About This Website
This online platform has been created by the Midwest and Plains Equity Assistance Center to provide State Education Agencies (SEAs) staff with equity-oriented resources. The Great Lakes Equity Center was established by Dr. Kathleen King Thorius and colleagues in 2011 at the Indiana University School of Education, as an Equity Assistance Center (formerly Desegregation Assistance) funded by the United States Department of Education. As of 2016, the Great Lakes Equity Center re-structured as an organizational hub for an array of research, technical assistance, and educational resource development projects, including the Midwest and Plains (MAP) Equity Assistance Center. Collectively, we are committed to school and system transformation toward racial, disability, and other forms of educational justice: the MAP Center provides three-tiers of technical assistance related to race, sex, national origin, and religion desegregation to K-12 public education agencies in a 13-state region free-of-charge; the Great Lakes Equity Center continues to partner with community, non-profit, and private organizations across the U.S. on equity-driven systemic transformation, professional learning, and collaborative inquiry projects.
SEA Resources
- Equity in Science in EducationThis resource has additional resources embedded to help assist science educators with being sure science lessons are relevant to every student—increasing the possibility of every student engaging and succeeding in science education.
- Culturally Responsive Mathematics Teaching—Lesson Analysis ToolThis tool acts as a rubric for math educator’s lessons to ensure equitability within the lesson, increasing the possibility of every student engaging and succeeding in math education.
- Serving Students Experiencing Homelessness under Title I, Part AThis document is specific to serving homesless students under ESSA. Students experiencing homelessness is a lesser explored subject, but is a very prevalent issue that can cause barriers for student success.
- Critical Practices for Anti-Bias EducationThis resource is a comprehensive guide specific to educators who want to be sure they are enacting critical practices in the learning environment. In this way, the educator can ensure every student succeeds.
- Policy Equity Analysis ToolkitThis toolkit is critical in actively engaging in an in-depth analysis of systemic policies,towards equity.
- Lessons from NCLB for the Every Student Succeeds ActThis document focuses on the importance of the shift from NCLB’s norms, towards a more equitable focus of ESSA. It also provides some compare and contrast, and rationale for why policies had to shift and change.
- Equity Dispatch: The Legacy of Civil Rights in the Every Student Succeeds ActThis newsletter provides foundational information about ESSA’s roots in civil rights legislation—which is relates directly to equity-centered practices.
- Equity Dispatch: State Equity Leaders Summit: Leveraging ESSA to Support Equity-Focused School TransformationThis newsletter provides insight into the very real concerns of state leaders in regards to equity in ESSA, and provides some Center guidance on preparing to have these conversations.
Summit Presentations
MAP Center at Work
Contact the MAP Center
902 W. New York Street ES3116
Indianapolis, IN 46202-5155