Key Findings

When researching and applying to high schools, students considered:

Even to a casual observer, the research-practice partnerships “tent” has expanded considerably since the seminal 2013 paper by Coburn et al., Research-Practice Partnerships: A Strategy for Leveraging Research for Educational Improvement in School Districts. Whereas RPPs today operate at multiple levels of policy and practice and may comprise a wider range of partners than in the past, Coburn et al.’s scan of the relatively nascent landscape of partnerships was intended to focus on RPPs between researchers and school districts.

Rebecca Hinze-Pifer is an Affiliated Researcher at the UChicago Consortium and an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign. Her research agenda focuses on understanding school-based structures and practices that support adolescent academic and social-emotional development among students living in high-violence contexts.

A startling rise in failing grades during the pandemic was one of the most worrying signs that students were struggling.

Now, high schools in particular have a challenge ahead: figuring out how to help those students recover academically without falling off track for graduation...

As principal Daniel Kramer pored over data tracking whether Roosevelt High School’s freshmen and sophomores were staying on track amid the pandemic, he noticed a troubling trend: While girls had held their own as coronavirus tested the school, boys were falling behind, widening a longstanding gender gap at the predominantly Latino school on Chicago’s Northwest Side.

Parents and educators know that academic excellence depends considerably on students’ holistic development and a strong, positive learning environment. Unfortunately, many schools lack access to the tools needed to support students’ personal growth and to measure and reflect on their climate for learning.

As Chicago struggles to increase enrollment in prekindergarten programs, a new study could help build the case for the district’s universal pre-K expansion.

Opening full-day preschool classrooms closer to where students live is linked with boosted enrollment and academic outcomes through second grade, according to research released this month...

As early childhood researchers, we’ve spent our careers steeped in an enormous body of work that documents the long-term positive impacts of quality early care and education on the lives of those fortunate enough to experience it. The pre-academic and social-emotional skills children develop in preschool—the ability to manage frustration, work with peers, ask for help, and recover from setbacks and disruptions—create the foundation upon which future school and life success is built.

Most students will return to in-person schooling this fall, and teachers around the country are feeling the pressure to get their classes back on track.

In many places, a model known as acceleration is being billed as the way to ameliorate less-than-ideal learning conditions from this past school year. Generally speaking, the idea is to provide “just in time” supports, or scaffolds, to help students access their usual grade-level content, rather than going back and teaching what got skipped last year...