Agency Overview

Our Mission > WestEd, a research, development, and service agency, works with education and other communities to promote excellence, achieve equity, and improve learning for children, youth, and adults.

Kindergartners to university graduate students in Sacramento, CA, are brought together to learn about agriculture and environmental sustainability — from building solar-powered toy cars to surveying land.

Elsewhere, high school students intern and shadow at local hospitals, often spending whole days in one department such as surgery.

These are but two examples of career technical education in action. WestEd is evaluating the impact of such programs to help increase the number of high school graduates who are ready for college and career.

Across the country, WestEd staff successfully work on many more evaluation and research-based projects, and in partnerships with schools, education agencies, policymakers, and others in education and human development. Our primary goal? Success for every learner.

A nonprofit agency* working at local, state, and federal levels for more than four decades, WestEd also develops intervention strategies, products, and services.

Our broad variety of staff enables WestEd to understand and communicate effectively with our equally diverse clientele. Furthermore, our commitment to staff diversity significantly helps advance our agency mission.

We help our clients assess students' knowledge of science, develop mentoring programs, create fair and effective standardized assessments to inform instruction, and improve programs for English learners and students with disabilities.

We also develop and share knowledge with educators and community leaders about youth resiliency and health, school climate, mathematics and literacy, technology to enhance learning, culture, and early childhood.

Browse though the pages of WestEd.org to learn more about our work in Postsecondary and Career Readiness & Success and other areas of work. If your questions aren't answered on our website, including on the Frequently Asked Questions page, please contact us.