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This position is located within the Office of the Commissioner (OC) in the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Institute of Education Sciences (IES), Department of Education(ED) in Washington, DC. NCES is the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data related to education in the U.S. and other nations. It fulfills a Congressional mandate to collect, collate, analyze and report full and complete statistics on the condition of education in the United States.
Learn more about this agency01/31/2022 to 02/09/2022
$148,484 - $176,300 per year
GS 15
Yes—as determined by the agency policy.
Occasional travel - Some travel may be required.
No
Permanent
Full-time
Competitive
15
Yes
No
IES-2022-0007
633914200
U.S. Citizens, Nationals or those who owe allegiance to the U.S.
Federal employees who meet the definition of a "surplus" or "displaced" employee.
This announcement is open to all U.S. Citizens. This position may be filled through the Direct Hire Authority for Mathematical Statistician and Statistician. All applicants who meet the qualification requirements will be forwarded to the selecting official for further consideration. Category Rating traditional rating and ranking of applicants does not apply to this vacancy. you may be eligible to apply under the concurrently advertised merit promotion vacancy announcement: IES-2022-0008.
APPLICATION LIMIT: This vacancy announcement is limited to the first 50 applications received and will close at 11:59PM Eastern Time on the day that we receive the 50th application, or at 11:59PM Eastern Time on the listed closing date, whichever occurs first.
We encourage you to read this entire vacancy announcement prior to submitting your application.
As a Supervisory Mathematical Statistician/Chief Statistician, GS-1529-15, you will be responsible for:
• Develops, maintains, and implements statistical standards for the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), ensuring the statistical validity and technical soundness of data collection, analysis, and reporting.
• Provides technical guidance to staff and contractors on the development of educational studies, the production of sophisticated statistical plans and products, and the conduct of statistics activities and programs carried out or funded by the agency; and provides technical consultations with staff across the Department of Education on technical issues related to research, evaluation, and statistics.
• Performs sophisticated statistical analyses of NCES data products, analyzes statistical methodologies, and develops new analytical methods to better address the data needs of NCES stakeholders.
• Prepares written products to convey research to a variety of audiences and engages in dissemination and outreach activities, such as publishing scholarly work and attending scientific conferences; and consults with staff across the Department on research findings.
• Monitor grants and contracts that support education research, evaluation, and statistics; including managing the confidentiality of restricted datasets and compliance with NCES legal requirements.
You must meet all qualification requirements within 30 days of the closing date of this vacancy announcement.
Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religious; spiritual; community, student, social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills, and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. We will consider all qualifying experience, including any volunteer experience.
Minimum Qualification Requirements
You may meet the minimum qualifications for the GS-1529-15, if you possess the specialize experience, education, or a combination of the two.
Specialized Experience for the GS-15
One year of experience in either federal or non-federal service that is equivalent to at least a GS-14 performing two (2) out of three (3) of the following duties or work assignments:
1. Experience performing sophisticated statistical analyses producing data products, analyzing statistical methodologies, and developing new analytical methods.
2. Experience performing survey design and survey methodology.
3. Experience monitoring major national education studies or federal level studies in education data that includes familiarity with the contract process, designing national studies, developing survey instruments, working with states, and monitoring contracts.
OR
EDUCATION (see EDUCATION SECTION of the vacancy announcement)
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs)
The quality of your experience will be measured by the extent to which you possess the following knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs). You do not need to provide separate narrative responses to these KSAs, as they will be measured by your responses to the occupational questionnaire (you may preview the occupational questionnaire by clicking the link at the end of the Evaluations section of this vacancy announcement).
1. Skill with designing and managing statistical standards that are of the highest quality and state of the art.
2. Skill in education statistical management, which requires both an understanding of contemporary issues in education policy and practice and of the federal, state, and local role in education policy and practice and an ability to coordinate teams in the application of standards and in technical review of statistical reports.
3. Ability to conduct appropriate statistical and other data analyses, and to develop new analytical methods.
4. Ability to communicate scientific information effectively in plain language, both orally and in writing in order to consult, mentor, and guide the design, conduct, use, and communication of education research.
5. Ability to effectively hold self and others accountable to standard operating procedures defined in law, regulation, guidance, or equivalent knowledge of the administrative legal environment (for example, laws governing federal or national statistical centers and data as well as federal or national statistical directives and regulations governing federal or national data confidentiality).
Applicants must meet BOTH Basic Requirement and Specialized experience requirement in order to qualify for this position.
This position has a positive education requirement for GS-1529
A. Degree: that included 24 semester hours of mathematics and statistics, of which at least 12 semester hours were in mathematics and 6 semester hours were in statistics.
or
B. Combination of education and experience -- at least 24 semester hours of mathematics and statistics, including at least 12 hours in mathematics and 6 hours in statistics, as shown in above, plus appropriate experience or additional education.
Evaluation of Education:
Courses acceptable toward meeting the mathematics course requirement of paragraphs A or B above must have included at least four of the following: differential calculus, integral calculus, advanced calculus, theory of equations, vector analysis, advanced algebra, linear algebra, mathematical logic, differential equations, or any other advanced course in mathematics for which one of these was a prerequisite. Courses in mathematical statistics or probability theory with a prerequisite of elementary calculus or more advanced courses will be accepted toward meeting the mathematics requirements, with the provision that the same course cannot be counted toward both the mathematics and the statistics requirement.
Evaluation of Experience:
The experience offered in combination with educational courses to meet the requirements in paragraph B above should include evidence of statistical work such as (a) sampling, (b) collecting,
computing, and analyzing statistical data, and (c) applying known statistical techniques to data such as measurement of central tendency, dispersion, skewness, sampling error, simple and multiple
correlation, analysis of variance, and tests of significance. Without other indications of statistical experience, work required in the processing of numerical or
quantified information by other than statistical methods is not considered appropriate qualifying experience. Examples of such nonqualifying work include statistical clerical work; statistical drafting; calculation of totals, averages, percentages, or other arithmetic summations; preparation of simple tables or charts; or verification of data by simple comparison or proofreading.
GS-1529-15:
Education cannot be substituted for experience for this position and grade level.
Foreign Education:
Education completed in foreign colleges or universities may be used to meet education requirements if you can show that the foreign education is comparable to that received in an accredited educational institution in the United States. It is your responsibility to provide such evidence when applying. If you are using foreign education to meet qualification requirements, you must submit a Certificate of Foreign Equivalency with your transcript in order to receive credit for that education. For further information, please click Foreign Education.
Veterans’ Career Counseling: If you are a veteran interested in receiving tips on preparing a Federal resume and/or how to prepare for an interview, you may email sro_recruiting@ed.gov to schedule a session with a career counselor (“Veterans Counseling Session” should be placed in the subject line of the email).
Student Loan Default: If selected for this position, we will verify that you have not defaulted on any loan funded or guaranteed by the U.S. Department of Education. If you are found to be in default, we will contact you to make arrangements for repayment prior to making an official offer of employment.
Suitability and Investigation: If selected for this position, you will be required to complete the Declaration for Federal Employment (OF-306) to determine your suitability for federal employment and successfully complete a pre-appointment investigation/background check.
Essential/Non-Essential: This position is considered non-essential for purposes of reporting to work during federal government closures.
Financial Disclosure: This position require financial disclosure.
Telework: During the current period of mandatory telework required by the Agency’s COVID-19 response, telework will be mandatory. When it is determined the Agency will be moving to the reopening phase, employees will be expected to physically return to the office of their official duty locations. Telework days and any required waiting period for eligibility will be determined at that time.
Bargaining Unit: This position is not included in the bargaining unit.
Selections: Agencies have broad authority under law to hire from any appropriate source of eligibles and may fill a vacancy in the competitive service by any method authorized. We may make additional selections from this vacancy announcement within 90 days from the date the selection certificates are issued, should vacancies occur. We may also share selection certificates amongst program offices across the agency.
You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.
We will review your application and documentation submitted to ensure you meet the basic qualification requirements. We will refer the best qualified candidates to the Selecting Official of the job for further review and consideration. You will be evaluated to determine if you meet qualifications required, and on the extent to which your application shows that you possess the knowledge, skills and abilities associated with this position as defined below. Please be sure to give examples in your resume and explain how often you used these skills, the complexity of the knowledge you possessed, the level of people you interacted with, and the complexity and sensitivity of the issues you handled.
You must submit (REQUIRED FOR ALL APPLICANTS):
If you are claiming Veteran's Preference, you must submit: A copy of your DD-214 that shows active service and character of discharge, OR A certification of expected discharge or release from active duty under honorable conditions within 120 days from the date of application (Current Active Duty Members only); AND/OR The Application for 10-Point Veteran Preference (SF-15) AND all documents indicated on the form as proof of type of preference; AND/OR Proof of Sole Survivorship Preference (e.g., certificate of death or 100% disability as a result of serving in the armed forces).
Career Transition Assistance Plan (CTAP), or Interagency Career Transition Assistance Plan (ICTAP): Visit the https://www2.ed.gov/about/jobs/open/edhires/ictap.html or https://www2.ed.gov/about/jobs/open/edhires/ctap.html for information on how to apply as a CTAP, or ICTAP eligible. To exercise selection priority for this vacancy, CTAP/ICTAP candidates must meet the basic eligibility requirements and all selective factors. CTAP/ICTAP candidates must be rated and determined to be well qualified (or above) based on an evaluation of the competencies listed in the How You Will Be Evaluated section.
Step 1: Create a USAJOBS account (if you do not already have one) at www.usajobs.gov.
Step 2: Create a resume using the USAJOBS resume builder or upload a resume into your USAJOBS account. Ensure that your resume demonstrates your education, experience, training, and accomplishments as it relates to the qualifications for this position and substantiates your responses to the occupational questionnaire.
Step 3: Upload any required documents into your USAJOBS account (must be less than 3MB and in one of the following document formats: GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, RTF, PDF, or Word (DOC or DOCX)).
Step 4: Click "Apply Online" and follow the prompts to complete the occupational questionnaire and attach any required documents. Verify that uploaded documents from USAJOBS transfer into the agency's hiring system. You will have the opportunity to upload any additional required documents in the agency's hiring system. Click “Finish” to submit your application.
NOTE: You may update your application or required documents at any time while the announcement is open by logging into your USAJOBS account, clicking on "Application Status," clicking on the position title, clicking "Update Application,” and following the prompts.
In order to receive consideration for this position, you must submit your complete application, including all required documents, by 11:59 PM Eastern Time on the closing date of the vacancy announcement. If the vacancy announcement has an application limit, we recommend that you submit your complete application at the time of initial application. We will not accept any required documentation after the closing date of the vacancy announcement.
As an applicant, you may check your application status through your USAJOBS account at any time. We will also notify you via email of your application status at three key stages in the recruitment process.
1. Once the vacancy announcement closes, we will inform you that your application has been received.
2. After we review your submitted resume and supporting documentation, we will inform you if you are eligible and qualified, if your application was referred to a subject matter expert or panel of subject matter experts for further evaluation, and if you were amongst the most highly qualified candidates referred to the selecting official.
3. Finally, we will inform you of your final disposition for this announcement (e.g., if/when a selection is made, if/when the announcement is cancelled).
The Federal hiring process is set up to be fair and transparent. Please read the following guidance.
This job originated on www.usajobs.gov. For the full announcement and to apply, visit www.usajobs.gov/job/633914200. Only resumes submitted according to the instructions on the job announcement listed at www.usajobs.gov will be considered.
Learn more about
The U.S. Department of Education (ED) is looking for the best and brightest to ensure equal access and to promote educational excellence throughout the nation. If you are a highly motivated individual who would like to work for an agency that establishes policies on federal financial aid for education, distributes as well as monitors those funds; collects data on America's schools and disseminates research; focuses national attention on key educational issues; and prohibits discrimination and ensures equal access to education, ED is the place for you!
o Provides national leadership on key educational issues.
o Awards more than $47 billion annually in grants, mainly to state education agencies, local educational agencies, and institutions of higher education.
o Manages a federal student loan portfolio of over $1.5 trillion, held by over 40 million borrowers.
o Makes available over $120 billion annually in student aid to help over 10 million students and their families afford college.
o Enforces the nation’s civil rights laws pertaining to education.
o Supports programs of research, statistics, and evaluation of education in order to identify effective instructional practices, track student achievement, and measure the impact of educational reform.
o Enforces federal educational laws regarding privacy.
o Employs approximately 3,600 individuals divided between its Washington, D.C. headquarters, 11 regional offices, and 13 field offices.
