Key Findings

• The findings in this report do not provide a simple explanation for why young women earned higher grades than young men in ninth-grade math.

Among all the missteps and broken promises kids and families experienced when Chicago closed 50 schools a decade ago, the worst is this: The children who were displaced didn’t end up better off, in schools that were higher-performing.

That was the most important goal of the closures — and the city failed to reach it...

When Chicago officials were closing Henson Elementary in North Lawndale, Archie Hayes was sad that he might never see his friends or teachers again. But he assumed his next school would be a big improvement.

“If there’s not that many students here or enough going on in this school, what [can] the next school do better?” Hayes remembers wondering in fourth grade...

Thien Vo, a senior at Uplift Community High School on Chicago’s North Side, became the first in his family to earn a college degree this month, leapfrogging his older brother who attends DePaul University.

That milestone made Vo the first and — so far — only Uplift student to earn an associate degree before high school graduation...

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot will exit office Monday after presiding over the city’s most tumultuous era in generations, one marked by enormous strain on every element of civic life and the twin crises of COVID-19 and civil unrest.

On a March 2013 episode of “PBS Newshour,” then-Chicago Board of Education Vice President Jesse Ruiz voiced frustration that Chicago Public Schools had repeatedly shut down more and more school buildings each year.

Student motivation is a challenge to teachers, especially during this time of the year.

Here, two educators share their ideas on how we can encourage it to grow...

Many instructors have observed variability in students’ motivation to learn and grow. How can we, as educators, enable engagement, persistence, and improved performance in the classroom? In other words, can we foster greater motivation?

The Chicago school board unanimously approved a new system for evaluating campuses that district leaders vowed will make the city a national leader in rethinking how to size up school quality.

The new policy, named “Continuous Improvement and Data Transparency,” formally replaces the district’s controversial school ratings system, which had long come under fire for overemphasizing standardized test scores and unfairly labeling high-poverty campuses...