This summary is derived from a book titled Organizing Schools for Improvement. This book is a synthesis of longitudinal research conducted by the Chicago Consortium for School Research (CCSR) and is considered its seminal publication. CCSR has been studying school reform in Chicago for more than 2 decades under a partnership between the University of Chicago and Chicago Public Schools. The results reported in this book reflect data from school surveys conducted in several hundred Chicago schools over a period of seven years.

Here at the To&Through Project, we work to make data accessible with an aim to inspire action. As a result, we’ve often had the honor of being privy to our colleagues’ personal reflections on the data we share, and their varying perspectives shape the way we think about this work.

Below, we share Eve L. Ewing’s reflections on one of our Data Insights — which summarize years of research from the UChicago Consortium and To&Through Project — and her pushes for thinking about how students’ voices can inform our collective work to improve the system...

Increased technology use can improve communication between schools and families, the report found, but this strategy is only practical if all families have access and support to use this technology.

The pandemic created a real need for parents and educators to be resourceful when communicating with each other as schools shifted to 100% virtual learning spaces, and technology was part of that solution, said David Orta, a senior research analyst at the UChicago Consortium and a co-author of the report...

One of the key focuses of effective family engagement is communication, so important that communicating effectively is the second of National PTA’s National Standards for Family-School Partnerships. The University of Chicago’s Consortium on School Research has just released a research brief on the lessons learned during remote schooling about how to improve school-family communication. The lessons can be used by PTAs as well to strengthen the relationships between families, schools, and PTAs...

Key Findings

1. Colleagues and Collaboration

Massachusetts Institute of Technology now requires students to submit standardized testing scores — beginning with the class of 2027, the university announced earlier this month.

The standardized testing requirement had been suspended for the past two years as the COVID-19 pandemic caused many educational disruptions...

It’s springtime across America, and the familiar sounds fill the air — birds chirping in the early hours, the cracks of baseball bats on opening day and classrooms filled with utter silence. It’s testing time, one of my least-favorite times of year as an educator and as a parent of elementary school-aged children.

In Chicago and beyond, the pandemic strained the ties between schools and families like never before: Some students tuned out virtual instruction, disengaging from learning completely. Once students were back in the classroom, parents craved information and reassurance about how schools were keeping their children safe amid surge after COVID surge.