Private fundraising in Chicago Public Schools — who wins and who loses?

On a hot Friday afternoon, students at Lenart Regional Gifted Center dance with zest in the parking lot as a DJ plays music. They are excited to get out of their public school classrooms for a walkathon, a fundraiser for the school in Chicago’s West Chatham neighborhood on the South Side.

Three times around the school equals a mile, and for each mile students earn money for their school. So far, the kindergarten class is in the lead, pulling in $1,000 in the last hour...

Rosa Ramirez Richter

Rosa is the Director of Partnerships and Engagement at the UChicago Consortium. She leads the UChicago Consortium’s strategic collaboration efforts in our research-practice partnership with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and engages with a broad range of stakeholders to support the impact and use of Consortium research for improving practice and policy. This includes families of CPS students; teachers and school administrators; local and national education nonprofits; local, state, and national policymakers, and others.

Chicago data stories

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...

Report examines how tech can improve school-family engagement

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...

Improving school-family communication and engagement

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...

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