Two new studies from the University of Chicago’s Consortium on School Research have confirmed what working parents already know – that when pre-kindergarten programs offer a full-day option, enrollment and attendance rates at those programs increase, especially among Black and Latinx families. 

The research comes in the midst of widespread labor shortages, with women representing a disproportionate number of those who have dropped out of the workforce since March 2020...

Enrollment and attendance in pre-K — especially among Black and Latino preschoolers — improves when programs operate for a full school day instead of a few hours in the morning or afternoon, a new study shows.

Enrollment more than quadrupled among Black children and tripled among Latino students when the Chicago Public Schools expanded full-day pre-K, according to researchers from the Consortium for School Research at the University of Chicago. The findings also focused on an expansion effort in the city’s North Lawndale community...

In the last two decades, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has gone through a massive expansion of the city’s high school portfolio. In 2002, there were only 76 high schools; in 2018–19, there were 154, and only about one-quarter of ninth-graders attended their assigned neighborhood school.

In the first months of the pandemic, school leaders and state officials made a unified call for grace, an acknowledgment that students and teachers both had more pressing concerns than academic expectations: They relaxed grading policies, canceled end-of-year assessments, or directed teachers not to fail students because of work not completed during shutdowns.

Click below to view a 90-second episode of GO FIGURE, with Elaine Allensworth explaining Figure 2 of this research (October 31, 2023).

Chicago Public Schools’ (CPS) mission is to provide high-quality education for every student, regardless of their zip code, that prepares them for college success. Yet it’s been difficult to determine the extent to which a CPS student’s zip code might still matter in whether they graduate from high school and college.

At one Chicago elementary school, educators were so concerned about some students’ lackluster attendance they created a hall of fame — a bulletin board in the main hallway recognizing students who made the most gains in showing up to school.

High school EL students graduate at far lower rates th