• Testimonials

  • "The National Equity Project possesses deep expertise in educational theory, pedagogy, cultural competency, racial justice, and facilitation/mediation… They have a solid infrastructure, built and supported by inspired, super-competent leadership. Their leadership is diverse, forward-thinking, non-hierarchical - modeling the best of what we want in schools… One of the few organizations focused on systemic change within the public school system."

    Philanthropedia Expert Reviews
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Impact

The National Equity Project has a track record of success with a wide variety of partner schools, districts, and nonprofits who are working to improve outcomes for vulnerable students.  We gather a range of qualitative and quantitative data to measure our program impact.  In surveys and interviews, our partners consistently report that our services were essential to their significant improvement. Our external evaluations demonstrate a strong pattern of improvement in educator effectiveness and student achievement.

The National Equity Project has been recognized as “a high-impact nonprofit” in the field of secondary education by a panel of 96 education experts convened by philanthropedia.org.  Only 15 nonprofits received this distinction among over 130 reviewed, and we are the only coaching organization.

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Major Accomplishments

In the past ten years, the National Equity Project (formerly BayCES) has supported over 100 schools, 15 district offices and over 20 nonprofit organizations to improve their capacity and effectiveness to serve vulnerable students and families.  Among our biggest accomplishments:

  • Impact(New!) Download our report, “Partner Schools Closing Gaps,” which provides data showing that partner schools are consistently improving achievement and closing gaps. 
  • Please see our Oakland Outcomes Report for information about our work with our most long-standing district partner, Oakland Unified, which has been the most improved large district in California for the last six years despite a deep financial crisis, state takeover, and several executive leadership changes.  We facilitated the creation of and subsequently supported over 40 new small schools committed to personalization, inviting and safe school cultures, and high quality instruction. We’ve seen  improvements in school climate and student performance overall with stunning gains in several schools. 
  • We supported the comprehensive redesign of two urban school districts (Oakland and Emery Unified) to create systems of equitable resource allocation, accountability, central office support for schools, and community engagement.
  • We have coached over 200 principals and 1,000 other educators to be equity leaders in education with consistently high levels of partner satisfaction and reported increases in efficacy.
  • We have received over $30 million in competitive national and local grants for school improvement and district redesign initiatives.

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Participant and Peer Feedback on Impact

Our partners report increased leadership and team efficacy as a result of National Equity Project coaching, as well as deep shifts in commitment and competence to address longstanding inequities. Administrators, principals, and teachers report greatly increased ability to improve teaching and learning. Selected feedback on impact includes:

  • Teachers, Leaders & Teams“It was nice to see growth from the pre and post tests. The strategies we developed (and that the coach helped us implement) are what teaching is all about. The verbatim scripts of my class (taken by the coach) and the partnership model with students shifted my thinking about my role is as a teacher.” – Partnerships for Learning teacher participant
  • “We have gotten rid of the excuses and really focused on making positive changes. The students each of us have focused on, that have been struggling, have made improvements. Some are not academic, but rather in how they view school or themselves. But I can definitely see a difference.” – Partnerships for Learning teacher participant
  • “The National Equity Project facilitates deep change in school and community settings. By investing in long-term and deep relationship-building and structured, reflective conversations with educators and community members, the National Equity Project guides participants to identify deep-seated problems, often ones that are difficult to discuss (like personal prejudices that inhibit high expectation setting for poor students of color), and find solutions to the issues. The collective solutions are prioritized into a strategy for communities to use on a path to improvement and excellence.” – Philanthropedia expert reviewer
  • “[The coaching] really changed my classroom in a positive way that wasn’t difficult for me to do. And students came to understand assessment as a time for me to learn from them. They’re much more comfortable now with showing me where they need help — it’s not a punitive process anymore, it’s changed from ‘teach and test’ to a partnership of learning.” – Partnerships for Learning teacher participant
  • “We used to have miserable parent nights. Parents and students would sit there while we berated them for not working hard enough. That’s how we thought it was supposed to go. Now students present to their parents what they’ve learned over the semester and the teacher adds highlights. It’s an entirely different orientation where learning is embraced in positive relationships, not the ‘discipline and punish’ approach of traditional schools.” - School equity coaching partner
  • “The biggest impact has been that I can have deeper, more meaningful conversations around equity with my peers. I now have a way to interact with personnel at the district level (I am at a site) around equity that I did not have before.” - Leading for Equity Institute participant

 

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