Concerned that the state’s existing standardized test won’t adequately capture pandemic losses and eager to streamline the number of tests that students take, Illinois wants to sign a new contract for a state test before the previous assessment contract is up.

Now a vote to make that change has been delayed, putting the state school board’s plans on pause and raising questions about how to catch pandemic-related learning loss...

Key Findings

• For most student groups, the pre-k policy changes were related to more favorable early elementary math test scores and academic grades.
• For Black students and students in the lowest-income group, the pre-k policy changes were also associated with higher reading test scores in second grade.
• Across all student groups, improved second grade outcomes were r

In her second semester at a predominantly white institution, Robyn Smith decided to transfer to a historically Black school.

A tuition increase prompted Arthur Wells to switch from a four-year university to a two-year college...

How has COVID-19 affected college enrollment, and what makes a student successful on the path to a degree?

Two recently published reports by the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research and the To&Through Project get at these questions, providing insights researchers hope can improve college outcomes, particularly among Chicago Public Schools alumni...

Host Karin Sconzert welcomes Dr. Elaine Allensworth, the Lewis-Sebring Director of the University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research to discuss the limitations of ACT scores in predicting college completion...

The metaphors used to talk about students’ journeys through college have changed as the understanding of those journeys, and the post-secondary landscape they take place in, have evolved. A pipeline, a road, a maze: each suggests a trajectory through college of varying directness and characterizes students’ experiences very differently.