Reverse-Engineering Equity. Designing Policy That Works.
Policy Components is a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm specializing in policy design, implementation, and strategic planning for public education systems. Founded by Dr. Etai Mizrav, a nationally recognized expert on the drivers of educational inequality, we bring the independent analytical rigor of a researcher with the practical focus of a hands-on practitioner.
Where others describe problems, we diagnose them. Our signature Components Approach reverse-engineers equity outcomes, tracing observed disparities backward to the specific policies, practices, and decision points that produce them. The result is not a shelf report, but a sequenced action roadmap that tells leadership not just what to address, but when and how.
Our core capabilities include:
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Founded by Etai Mizrav, PhD, Policy Components is built on over a decade of research and practice at the intersection of education policy and equity. Dr. Mizrav is the developer of the SDS Triangle framework (Segregation, Discrimination, Signaling), a peer-reviewed model for understanding the policy drivers of educational inequality, and the Components Approach methodology used in district equity audits nationwide.
He has led and directed full district-wide equity audits as Principal Investigator, developed the Educator Diversity Data Tool adopted by school districts across the country, and has worked directly with the Illinois State Board of Education, Minnesota Department of Education, and Michigan Department of Education on educator workforce strategy. He is the lead researcher on different research projects funded by the U.S. Department of Education evaluation and teaches graduate courses on educational inequality at Georgetown University.
Prior to founding Policy Components, Dr. Mizrav served as Manager of Education Policy and Equity at the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) and as a Senior Researcher at the American Institutes for Research (AIR), where he established AIR's expertise in teacher workforce diversification.
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SDS Triangle Framework
Dr. Mizrav's peer-reviewed research identifies three interconnected forces that drive educational inequality: Segregation, Discrimination, and Signaling. These forces do not operate in isolation. They reinforce one another in ways that make inequity self-perpetuating.
The SDS Triangle is the diagnostic lens through which we examine every domain of an equity audit, from course access and discipline to staffing patterns and family engagement.
Most audits work forward: collect data, describe patterns, offer recommendations. Our methodology works in the opposite direction. The Components Approach starts from observed disparities and traces them backward to the specific policies and practices that produce them. The result is a set of precise, actionable components, each identifying who is affected, where in the system the inequity occurs, what drives it, and what to do about it, assembled into a sequenced equity action roadmap.