If your student needs to retake a course, you have likely heard about “online credit recovery” or “online recovery course” options. The student can watch a series of videos designed to help them pass the course that’s required for high school graduation. A great solution!

…or is it?

For Nicole Spicer at Chicago’s Bronzeville Classical, news that the district’s CEO, Janice Jackson, plans to step down stirred anxious questions: Could the city enlist a leader with the experience, education chops and mettle to replace her? What would it take to draw that kind of leader to the traditionally high-pressure job at an especially high-pressure moment?

COVID-19 has had a disproportionate public health impact on Black and Brown communities across the United States, creating immediate and long-term challenges for the urban public schools who serve these communities, according to leading UChicago education experts.

In this report, we begin unpacking this question by looking at six years of patterns of college enrollment, non-enrollment, and completion for the approximately 63,000 CPS students who graduated high school between 2010 and 2012.

There were some tough days for Alanna Barber’s kids in remote learning the past year.

Barber’s third-grade son, Sean, lost patience at times. She had to juggle Sean’s classes with her kindergartner’s first year in school. Barber ended up leaving her job as a school cafeteria manager in another district to stay home with her children...

After a year of massive disruption, there’s a growing push in Chicago and beyond to reinvent summer school in a bid to get a head start on bouncing back from the pandemic.

But last year’s summer experience here is something of a cautionary tale: Fewer than a quarter of the students the district flagged for summer school completed it...

In a relatively normal year, spring is a complicated time for CPS seniors, many of whom depend on their counselors, teachers, and other adults for support with financial aid packages and complex college decisions. In conversations with peers and adults, they grapple with how different post-secondary choices will affect their identities, relationships, and future.

Slightly fewer Chicago students enrolled in four-year colleges and universities last fall despite the pandemic’s pressures — but two-year institutions saw a troubling dip in both new arrivals and in students returning for their second year on campus.

William Delgado is a Senior Research Analyst at the UChicago Consortium. Previously, he was a Research Assistant Professor at Boston University Wheelock College of Education and Human Development. He is an applied microeconomist with research interests in the economics of education, labor economics, and behavioral economics. His overarching goal is to understand and address inequality in opportunities and to foster human potential.