Anti-Racist Evaluation Strategies: A Guide for Evaluation Teams
Evaluating programs, practices, and interventions can help determine what is working well, what can be improved, and what the impact is on the communities served. Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) often participate in the programs being evaluated, but they are largely excluded from being actively involved in the evaluation process as partners or as members of the evaluation team.
Meanwhile, many of the institutions that fund or conduct program evaluations are predominantly white and often employ mainstream evaluation approaches, perspectives, and methods, which can perpetuate the racial biases and unequal power dynamics that exist in U.S. society.
This guide was developed to help evaluation teams increase their awareness of racism in evaluation and to help teams employ strategies to conduct anti-racist evaluations. While this guide specifically addresses anti-racist evaluation, the content is also informed by literature on culturally responsive and equitable research and evaluation, including Reflections on Applying Principles of Equitable Evaluation from the Justice and Prevention Research Center at WestEd.
This guide’s overarching themes include engaging in anti-racist self-reflection and learning; forming collaborative and equitable partnerships; and considering cultural, historical, and political contexts.
The Anti-Racist Evaluation Strategies Guide is organized into five evaluation stages:
- Preparing for the evaluation
- Designing the evaluation
- Gathering, analyzing, and interpreting data
- Planning and developing products
- Disseminating the findings
For each of these stages, the guide presents specific anti-racist strategies for evaluation teams to use, along with questions that can guide them in employing these strategies.
Acknowledgements: The WestEd team members who developed this guide are Kimkinyona Cully, Katie D’Silva, Lenay Dunn, Kylie Flynn, Tony Fong, Michelle Garcia, Ricky Herzog, Sylvia Kwon, Charlie Levin, Felisa Nobles, Rose Owens-West, Mary Rauner, Katie Salguero, Alexis Stern, and Jacquelyn Tran. The team is grateful to our WestEd colleagues Deb Benitez, Alicia Bowman, Becca Klarin, Susan Mundry, Anthony Petrosino, Jaclyn Tejwani, and Jenna Terrell, who strengthened the content of the guide through their careful review and helpful suggestions.
View our Research and Evaluation page for more information about our work.
Evidence-Based Improvement: A Guide for States to Strengthen Their Frameworks and Supports Aligned to the Evidence Requirements of ESSA
Click the download link to the left to download a complete PDF version of the guide and tools. Individual tools are available in MS Word format below.
One of the broad intents of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is to encourage evidence-based decision-making as standard practice. This guide provides an initial set of tools to help states and school districts understand and plan for implementing evidence-based improvement strategies.
The following six tools are provided:
- SEA Inventory of Current Practice guides a state education agency (SEA) to take stock of its current continuous improvement practice, especially around evidence-based decision-making.
- LEA Inventory of Current Practice is similar to the above tool, but designed for local education agencies (LEAs).
- SEA Guidance for Evidence-Based Interventions helps a state to reflect on how it will provide guidance to LEAs on evidence-based interventions.
- LEA Guidance for Evidence-Based Interventions is similar to the tool above, but designed for LEAs.
- Intervention Evidence Review guides the review and comparison of interventions that target an identified need.
- Comparing Evidence-Based Interventions guides the determination about the degree to which a particular intervention aligns with a given context.
We welcome your feedback and suggestions, and encourage you to share your experiences and any modifications you make to the tools. We will incorporate your ideas and lessons learned in future versions of this guide, including additional tools.
Family Guide to Supporting Young People’s Mental Health and Well-Being: Information, Tips, and Resources
Project Cal-Well, a cross-agency mental health initiative led by the California Department of Education, produced this easy-to-use guide with input from families, educators, mental health professionals, and youth. The guide helps parents, other adult family members, and caregivers support the overall well-being and mental health of school-aged children. It offers information about the social and emotional development of young people and explains warning signs that may signal mental health challenges. It equips caregivers with targeted strategies, tools, and resources that help them advocate for their family, address each child’s specific needs, and access professional help.
Key topics and tips include:
-
- conversation starters to help open the lines of communication with children and teens;
- enjoyable ways to connect, develop wellness routines, and create well-being practices as a family;
- information addressing mental health myths, including the specific needs and increased challenges facing young people who identify as LGBTQ+;
- information on how to recognize signs that a child is bullying or being bullied;
- tools to create a family media plan that sets boundaries around technology and gives children the skills to be online safely using age-appropriate platforms; and
- advice for partnering with schools to access mental health and family wellness resources and supports.
Share This Guide
Share this guide with families in your district! The authors recommend providing this guide alongside referrals to local resources to support your community.
The Family Guide to Supporting Young People’s Mental Health and Well-Being can be shared with this one-page handout containing a QR code for a digital copy of the guide and online resources. Â
Check out the Spanish-language version of the guide.
Esta guĂa fácil de usar ayuda a los padres y los cuidadores a apoyar el bienestar general y la salud mental de los niños y jĂłvenes. Equipa a los cuidadores con estrategias, herramientas y recursos especĂficos.
Facilitating Improvement in Teacher Practice: Professional Learning Modules
This resource collection is designed for facilitators of professional learning, such as district coaches, principals, site-based coaches, and teacher leaders. The modules aim to prepare these facilitators to support teachers in improving Tier 1 instruction. Specifically, facilitators will learn to implement continuous improvement processes, guided by goals and data, and strengthen teacher collaboration.
The intended outcomes of the module series are to
- Build the capacity of facilitators to lead teacher learning and develop teams
- Support the establishment of collaborative structures and routines that embed continuous improvement methods and improve teacher practice
- Provide guidance for developing a culture of collaboration that supports transparency and organizational learning
This resource collection consists of eight learning modules, each of which has a trainer slide deck, with suggested speaker notes, and a participant workbook. Additionally, there are four videos to supplement the series. Figure 1 shows the learning arc of the modules—with the green parts of the arrow representing setting up the context and developing the team and the purple parts of the arrow representing phases of the inquiry cycle.
Introductory Materials
Learning Modules Trainer’s Guide
This guide includes learning targets, key points, material lists and preparation tips for each of the eight modules. (Note: Trainers’ speaking notes are included in the slide decks below.)
Learning Huddles: Design and Facilitation Tips
This resource provides an overview of learning huddles, a key component of the teacher inquiry cycle that is introduced in the modules. Included in this resource are examples of learning huddle discussion protocols and tips for facilitating learning huddles.
Facilitating Improvement Professional Learning Series
This video introduces viewers to the Facilitating Improvement In Teacher Practice professional learning modules and provides an overview of continuous improvement. Learn about key components of the teacher inquiry cycle and how teacher inquiry can support the improvement of instruction.
Learning to Improve Instruction: One Team’s Story
Learn about a teacher team’s inquiry process and how the teacher inquiry cycle and improvement questions supported them to examine their practice and improve their writing instruction.
Learning Modules
Module 1: Framing the Series
Module 1 provides an overview of the learning series, introduces continuous improvement, and launches the learning community. Key topics include learning about continuous improvement and why it’s important, defining success in schools and school systems, and developing community agreements.
Module 2: Systems Change
In Module 2, participants learn about systems and how they can improve them, explore the role of equity in systems, and begin to develop a theory of improvement. Key topics include defining a system, seeing your system, surfacing inequities, and improving systems.
- Module 2 Facilitator Slides (PPT)
- Module 2 Participant Workbook (PDF)
- Improving School Systems Video (This video, designed to accompany Module 2, highlights the importance of developing a system lens in improvement work.)
- Video Transcript (PDF)
Module 3: Leading Improvement Work
In Module 3, participants learn about routines and structures of continuous improvement, explore strategies for developing teams, and investigate their role as facilitators of improvement. Key topics include leading a team, promoting positive group dynamics and productive discourse, and facilitating effective meetings.
Module 4: Needs Assessment and Problem Identification
In Module 4, participants learn about methods for conducting needs assessments and identifying a high-leverage problem to solve. Key topics include reviewing data, examining processes, conducting empathy interviews, and understanding the impacts of scope and scale in an improvement effort.
Module 5: Root Cause Analysis and Challenging Assumptions
In Module 5, participants learn about ways to examine the root causes of problems and discuss the importance of challenging assumptions. Key topics include root cause analyses, methods for determining root causes, and surfacing mental models.
Module 6: Prototyping Change Ideas
Module 6 provides guidance for identifying a change idea and developing a prototype for improvement. Participants will learn about the difference between a change idea and a prototype, discuss guidelines for selecting change ideas, and practice developing a prototype.
- Module 6 Facilitator Slides (PPT)
- Module 6 Participant Workbook (PDF)
- Prototyping Ideas for Change Video (This video, designed to accompany Module 6, explains what a change idea is and how to prototype a classroom artifact to improve instruction and student outcomes.)
- Video Transcript (PDF)
Module 7: Engaging in Inquiry Cycles
In Module 7, participants learn about the steps of the teacher inquiry process and how rapid testing cycles can help an organization learn. Key topics include engaging in rapid cycles of improvement, an introduction to PDSA (plan-do-study-act) cycles, facilitating learning huddles, and building confidence in changes.
Module 8: Measuring Improvement
In Module 8, participants learn about using data to measure improvement and explore different types of data visualization for teacher inquiry. Key topics include measuring improvement, monitoring progress, gathering data, turning data into information, and implementing and sustaining improvements.
Related Resources
The PITC Curriculum
The PITC Curriculum Supports Discovery, Amazement, and Marvel for Infants and Toddlers
For more information about the new PITC Curriculum, or to schedule curriculum implementation training, please contact Amber Morabito.
Enhancing the relationship-based, responsive approach to early care promoted by the Program for Infant/Toddler Care (PITC), new PITC Curriculum planning tools and strategies support the efforts of family care providers and center-based teachers to facilitate high-quality individualized learning and healthy development for children from 0-3.
Unique to the PITC Curriculum is a planning process based on reflection, observation, and documentation of play and learning that respects each child’s developing abilities, individual strengths and needs, family culture(s), and language(s). This planning process helps teachers deepen understanding, share meaning, support learning, and strengthen meaningful, caring relationships with infants and toddlers.
What’s Included?
The PITC Curriculum Book
Introduction to the PITC Curriculum
Part 1: The Philosophical Foundations of the PITC Curriculum
Chapter 1: Curriculum That Connects with the Infant’s Learning Agenda
Chapter 2: The First Step: Relationship Planning
Chapter 3: An Overview of the PITC Approach to Curriculum Planning
Chapter 4: Program Leader Support for Curriculum Planning
Chapter 5: How We Know the PITC Curriculum Is Working
Part 2: PITC Curriculum Planning
Chapter 6: Curriculum Planning Step by Step and Moment by Moment
Chapter 7: The Reflective Curriculum Planning Process
Chapter 8: The PITC Curriculum Planning Tools
Chapter 9: Small Group and Individual Goal Planning
Chapter 10: Rich Learning Environments and Developmentally Appropriate Routines
Chapter 11: Necessary Ingredients, Inquiry, Wonder, and Reflection
Appendices
Appendix A: PITC Curriculum Planning Tool
Appendix B: PITC Curriculum Fidelity Tool
Appendix C: Crosswalk Between the Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework (ELOF) and the California Infant/Toddler Learning & Development Foundations
Appendix D: Examples and Samples of PITC Curriculum Planning Resources
The PITC Learning Progressions Book
Includes five domains: Approaches to Learning, Social and Emotional Development, Language and Communication, Cognition, and Perceptual, Motor, and Physical Development
 Seven PITC Caregiver Guides (Published by CDE)
A Guide to Cognitive Development and Learning (Second Edition)
A Guide to Creating Partnerships with Families (Second Edition)
A Guide to Social-Emotional Growth and Socialization (Second Edition)
A Guide to Culturally Sensitive Care (Second Edition)
A Guide to Language Development and Communication (Second Edition)
A Guide to Routines (Second Edition)
A Guide to Setting Up Environments (Second Edition)
The PITC Curriculum can be purchased and used independently, but is most effective when used in conjunction with dynamic PITC Curriculum Implementation Training, led by experts in early learning and care.
Training includes:
- Engaging, interactive, knowledgeable support facilitated by a PITC-authorized trainer (four 2-hour sessions)
- High-quality resources and materials to extend the curriculum and enhance learning and participation in training
- Expanded technical assistance to support your implementation
For more information about the new PITC Curriculum or to schedule curriculum implementation training, please contact Amber Morabito.Â
Creating a Culture of Care: A Guide for Education Leaders to Develop Systems and Structures That Support Educator Well-Being
Educator well-being is often approached in terms of self-care, with an overreliance on individual strategies and supports for well-being. Although well-intentioned, this approach can inadvertently put the onus on individuals to heal and care for themselves, ignoring the impacts of systems and structures on individual and collective well-being.
This guide is for education leaders at all levels—local, regional, and state—in charge of supporting their education staff. It offers practical information and guidance on educator well-being in these ever-challenging times. The guide includes the following sections to help education leaders co-create educational environments that are systems of well-being:
- Key Concepts: the “what” and “why,” providing background information on the ecological systems framework and the root causes of and conditions for well-being; the relationship between brains, bodies, behaviors, and environments; influences of bias and perception on educator well-being; and shifting systems
- Tips for Using the Strategies: the foundational elements of applying the guide’s strategies
- Strategies: the “how,” offering some ways to rethink and redesign education systems as well as some preventative and restorative strategies, with specific examples
- References: works cited throughout the guide
In Brief: Creating a Culture of Care
This summary document features highlights from the guide and an infographic, which depicts a shift from traditional ways of addressing educator burnout toward more inclusive, sustainable approaches that are suggested in the guide.
District Guide for Creating Indicators for Early Warning Systems
This guide, prepared by American Institutes for Research for REL West, provides concrete advice to help school districts review student data or records, identify student characteristics and behaviors that are related to education outcomes, and make sound decisions in developing or refining accurate early warning indicators.
The guide focuses on the foundation for an early warning system for dropout prevention: understanding which locally informed indicators best predict students at risk of not achieving desired graduation outcomes, then building those indicators to match the local need.
Organized into seven sections, the guide:
- Reviews commonly used early warning indicators and summarizes the research behind these indicators
- Explains the process to select a student sample, explore the local data sources, and prepare a dataset for analysis
- Discusses simple descriptive ways to understand the distributions of potential predictor and outcome variables with the local context
- Provides examples of descriptive ways to understand the relationships between potential indicators and graduation outcomes
- Outlines the steps needed to establish appropriate cut points for early warning indicators
- Examines the rationale and steps for comparing early warning indicators
- Discusses how to examine the reliability and validity of indicators or a combination of indicators
The sections guide users through the steps involved in developing or refining early warning indicators that reflect their own local context. Tables, graphs, and templates are included as practical examples.
Making Sense of SCIENCE: Matter for Teachers of Grades 5-12 (Facilitator Guide Bundle), Second Edition
Making Sense of SCIENCE (MSS) helps teachers gain a solid grasp of challenging science concepts, analyze effective teaching practices, and explore how literacy supports impact learning.
The activities and approach in this second edition of the Making Sense of SCIENCE: Matter bundle supports existing standards-based curricula, are based on a decade of research, and have been nationally field-tested with teachers and vetted by scientists.
The course materials are designed to:
- Engage teachers in collaborative, adult-level science learning that models the multidimensional, discourse-rich practices found in productive science classrooms
- Equip teachers with the deep content knowledge and strong pedagogical skills needed to foster inspirational and impactful student-driven learning
- Empower teachers to reflect on and improve their practice with tools that scaffold respectful and collaborative professional learning communities
In this second edition, the authors further emphasize engaging students in discourse-rich practices, systems thinking, the development of scientific explanations, and phenomena-based learning.
The authors have also updated the content and streamlined the learning to make the course even more efficient, allowing for added time to reflect on teaching and to explore the everyday applications of this fascinating science.
 The Facilitator Guide Bundle includes:
- The Matter Facilitator Guide, which contains extensive background information and detailed procedures for teacher educators
- The Matter Teacher Book, which contains teaching cases of actual classroom practice, science background information, and guided investigations that explore matter in conjunction with related literacy supports and teaching practices
- Making Sense of Student Work: A Protocol for Teacher Collaboration, designed to support teachers in collaboratively examining and learning from their students’ work
- Downloadable digital resources that contain all course materials — including the eBook edition of Making Sense of Student Work: A Protocol for Teacher Collaboration — and the Matter Formative Assessment Task Bank
Also Available Separately
- Teacher Book Bundle: Contains the Teacher Book, Making Sense of Student Work: A Protocol for Teacher Collaboration, and a digital download that includes all course handouts, additional classroom resources, the eBook edition of Making Sense of Student Work: A Protocol for Teacher Collaboration, and the Matter Formative Assessment Task Bank
- Charts: Single-use 24″ x 32″ wall charts for facilitators to anchor discussions and provide a visual archive of teachers’ thinking in the Teacher Course
- Formative Assessment Task Bank: Twenty formative assessment tasks for grades 5–12 students
Visit Making Sense of SCIENCE for more information about professional development services and resources.
Math Course Pathway Guides for Parents and Students
Research shows students who take four years of high school math are better prepared for college coursework. Therefore, it is important that parents and students work closely with teachers and school counselors to map out a course-taking plan that will best support academic success in postsecondary school.
These planning guides, developed by REL West, are designed to guide and inform conversations among parents, students, teachers, and/or school counselors, with the goal of ensuring students enroll in the necessary math courses to set them on the path to college success.
The two-page guides provide:
- Information on what the experts say about the importance of four years of high school math
- Questions to ask school counselors and teachers
- Space to record important contacts and dates
- Checklist of helpful documents
- Infographic detailing the standard high school math pathways, from grade 6 to grade 12
- Space to map the student’s math course sequence
Download the appropriate guide based on language preference; specific math pathway offered at your student’s school or district (integrated or traditional); and a math sample sequence of math courses: Math Analysis, Precalculus, or Statistics.
Integrated Math Pathways
- Math Analysis – English | Chinese | Spanish | Vietnamese
- Precalculus & Trigonometry – English | Chinese | Spanish | Vietnamese
- Statistics – English | Chinese | Spanish | Vietnamese
Traditional Math Pathways
- Math Analysis – English | Chinese | Spanish | Vietnamese
- Precalculus & Trigonometry – English | Chinese | Spanish | Vietnamese
- Statistics – English | Chinese | Spanish | Vietnamese
Serving the Whole Person: An Alignment and Coherence Guide for Local Education Agencies
Educators in K–12 school systems are increasingly acknowledging the importance of serving the “whole person” as an essential foundation for achieving equitable outcomes. The guide is based on the idea that equitable outcomes are more likely to result when whole-person initiatives are implemented in an aligned and coherent way.
If educators at every level of the K–12 system — from the state level to the classroom — work in aligned and coherent ways to sustain the conditions that support whole-person learning and development, every student will have experiences that support personal purpose, healthy relationships, a sense of place in community, success in school and the workplace, and engaged citizenship.
This Alignment and Coherence Guide’s central purpose is to help local education agency (LEA) leaders implement conditions for equitable learning and development for students, families, and educators, through their work to improve the alignment and coherence of their whole-person initiatives.
With this guide, leaders will:
- Understand what serving the whole person means, and how this work can contribute to equitable outcomes for students, their families, and their communities.
- Connect their district or school whole-person initiatives to a broader vision for whole-person outcomes.
- Tailor the implementation of whole-person initiatives so that they are more aligned and coherent.
- Communicate — in a clear and compelling way — and about why and how their district or school serves the whole person.
This comprehensive, adaptable, research-informed, and field-tested guide is also the basis of a related WestEd service. Discover how our technical assistance team can lead you through a structured yet flexible process to improve the alignment and coherence of whole-person efforts.