University of Southern California

The USC Rossier School of Education prepares leaders to achieve educational equity through practice, research, and policy, and it works to improve learning opportunities and outcomes for all students. Rossier also works to address the disparities that have affected historically marginalized groups. Through the school’s innovative thinking and research, it strives to solve the most intractable educational problems at the local, state, and regional levels. This planning grant will support the development of a communications initiative focused on education equity. (Strategy: K-12 Teaching and Learning)

The University of Southern California’s Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research conducts the Understanding America Study, a nationally representative survey of approximately 8,000 households. The study includes a subsample of households with at least one K-12 child in the home. In addition to fielding questions about the ongoing impact of COVID-19, Dornsife is collecting new survey data from parents to deepen the survey’s focus on civic and racial topics. This grant supports the Dornsife Center’s survey research efforts, including the analysis and dissemination of results. (Strategy: K-12 Teaching and Learning)

USC’s Equity Research Institute (ERI) provides data and analysis to power social change. ERI produces research and facilitates discussions on issues of the economic, environmental, and social conditions facing low-income communities and immigrant populations — and the social movements that are working to change those conditions. ERI, in partnership with the Institute for Social Transformation at UC Santa Cruz, is working on a theory, narrative, and policy platform of “solidarity economics,” which addresses widening income inequality, rising economic insecurities, and growing social and racial fragmentation, while also promoting innovation and economic growth. It approaches this work in collaboration with social movement organizers and change-makers seeking to make solidarity economics a reality.