Victoria Cirks

Victoria (Tori) Cirks' primary responsibilities include leading and managing projects and division initiatives with an emphasis on evidence-based capacity building to improve student outcomes through systems change. Much of her work focuses on state-level college and career readiness efforts including student engagement, career pathways, and early college as well as postsecondary systems and student success.

Currently, Cirks serves as the director of the Midwest Comprehensive Center and the project director for the Massachusetts Career and Technical Education Policy Review project. As director of the Midwest Comprehensive Center, Cirks leads a team working to enhance the capacity of state agencies, districts, and schools to make measurable progress, aligning their work with existing initiatives through strong relationships. 

Cirks also coordinates the work across AIR’s regional comprehensive centers which, combined, provide 18 states with intensive, evidence-based technical assistance grounded in high-leverage state needs. Comprehensive centers help state, district, and school leaders identify, implement, and sustain evidence-based programs and practices, with the goal of improving outcomes for educators and students. In addition, she co-leads AIR’s work building integrated partnerships that provide states with learning partners to support and inform decision-making.

Previously, she served as the project director for the Massachusetts Early College and Innovation Career Pathways Partnership Reviews and Designation Profile Reviews and a cluster of formative evaluation projects funded by the Gates Foundation intended to evaluate the success of and provide near-term feedback on the Foundation’s postsecondary scaling strategy.