In a city with both a long history and present reality of segregation and systemic racism, access to high quality education in Chicago has never been equitable. Over the past several years, Chicago’s educators and community leaders have elevated an all-too-delayed dialogue about the systematic barriers facing communities of color, and we hope our annual look at the attainment of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students on five key milestones can contribute to that discourse.

Chicago has seen significant growth in its high school graduation and college enrollment rates in recent years — but little headway in the number of students who earn degrees.

Slightly more than 40% of Chicago Public Schools students go to four-year colleges, and only half of them graduate. Completion rates were substantially lower for students attending two-year colleges...

When public school students in Illinois returned to their lessons this year, education was undeniably different. The pandemic has brought to the forefront the racial and economic inequities that have long existed in public education. Students also returned to class following a summer of social unrest over the killings of a number of black people at the hands of police.

Parents are often stymied by the process of picking a good school for their kids. Word-of-mouth recommendations can be misleading. High test scores provide only a limited picture of a school’s effectiveness since they often reflect family income with wealthier students scoring better. Northwestern University economist C.

Key Findings

• Pre-k attendance improved significantly with the initiative, surpassing comparison schools and the district average.
• Attendance and school climate improved over time in elementary schools, matching or surpassing the district average, not significantly more than comparison schools.
• Test scores in grades 2-8 improved along with the districtwide improvements.
• Students fared better in the transition to high school—reducing the gap with the district average but not closing it—and at similar rates as comparison schools.
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Key Findings

• The CDDA ID enables the linkage of CPS and NSC data to ISBE and ICCB data through the ILDS, providing valuable additional information on CPS graduates’ two-year college outcomes.
• NSC appears to be a reliable source of data on CPS graduates’ two-year enrollment and completion of any credential in a two-year college.
• NSC data cannot be used to calculate completion rates of CPS graduates’ specific credential types from two-year colleges, including associate degrees.
• Most CPS graduates with blank or uncategorizable completions in the NSC

Key Findings

Freshman OnTrack

Students in Chicago and many in the suburbs have been out of the classroom for months now because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But a recent report by McKinsey and Company found that with remote learning, students -- on average -- are likely to have experienced nine months of learning loss in math...