as one of three local education funds (the others are in San Francisco and Miami) to receive a five-year grant from the Public Education Network, through funding from Citi Foundation, to systemize ways to help more low-income, first-generation youth access and attain postsecondary education.

In addition, during 2008-2009, the Ed Fund:
• Sent 297 public school students to college through scholarships totaling over $1 million;
• Encouraged broad, active participation in education policymaking and practice from corporate, education, nonprofit and community stakeholders through the Education First Compact and Small Schools Project;
• Convened the Philadelphia Math & Science Coalition, a partnership of 48 organizations, businesses, universities, and nonprofit organizations that is actively addressing the quality of math and science instruction in Philadelphia public schools; and
• Applied our dropout prevention research, conducted with Johns Hopkins University, at two schools in North Philadelphia to develop and implement interventions to keep their middle grades students on track to graduation. Along with partners Johns Hopkins, City Year, and Communities in Schools, this initiative, now titled Diplomas Now (www.diplomasnow.org), is being replicated nationally through significant support from PepsiCo, with the Ed Fund serving as national technical assistance partner.    In closing, it is important to note that as we continue to incubate new initiatives to spearhead best practices in public education, we must be mindful of continuing to build our organizational capacity to conduct our work and fulfill our mission.