OCBA Policy Research & Recommendations
The OCBA provides Masters, PhD, and Law students with for-credit public policy internships addressing our strategic priorities. The research is conducted jointly with state partners, and the Governor’s Office to study data, best practices, effective policies, literature review, analyze gaps, suggest remedies and produce reports used by the Advocacy Commissions and their partners to inform new policies, develop strategic approaches and craft bills that improve the success of African American and Black communities statewide.
2018: Policy Analysis Research Report: Responding to Disproportionate Disciplinary Action with Culturally Relevant Education Strategies in Oregon K-12 Public Schools
Addressing racial/ethnic disproportionality in discipline involves applying culturally relevant practices as comprehensive strategic alternatives to exclusionary discipline and project grant outcomes in Oregon schools. Partners: OCBA, Oregon Department of Education (ODE), PSU Graduate School of Education, Governor’s Office. See the research outcomes here:
Report and
Presentation
2016-17: Effective Restorative Justice Practices that Reduce Conflict and Disproportionate Discipline for Students of Color
To inform the Oregon Department of Education’s recommendations for school discipline policies statewide, the OCBA partnered with ODE to research best practices in school practices of Restorative Justice. ODE and OCBA cosponsored a law externship for a 3L law student to conduct the research and provide findings and recommendations to ODE’s School Discipline Advisory Council (OSDAC) on promoting models that guide students in handling conflict with mediation/restorative practices, reducing use of exclusionary discipline. Partners: OCBA, Oregon Department of Education (ODE), OSDAC, Governor’s Office.
Ongoing: Integrating Immigrants’ Credentials into the Oregon Economy
OCBA partnered in OCAPIA’s research on best practices and policies in Oregon and nationally that promote effective workforce integration of immigrants with professional license/trades certification from other nations. OCBA Chair Morris brought in the Dental Board on its best practices in immigrant credentialing, and OCBA Commissioner Musse Olol participated in a community forum on the subject lead by Senator Dembrow and OCAPIA Chair Mari Watanabe, in partnership with the Oregon Workforce Investment Board, and the Governor’s Policy Advisor on Workforce. The participants, comprised of leaders in Oregon’s primary immigrant communities and refugee groups, outlined the key challenges to professionals to credentialing in health related and other fields who received their training internationally and wish to practice in Oregon. The researcher, a Fulbright scholar from Morocco at Oregon State University, built on the outcomes of the forum to develop comparisons of Oregon credentialing programs in health professions, an overview of best practices in credentialing nationally, and in Canada, and conducted a series of interviews with immigrant individuals who have experienced the credentialing process in Oregon, focused on significant barriers and ways to improve. Partners: OCAPIA, OCBA, Partners in Diversity (PID), Oregon Workforce Investment Board (OWIB), the Governor’s Office.
ADD SARA'S REPORT FIRST and then ENNADA'S.
”Anecdotal evidence gets our attention, but when it comes to making policy decisions, there is a need for a sense of scale, for details to back up the stories. … the sound, comprehensive studies now emerging from the internship program at the office of the Advocacy Commissions… have increased the capacity, the efficiency and the effectiveness of the commissions themselves, and their value to the communities they represent and the State as a whole.”
- (Senator) Lew Frederick
OCBA's Applied Public Policy Research