Billie Jo Day

Billie Jo Day specializes in literacy, research-practice partnerships, stakeholder engagement, and the use of evidence to support education improvement. She works with state and local education agencies, educators, and other education organizations to identify priorities, make data-informed decisions, and translate research into actionable strategies that improve outcomes for students.  

At AIR, Day serves as partnership task lead for the Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Southwest, where she coordinates multistate research-practice partnerships and helps education leaders develop research, technical assistance, and dissemination activities aligned with state and local priorities. Previously, she served as a partnership facilitator and Indiana state liaison for REL Midwest, supporting partnerships focused on early childhood education, literacy, and school improvement.  

Day also leads and supports several federally funded literacy studies, including Institute of Education Sciences-funded research on Peer Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS) Reading and reading intervention implementation. Her expertise includes mixed-methods research, implementation studies, program evaluation, qualitative data collection and analysis, and stakeholder engagement. Prior to and during her work at AIR, she has conducted research on rural college access, community college enrollment and retention, postsecondary success, and strategies to support successful transitions across the K-12 and postsecondary continuum. Across her work, Day focuses on building strong partnerships between researchers and practitioners to ensure that research is relevant, accessible, and useful for improving educational outcomes.