Texas Executive Director

Teach Plus; United States; Remote; USD 132,000 - 178,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

PTO

Breaks

Health coverage

Retirement contributions

Parental leave

Sabbatical after 5 years

Summer Fridays

Job summary

Teach Plus is seeking an Executive Director based in Texas to lead statewide initiatives, travel as needed, and work remotely from within the state. You will steer teacher leadership, policy advocacy, and strategic partnerships to advance student outcomes and equity.

This role reports to senior leadership and requires collaboration across centers, funders, and coalitions. The base salary is $155,000 with potential for merit bonuses and revenue‑driven increases.

Qualifications

• Proven experience leading state policy and educator leadership initiatives.
• Ability to manage fundraising, external affairs, and coalition building.
• Strong communication and storytelling for diverse audiences.
• Familiarity with data, measurement, and evaluation for programs.

Responsibilities

• Set and execute local impact strategy grounded in clarity.
• Advance teacher leadership and advocacy aligned to student outcomes.
• Develop local curricula and learning experiences to engage lawmakers.
• Lead fundraising and coalition development to meet revenue goals.
• Build and manage a local staffing model and performance.

Skills

Strategy

Leadership

Communication

Fundraising

Data analysis

Policy

Storytelling

People management

Coalitions

Talent development

Tools

Martus

Salesforce

Job description

Teach Plus is a national nonprofit whose mission is to empower excellent, experienced, and diverse teachers to take leadership over key policy and practice issues that advance equity, opportunity, and student success. At the heart of our work is developing teacher leadership and voice in pursuit of student outcomes. We believe that investing in our most talented teachers—developing them into well-informed, persuasive leaders—gives them deep leverage in elevating the most pressing education issues facing students, teachers, and communities while advancing opportunities for students. Learn more atteachplus.org.

At Teach Plus, our Student Opportunity Mandate calls us to pursue long-term, measurable, and systemic change on behalf of students, educators, and communities. Reporting to the Chief Regional Impact and Operations Officer, the Executive Director (ED) sets the vision and leads the execution of strategies that drive this impact within their state.

As a sophisticated systems leader and trusted subject matter expert, the Executive Director serves as a credible convener and strategic power broker, building relationships and advancing initiatives that address the most pressing challenges facing students, communities, and educators. While the role includes core responsibilities and requires specific skills, mindsets, and leadership orientations, its success depends on the ability to navigate a highly contextual and evolving landscape. The Executive Director must continuously assess the role that both they and Teach Plus should play within the local ecosystem, adapting strategy to meet changing opportunities and needs.

This position is based in Texas and requires regular travel throughout the state, with occasional national travel as needed.

The Foundational Executive Director Responsibilities Include:

Setting a Vision for Local Impact, Grounded in Strategic Clarity:Through an iterative approach, Executive Directors must be able to continuously:

Understand and describe (both internally to the organization and to external partners) evidence and case studies of prior student outcomes improvement, the drivers that led to this success, and the patterns around those drivers as they specifically relate to advocacy and teacher leadership

Concretely articulate the gaps between the current state of student outcomes and the aspirations of students, families, and communities, and set ambitious goals/and or strategies to close these gaps, centered on tangible outcomes for students

In partnership with other organizations and coalition members, develop a sophisticated theory of change and theory of action/logic model around what is required to advance these student outcomes goals and the particular role Teach Plus (teachers, alumni, Executive, and institution) must play as a result

Advancing Teacher Leadership, Voice, and Advocacy towards our Student Opportunity Mandate:In partnership with Center teams at Teach Plus and local partners, EDs must:

Establish and continuously evolve local models for teacher learning and leadership aligned with Teach Plus’s Leadership Attribute Continuum and Policy Attributes and Competencies

In partnership with the Center and external partners, use sophisticated data, measurement, and evaluation structures to continuously assess and improve teacher engagement models, including accountability models for managing staff towards effective execution of these programs

Identify best practices for language, expectations, implementation, and accountability across policy and practice programs to support quality programming.

Through iterative strategic clarity work, co-create and effectively invest educators in a sophisticated annual or multi‑year policy agenda, focused on advancing our Student Opportunity Mandate

Co-create and revise contextualized local curricula and learning experiences to prepare teachers to engage directly with influential lawmakers, stakeholders, and government employees around your local policy agenda, ultimately positioning them to serve as effective leaders throughout their careers

Leverage insights from strategic clarity and evidence‑based strategies to run and participate in sophisticated local and state advocacy campaigns

In partnership with center teams, develop a robust and sophisticated strategy for developing teachers as trusted messengers and elevating teacher voice in the media in alignment with your strategic clarity work and policy agenda

Develop teacher leadership and foster cross‑sector collaboration to align education with community and business needs in areas such as literacy, college and career readiness, and other potential drivers

Creating and Stewarding a Network of Champions:In partnership with Teach Plus’ broader institutional positioning strategy, EDs must:

Set and execute against an ambitious annual fundraising goal, ranging from $350,000 to $2M, given local context, through a highly intentional portfolio management partnership with our national External Affairs team.

Strategically create, join, and strengthen local coalitions with a clear understanding of Teach Plus’ value add

Develop, share, and continuously refine student and teacher‑centered stories that can be leveraged to invest and grow the network of champions

Attract, retain, and steward a diverse portfolio of donors to both meet/exceed annual fundraising goals and continuously elevate Teach Plus ’ and your own role in the broader ecosystem

In partnership with Regional Development Directors and/or your team, ensure fundraising deliverables are high quality, aligned to your local strategy, and delivered to partners in a timely and effective manner

Build a cabinet of subject matter experts, funders, and/or local leaders (at times, this will be Senior Fellows and/or a Local Advisory Board) to continuously improve your executive positioning, local visibility, and access to cutting‑edge insights and innovations

In partnership with the Center, create a fundraising toolkit of resources that can be leveraged in a variety of ways for ongoing fundraising opportunities, including, but not limited to, one‑pagers, visuals, and language for funder emails.

Creating and Sustaining Enabling Conditions for Impact:As the highest impact level towards local impact at Teach Plus, EDs must:

Build out, hire, retain, train, and continuously right‑size a local staffing model, grounded in their Strategic Clarity work, in particular, the role Teach Plus must play in the local ecosystem. In partnership with the People team, ensure that role profiles for staff, Senior Fellows, and/or contractors align with a rigorous Vision of Excellence.

Serve as exemplary People Managers, regardless of staffing size, through a high‑candor, coaching‑first culture and effective communication of expectations, including but not limited to supporting direct reports to set and execute against Visions of Excellence and Annual Goals

In partnership with the Center, co‑create plans for local staff learning and development, aligned with regional strategy, annual goals, and performance management needs

Set and manage against an annual regional expense target, partnering with the Central finance and your team to balance compliance with original budgets as well as responsiveness and iteration as strategy evolves in‑year

Grounded in our commitment to “Reimagine the Center” operate with both candor and empathy to strategically maximize Central staff and resources to increase local impact

To effectively execute on these four core responsibilities, in addition to the roles they play in their unique communities, we believe all successful EDs must embody the following:

MINDSETS AND ORIENTATIONS:

Embodying systems leadership. This includes:

The ability to see the larger system-constantly evaluating and adapting your mental models, interrogating your preconceived notions, and remaining open to new ideas/information, including data sets and evolving evidence bases

Building trust and shifting conversations by fostering reflection and more generative conversations. Not only does this mean doing so in groups and in community, but also continuously “locating yourself” in regard to your own consciousness and orientations to change.

Prioritizing co‑creating the future while maintaining the ability to be responsive to current circumstances. This requires simultaneously holding both a deep understanding of and conviction about current systems' failures, and inspiring yourself and others to seek new solutions.

Understanding the way systemic inequity and oppression serve as the root cause for not only external challenges, but also in many interpersonal interactions and group dynamics. Always operating from a deep knowledge of how your own identity impacts your leadership and how others experience it.

An unyielding focus on equitable student outcomes. This looks/sounds like:

Maintaining a deep understanding of the current state of student outcomes across their state, not just in major hubs or the dominant conversations/pundit talking points.

Always tying regional decisions to a theory of action (how x decision will ultimately increase y student outcome), even through multiple layers of staff or teacher leaders.

Establishing credibility with state and district partners who can speak to unique proof points, trends, and outliers in the student outcomes landscape.

Keeping a pulse on the broader national conversation re: student outcomes and understanding the unique role your state is/isn’t playing in the dialogue.

A focus on building the systems leadership of teachers as nuanced navigators of the education landscape.

Recognizing and articulating the unique role that teacher perspective and experience play in advocating for and advancing systems change

Affirming individual teacher lived experiences while simultaneously supporting them to operate as systems leaders who can observe and make meaning of the broader ecosystem

Belief that narrative (op‑eds, teacher stories, testimony, etc) has and can play a significant role in change efforts, locally and nationally

Constantly balancing robust teacher input mechanisms with your own personal conviction and student/family aspirations when setting and driving towards a strategy

A solutions orientation. This looks/sounds like:

Assuming that problems have multiple, complex solutions and using your available resources to address them proactively, collaboratively, and creatively

Communicating directly with those impacted by/informing the challenges you face, leveraging radical candor to ensure all parties are clear on the challenge and aligned on the most efficacious approach to solving it

Taking a long‑term view and recognizing that 90% of the time taken to address a challenge should be spent on problem analysis and understanding the root cause, especially of persistent or recurring challenges

SKILLS:

• Set and continuously evaluate strategies for local impact, closely aligned to quantitative and qualitative goals
• Effectively communicate org's vision and strategy to internal (Teach Plus) and external partners to advance work
• Leverage and grow professional networks to facilitate the effective positioning of Teach Plus amongst other organizations and groups in your ecosystem
• Build and/or leverage existing systems to ensure operational excellence (meeting deadlines, prioritizing time) for yourself and those you manage
• Identifying and developing talent, both in your team and in teacher leaders, in such a way that fosters recruitment, matriculation, retention, and tangible success
• Managing individuals towards agreed‑upon, measurable outcomes using both formal performance management and routine coaching structures
• Leveraging data sets and multiple platforms (Martus, Salesforce, etc) to effectively track, analyze, and act on your ongoing knowledge of progress to goal(s)
• Understanding and managing financial information, including Budget‑to‑Actuals and grant reports
• Ability to track and analyze key policies in your landscape and take aligned action with local partners/your Fellows, and network
• Speaking and writing in ways that effectively convey key information and/or bring others into deeper partnership, including but not limited to fundraising
• Ability to inspire and motivate others through storytelling, crafting compelling narratives that resonate with multiple audiences and highlight the org’s mission and impact
• Serving as an exemplary people manager through team leadership, community building, and mobilizing others
• Communicating with radical candor and applying principles of nonviolent communication to foster compassionate, effective communication, leading to better understanding and collaboration.

Location, Travel, and Commitment

This is a full‑time (40 hours/week) remote position for candidates who reside in Texas and are willing to travel to Austin during the legislative session, and periodically to other parts of the state. The role requires a flexible schedule, including some nights and weekends, to support policy sessions and meet with teachers and policymakers. The anticipated start date is August 2026.

Total Rewards

The base salary for the Executive Director position is $155,000, with opportunities to increase total compensation through a merit‑based annual bonus and by achieving higher annual revenue targets. Thisbase salary reflects the established starting point within Teach Plus’s Executive Director compensation structure. To ensure fairness, equity, and consistency across all candidates, Teach Plus follows a structured compensation philosophy and does not negotiate starting salaries. All compensation decisions are based on job‑related factors and alignment with our established salary framework.

At Teach Plus, we believe the people advancing our mission deserve meaningful support in their work and in their lives. We offer competitive salaries and a strong benefits package designed to support well‑being, professional growth, and long‑term sustainability. Our benefits include generous paid time off, shared summer and winter breaks, Summer Half‑Day Fridays, comprehensive health coverage, retirement contributions with immediate vesting, paid parental leave for all caregivers, and a four‑week paid sabbatical after five years of service. See Teach Plus’Benefit Summaryfor more information.