School attendance is down, chronic absenteeism is up, and concern for students’ learning is growing. On March 6, 200 cross-sector experts and practitioners who are taking a holistic view of students’ experiences and outcomes in school gathered at an event hosted by the Crown Family School’s Kersten Institute for Urban Education and the Illinois Workforce and Education Research Collaborative (IWERC) to discuss how to address the troubling trend across the city and state.

Key Takeaways:

• In order for data to be used for improvement, there needs to be a shift in adult mindsets and approaches around the use of student experience data.
• Effective strategies exist to support the adult mindset and capacity shifts needed to utilize student experience data for school and classroom improvement.
• It is imperative to engage students as partners in data use and school improvement initiatives.
• Better coordination, communication, and coherence across professional learning and supports are needed to create a more coherent, viable, effecti

Nearly two years after Chicago Public Schools removed police officers from campuses and implemented a new holistic approach to school safety, officials believe that shift could serve as a replicable model for school districts across the country.

Those findings come from a new study from the University of Chicago’s Consortium on School Research and the Center for Childhood Resilience at Lurie Children’s Hospital, which examined the CPS process for removing school resource officers in 2024 and replacing them with a new Whole School Safety plan...

Key Learnings:

• CBO leaders characterized the collaborative process used to develop the Whole School Safety Framework as healing and restorative.
• CPS officials and CBO leaders believed that the Whole School Safety Framework helped ground safety plans in individual communities’ perspectives, facilitated power-sharing, and supported the reimagining of safety.
• District officials and CBO leaders believed that the impact of the Whole School Safety Framework should be assessed along multiple dimensions including student and parent engagement, student outcomes, district

When Chicago closed 50 public schools in 2013, school and city officials framed the decision not only as a choice about budget deficits or half-empty buildings but as a way to give kids a “brighter future.”

Like Cleveland’s school board and officials, they argued that students would reap benefits from the tough decision through added resources and programs that would lead to academic gains...

There is tremendous concern across the country about students’ attendance and learning. Absence rates remain much higher than they were before the Covid-19 pandemic: Nationally, 23% of students still miss more than 10% of school days. That adds up to missing over three weeks of school.

So much has changed in the last few years, and we’ve heard questions about whether the old standards for attendance are still relevant and reasonable. Do young people still need to go to school every day? Can schools have much influence on attendance when so many barriers exist outside of school?

The Research Analyst I will support the work of Consortium research teams as they design and implement studies. The successful candidate will contribute to the organization’s capacity to conduct highly-rigorous quantitative research on the Chicago Public Schools.

Attendance rates improve when a school develops meaningful family engagement, and when students feel safe and have positive relationships with peers and teachers. According to new research from the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research, these positive factors of school climate have become especially impactful since the pandemic.

Findings from the first year of a multi-year study examine the causes, consequences and impacts of absenteeism in Chicago schools in post-pandemic years relative to pre-pandemic years among students in grades 6-11...

How can educators use data strategically to support teaching, learning, and continuous improvement? 

UChicago Consortium Lewis-Sebring Director, Dr. Elaine Allensworth shared a clear framework for using data that matters most for student achievement, from her new book, Using Data to Improve Schools.