Education Policy Analyst

Laws forbid you from robbing banks, assaulting neighbors and even running red lights. Laws don’t just cripple crime, however. The best ones give you a higher quality of life — by legislating civil rights, for instance, health care and, of course, education.

As an Education Policy Analyst, you’re interested in that last part: education. That’s because as an Education Policy Analyst you make your living researching, analyzing and influencing laws that relate to education, including primary, secondary and post-secondary schooling.

Employed by government agencies, Lobbyists, think tanks and interest groups, Education Policy Analysts are paid to solve the country’s most pressing education problems, including issues such as Teacher training and compensation, school funding and improvement, academic standards, curriculum development and standardized testing.

Here’s how it works: When your country or community encounters an educational obstacle — low test scores, for example, or high college tuition for low-income families — it’s your job to study the problem and recommend a solution. To do that, you’ll spend your days gathering evidence in the form of polls, research and expert interviews, then developing ideas based on what you find. You’ll then market your ideas to Policymakers, the media and the public, writing papers, columns, letters and briefs, for example, and meeting with Educators, Reporters and Lawmakers to sell them on your solutions.

Some laws are designed for criminals; the laws you analyze and impact, however, are designed for kids; whether they’re first-graders or college seniors, you make sure they have opportunities to get the best education from the best Teachers at the best schools — no matter what.