LinkedInFacebookEmail

Systemic Equity Review: Identifying and Addressing Inequities and Their Root Causes

Building capacity to develop and implement anti-racist, equity-focused policies and practices that make learning experiences more equitable through transformative, systemwide change.

Our work builds the capacity of state and local educational agencies (SEAs and LEAs) and other education organizations to implement culturally responsive data literacy that centers on the experiences of Black, Indigenous, and other students of color along with students whose identities are intersectional. 

How We Help

Elevating the voices, expertise, needs, and aspirations of those most impacted by—and therefore knowledgeable about—education inequities is foundational to our work. 

To ensure these perspectives are at the heart of your planning efforts, we leverage culturally responsive data inquiry methods to evaluate systemic policies, practices, and procedures and the values they reflect. 

Drawing on our expertise in evidence-based practices, relationships in the field, and our lived experiences as professionals, we guide you through a customized Systemic Review Process to determine opportunities for advancing cultural responsiveness and equity. 

We help you 

  • Build capacity around culturally responsive data literacy, Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Education (CSRE), and research-based root causes and solutions to inequities 
  • Conduct a collaborative Root Cause Analysis to co-identify the beliefs, policies, and practices contributing to inequities in your educational system 
  • Create a customized Systemic Equity Review Report with recommendations co-constructed with your team to improve support for planning and changes to policies and practices contributing to inequities 
  • Present findings and engage community members in review and implementation 

Download the Systemic Equity Review flyer for more details. 


Service Delivery

  • Online and onsite

Who Will Benefit

  • Coaches
  • County office administrators 
  • District administrators 
  • State Educational Agencies

WestEd operated as true partners and collaborators WITH the Austin ISD district staff and community throughout the process. They were nimble and flexible as our district was undergoing a number of challenges and changes. They acted as ‘strategically patient’ thought partners who helped us to have some meaningful discussions about race equity and our commitment to marginalized student groups at the senior leadership level. 

Dr. Stephanie Hawley,
Chief of Organizational Transformation, Austin Independent School District

Featured Experts

David Lopez

David Lopez

David Lopez (he/him) brings a wealth of experience and a deep commitment to advancing educational equity. With over a decade of leadership and expertise…
Expert

Connecting Research With Practice

Systemic change requires deep inquiry into the structures, policies, and practices that contribute to inequitable outcomes for students. Our partners are champions of equity, and we work with them to identify learning questions, study program implementation and outcomes, and make data- and research-informed recommendations to prime programs to achieve the equity-related outcomes they intend.  

Throughout our work we encourage districts to examine data across student groups and at the intersections of marginalized identities, such as race/ethnicity and gender. 

This process facilitates the analysis of the performance, progress, and experiences of specific groups of students, which can help identify inequities and disparities that might otherwise go unnoticed in broader analyses. We bring this approach into our work to improve equity across systems.

More Related to this Service