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Vote for LAEP at SXSW EDU

To support others in advancing liberatory education, we believe it is critical to share our learnings. We need your help! LAEP has three proposals up for community vote for SXSW EDU. Before Aug. 20, please visit panelpicker.sxsw.com and vote for LAEP proposals, also individually linked below (you’ll need to create a free account):

STEAM Education’s Power to Liberate Marginalized People

To improve opportunities and wellness for Black, Indigenous, Latino, and other marginalized people, we are using Culturally Responsive and Racially Equitable Evaluation to learn about the power of STEAM to help schools use STEAM education as a path to liberation. We’ve seen how activities like STEAM Night, STEAM recess and STEAM lab attract students and parents to the school in unprecedented ways. With the potential to hone students’ communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking to prepare them for the jobs of the future, can STEAM open critical possibilities in their lives?

Innovative Solutions to Addressing the ECE Workforce Crisis

This session is intended to provide space to learn about and discuss creative and innovative approaches to addressing the workforce crisis that currently exists in early childhood education. The session will begin with a brief overview of a new Los Angeles-based program focused on recruiting, training, and retaining a diverse, well qualified early childhood education workforce, with a particular emphasis on increasing the number people qualified to care for infants and toddlers. Attendees will be encouraged to share their own experiences and offer solutions based on lived experience.

Anti-Racism from the Inside Out

Los Angeles Education Partnership (LAEP) recently partnered with Gina Airey Consulting (GAC) to develop a strategic plan. From restorative justice circles to affinity spaces, the planning process modeled internal anti-racist practices to bolster education equity programs. Through intentional exploration, LAEP leaders were emboldened to infuse the concept of liberation into their organizational vision. By sharing the story of their collaboration, LAEP and GAC hope to agitate other education and nonprofit leaders to lean into antiracism efforts by looking at their internal structures first.


And if you’re on social media, please share with your networks as well. We have posts ready that you can re-share:

JOIN THE MOVEMENT

Support the holistic, diapers-to-diplomas approach to liberatory education.

Eric Barela, Ph.D.

Senior Consultant, Raya Cooper Impact Consulting

Dr. Eric Barela has worked as a measurement & evaluation professional for over 2 decades, helping organizations to better understand and act on their social impact. He’s currently a Senior Consultant with Raya Cooper Impact Consulting and previously worked at Salesforce, where he led efforts to measure the social impact of the company’s work with nonprofits and educational institutions across the globe. He began his career working with the Los Angeles Unified School District and with the nonprofit, Partners in School Innovation. Eric previously served on the Board of the American Evaluation Association and currently serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of the American Journal of Evaluation.

Eric grew up in East LA and was educated in the Montebello Unified School District. He holds a Ph.D. in education from UCLA. He loves a good road trip, with his husband serving as trusty navigator.