Debra Benitez is the Director of Migrant Education Services at WestEd. Her responsibilities include advancing WestEd’s migrant education portfolio, including the development and use of an impact assessment infrastructure to strengthen state and local professionals’ data literacy skills, enhance organizational knowledge, and use continuous improvement practices to identify and improve program decisions.
Benitez leads and contributes to quantitative and qualitative research and evaluation projects and provides training and technical assistance related to the application of systems transformation, equitable evaluation, and resource alignment for professionals who instruct and support diverse youth with unique educational needs.
Prior to joining WestEd, Benitez was a special education teacher and evaluation consultant in a variety of K–12 and nonprofit settings in California.