Isn’t there enough to worry about in American education? Why are people like me so bothered by the growing rejection of the SAT and ACT?

More than 60 percent of all U.S. four-year colleges and universities have now made the traditional entrance tests optional next year, a long-term trend boosted by the pandemic...

Following a chaotic spring semester and extended school closures brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, many students will require additional academic support as instruction resumes this fall.

A new policy brief, coauthored by the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research‘s Elaine Allensworth and the Annenberg Institute‘s Nate Schwartz, offers some research-backed strategies for schools attempting to address student learning loss in the months ahead...

Hasnain is an intern for the UChicago Consortium's communications team, where he is responsible for helping to expand awareness of the UChicago Consortium's research among target audiences through the creation of engaging, visual content. He has spent much of the past few years studying education and working directly with students to better understand the field and his passion for teaching; in the future, Hasnain hopes to implement problem-based curriculum as an early ed.

Alizé also has a wide range of experience working with youth of different ages, across different settings, and in various roles including as a daycare volunteer, a summer camp director, a residential assistant, a teaching assistant, and a school social work intern. Her current research focuses on how Whiteness operates within multiracial families. More specifically, she looks at how having a White parent impacts the school and life outcomes of youth from multiracial families.

As a Research Assistant on the Exposure to Community Violence (ECV-III) project, Samantha uses qualitative research to understand schools’ conceptualization and practical use of trauma-informed care. Before joining the UChicago Consortium, Samantha worked as a social worker in Chicago providing clinical services to youth in school and community settings. Her current practice and research centers around public schools, holistic well-being of youth, gendered Whiteness, and critical feminist paradigms.

Gisselle was an intern Research Assistant for the To&Through Project, where she conducted data analysis and works on data projects such as the community tool. Prior to To&Through, Gisselle was a Research Assistant for the UChicago Public Health Sciences Department, where she helped translate, backtranslate, and finalize a public health survey. Gisselle also worked as an intern at her hometown's animal shelter, where she took on a veterinary assistant role and worked directly with animals and people in order to maintain public health standards.

In recent months, as schools nationwide scrambled to respond to the challenges posed by COVID-19, state and local education leaders have reached out to ask us: What does research say about how to prevent learning loss? About how to prepare teachers for distance learning? About how to address the mental health and other needs of students and educators during a crisis? About how to reduce the impact of budget cuts?

This week, the UChicago Consortium on School Research (CCSR) released a new evaluation report on the early days of CAFÉCS (Barrow, Freire, & de la Torre, 2020). The report provides tremendous validation to our partners at the Chicago Public Schools Office of Computer Science, DePaul University, Loyola University, and UIC.