EkStep
Website:
ekstep.org
Job details:
Program Manager – AXL
A role for a rigorous, data-native operator who chases outcomes and moves systems through influence
Somewhere in one of your states, a group of children aren’t learning to read as fast as they should. Your job is to notice it, and then answer one question: why? Are they not using the learning tool that’s meant to help them — or are they using it, and it still isn’t working? Once you know which, you move the people who can fix it — none of whom report to you. That’s the loop, and it’s the whole job. If chasing an outcome through sheer clarity and influence sounds like your idea of a good week, keep reading.
The tool in question is an AI product that helps children learn to read and do basic math — foundational literacy and numeracy, or FLN. States run their own FLN programs; this product is one thing they use. You are not running that program — the state owns and runs it, end to end. You’re the outside mind who keeps it honest to the outcome.
What you’re great at
Three skills, and they form a loop — see it, move it, fix it. If these are your strengths, the rest is learnable.
See it — you’re data-native and outcome-anchored
You hold the whole chain in view — from whether children are using the product to whether they’re actually learning — and you read data quickly, honestly, and without a story you’re trying to prove. Crucially, you never mistake usage for success: when the numbers say sessions are happening but learning isn’t, that’s the case you catch, and the one most people miss. You anchor on the outcome and trace back to the cause, wherever it sits.
Move it — you build trust and influence in every direction
You have no authority over anyone who can fix the problem — so you move them with clarity and credibility instead. That runs two ways: outward to the state, at both the operational level (coordinators, the people running the program) and the design level (those shaping how it works); and inward to the product team, when the fix is structural rather than on the ground. Rigor is common; rigor plus the humility to influence people who owe you nothing is not.
Fix it — you troubleshoot to the root
You diagnose the real problem — not the surface symptom — find a workable solution, and use your relationships to make the fix actually happen. Sometimes that’s on the ground with the state; sometimes it’s a signal you carry back to the product team. You close the loop, then start it again.
Strong writing and documentation is a nice-to-have — welcome, not required.
Who we’re looking for
You bring rigor and fresh eyes from a high-performance environment, and you read a situation for what it is, not what it’s supposed to be. If you’ve come up through consulting, a fast-scaling startup, operations, growth, or any environment with a high bar and real accountability — and you’re looking to point that rigor at something that matters — you’re who we mean. You don’t need to have worked in the development or education sector; in fact we’d rather you hadn’t. An interest in education is welcome, but what we’re really after is the pattern underneath: have you moved a real outcome through people and systems you didn’t control? That’s what transfers. The rest, you’ll learn.
The honest part
You influence, you don’t command — in both directions. The state owns and runs the program; the product team owns the product. You own neither. Your entire leverage, outward and inward, is clarity plus trust.
You’re accountable to an outcome you can’t reach alone. You can see the gap and name the fix — but closing it always runs through someone else’s program or someone else’s roadmap. If you need to own the thing end to end, this will frustrate you.
The clock is government-paced. Things move through trust and persistence, not deadlines you can set. Impatience about outcomes is good; impatience with people is not.
You’ll travel — about a week a month. You’ll start anchored to a single state and grow to as many as three as you find your feet.
You work at state level, across two registers. The operational layer where the program runs day to day, and the design layer where it’s shaped — not the senior political tier, which sits with our leadership.
Why it matters
The sector has spent years measuring itself on inputs and usage — devices deployed, sessions run, logins counted — because those are easy to count. But a child using a product is not the same as a child learning. This role exists to hold the line on the outcome, and to help shift the whole ecosystem’s attention from usage to whether children are actually learning to read.
That’s why it needs rigor and fresh eyes rather than tenure. Someone anchored to the outcome — not to the familiar metrics — is exactly who catches the case where everything looks fine on the dashboard and children still aren’t learning. You are that person: the one who sees what’s really there, and moves others to act on it, so a child crosses the line into reading.
How to know it’s you
You get a quiet satisfaction from finding the one number that explains everything — and from noticing when a reassuring number is hiding a problem. You’d rather win someone over than pull rank on them. You’re impatient about outcomes but patient with people. If that’s a mirror, we should talk.
To apply or ask a question, write to ananthi@ekstepplus.org
Click on Apply to know more.