Ximena Valverde is a Research Assistant for the Learning & Development Group and has supported projects that aim to better understand student experiences and how schools can use the Cultivate tool to guide school improvement. She is currently a joint BA/MA student at the University of Chicago, where she plans to receive a BA in Public Policy with a minor in Education and Society, and an MA in Sociology. Her main research interests are urban education, immigration policies, student motivation, and adolescent development.

We are thrilled to welcome this year’s Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE) conference to Chicago! 

Shanette Porter, Director of the Learning & Development Group and Research Assistant Professor at the UChicago Consortium on School Research, is co-chairing the conference with Francesca López from University of Wisconsin, Madison. 

Amelia Montagnino (she/her) is a Research Assistant at the UChicago Consortium, where she supports the Evidence to Action Initiative. She previously worked in Chicago Public Schools, contributing to data analysis, administrative efforts, restorative practices, and Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) interventions. Amelia is passionate about integrating research, public health, and mental health to promote student well-being and thriving.

Thomasina Clarke has watched school after school close in her once thriving St. Louis neighborhood, which was hit by a tornado this spring and whose population has plummeted in recent decades. 

“It’s like a hole in the community,” Clarke said. She fears a new round of closure discussions could strip the historically Black community of a storm-damaged high school, whose alumni include Tina Turner and Chuck Berry...

Over a quarter of Ohio students regularly miss school — and education leaders say that's a problem. 

According to the 2024-2025 Ohio Department of Education and Workforce state report card, the statewide average for chronic absenteeism was 25.1%, a half of a percent improvement from 25.6% the previous year. Chronic absenteeism in Ohio is defined as a student missing 10% or more of a school year for any reason...

As students head back to school, chronic absence rates remain much higher than they were before COVID: Nearly 1 in 4 students nationwide miss more than 10% of school days. Low scores on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress underscore that high levels of absenteeism continue to contribute to the decline in student performance, and an analysis of past NAEP results shows that students who miss more school scored far lower than their peers who do not. 

Learning disruptions can require school leaders to make changes quickly. In the wake of the pandemic, the Chicago Skyline Early Literacy project channeled this sense of urgency into a drive to innovate. The project team is a research-practice partnership (RPP) between Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research (Consortium). 

Chronic absenteeism—defined as missing 10 percent or more of the school year—has emerged as one of the most pressing challenges facing schools today. During the COVID-19 pandemic, national rates of chronic absenteeism nearly doubled, rising from 15 percent in 2019 to 28.5 percent in 2022. Two years later, those numbers still haven’t returned to pre-pandemic levels, with 23.5 percent of students considered chronically absent in 2024.

As the national education research and policy landscape continues to shift, the UChicago Consortium remains committed to conducting high-quality education research to support stronger and more equitable outcomes for students, and inform policy and practice in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS). 

Our September 2025 newsletter features updates on: