“Evidence-based, research-backed, data-driven…”: our world is increasingly focused on evidence at all levels – and rightly so. Evidence is a central part of any argument and allows us to verify our hunches while laying solid ground for future action. In education, we rely on evidence to understand which programs and policies have the greatest impacts for students. In the realm of quality science education, two new pieces of evidence offer a reminder of just how far we all have to go – but also some good news about the transformational potential of strong instruction.

Bilingual educators weren’t immune to the COVID-19 burnout that hit teachers this year. For example, last October, Illinois school districts reported 98 vacancies for bilingual educators. In the early childhood setting, that dearth of bilingual teachers could hurt students in the long run.

The job participates in scientific research projects. Ensures compliance of research activities with institutional, state, and federal regulatory policies, procedures, directives and mandates. Analyzes possible solutions using standard procedures. Writes articles, reports and manuscripts. Assists in drafting presentations on research findings.

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 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.

This summary is derived from a book titled Organizing Schools for Improvement. This book is a synthesis of longitudinal research conducted by the Chicago Consortium for School Research (CCSR) and is considered its seminal publication. CCSR has been studying school reform in Chicago for more than 2 decades under a partnership between the University of Chicago and Chicago Public Schools. The results reported in this book reflect data from school surveys conducted in several hundred Chicago schools over a period of seven years.

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...

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...