Apply Now for EiPLC Cohort 2

Request for Applications: 2023-2025 Technical Assistance Program to Center Racial Equity in Data Integration Efforts with Education Agencies

Cross-sector data sharing can transform information about individuals into actionable intelligence that can be used to understand student needs, improve schools, and build more just communities. Yet, use of cross-sector data can also reinforce legacies of racist policies and produce inequitable resource allocation, access, and outcomes. To avoid this, we must embed questions and practices of racial equity throughout the data life cycle, and provide mechanisms for community voice and input.

AISP’s Equity in Practice Learning Community (EiPLC) is designed to help data sharing efforts implement and build on the promising practices identified in our Toolkit for Centering Racial Equity in Data Integration. Together, we aim to create a new kind of data infrastructure that shares power and knowledge with communities.

 View the RFA and apply here. Applications are due by March 31, 2023 at 5pm ET.

Learn More About this Opportunity

Cohort 2 of our Equity in Practice Learning Community will support sites working to build, test, and implement new models for incorporating community voice in key decisions about cross-sector data use, with an emphasis on educational equity and racial justice.  

AISP hosted an informational webinar about the RFA on February 23 at 12pm ET. Access the recording here

Selected sites will receive:

  • Training and coaching from experienced practitioners.
  • A customized roadmap for sustainability of data infrastructure and partnerships. 
  • Access to a rich community of peers and mentors working at the intersection of data integration and racial equity.
  • Tuition, travel, lodging and meals for two 2.5 day, in-person convenings for site teams of up to four people.
  • Direct grants of $50K to support community participation.

AISP is seeking integrated data systems (IDS) and other public sector data collaborations that are committed to advancing educational and racial equity across the data lifecycle. Applicants must: 

  • Involve a government agency as either the lead or co-lead, but may also include partners from universities, non-profits, foundations, and advocacy groups.
  • Show the ability to integrate and use cross-sector data on educational equity (at the individual, person level) to support social policy planning and analysis.
  • Have an established partnership with a local or state education agency (if not the lead entity).
  • Demonstrate a commitment to racial equity in data integration and across the data life cycle. 

Applicants may be located anywhere in the United States and working at the state, local, or tribal level. Current members of the AISP Network are welcome to apply and will be evaluated by the same standards as all applicants. Please explore the RFA and view a recording of the informal webinar

  • February 23: Optional informational webinar at 12pm ET. View recording here.
  • March 31: Applications due. See RFA for submission details.
  • April 24-28: Video conference interviews with selected finalists.
  • May 5: Selected Equity in Practice Learning Community members notified.
  • June 2023: Activities begin.
  • October 2023: First cohort convening! 

Access a list of frequently asked questions and their answers here. For additional questions, please email Jessie Rios Benitez at jessierb@upenn.edu. The last day to submit questions is March 24. 

Our Commitment to Racial Equity

The ethical (re)use of administrative data and the promotion of strong, collaborative governance as the foundation of all data sharing and integration has long been the focus of our work. We have expanded that focus: centering racial equity is now a core dimension of all our initiatives. We are committed to helping the growing field of integrated data systems do the same. 

In collaboration with a diverse workgroup of civic data stakeholders, we have co-created strategies and identified best practices to center racial equity in data integration efforts. A Toolkit for Centering Racial Equity Throughout Data Integration advances a vision for a new kind of data infrastructure that shares power with communities through data access and use. The Equity in Practice Learning Community is our next step towards putting these promising practices into action.

Learn more about EiPLC Cohort 1.

The Equity in Practice Learning Community is generously funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, and the Ford Foundation

Centering racial equity is now a core dimension of all our initiatives. We are committed to helping the growing field of integrated data systems do the same.

Learn more and apply today.

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