Education for Excellence Flypaper

When it comes to using data to enact meaningful changes at the school level, few of us know where to begin. That’s why the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research (UChicago Consortium) just published a new report based on its own experiences translating research to the classroom. The paper, titled “Practice-Driven Data” and written by Eliza Moeller, Alex Seeskin, and Jenny Nagaoka, draws best practices from UChicago’s partnership with the Chicago Public School system (CPS) and the Network for College Success (NCS) to improve educational attainment for Chicago high schoolers. It is particularly timely given the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s current effort to fund similar “school improvement networks” nationwide.

The paper lays out five lessons the partnership has learned since its formation in 2006. The examples they use and the recommendations they make are meant to be scalable, but the authors do note that every locality will face unique circumstances that may affect how they collect and analyze data in their own district...