As a new sixth-grade teacher in Chicago Public Schools, I created an “A’s and B’s Because I Tried” Club to recognize every student who achieved a top grade on a project. I had come to my classroom in 2004 the same way most teachers do: with an unwavering belief that students can achieve academically, with the goal of creating a classroom where every student felt valued and with the confidence that, if students tried hard enough, they would succeed.

As graduation approached last year, the list of often-absent students at Albert Einstein High School in suburban Maryland was long. More than 175 seniors repeatedly missed classes, many in courses required for their diplomas.

Most students at the Montgomery County school graduated anyway...

Families have quickly caught on to Chicago Public Schools’ new online high school application system — and most are snagging one of their top-three choices — but it hasn’t improved access to high-quality schools for low-income and African American students.

That’s according to a study released Thursday by the University of Chicago’s Consortium on School Research and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, which scrutinized the 2017 launch of GoCPS, for students who entered the ninth grade this school year...

A new centralized high school application process was intended to expose Chicago students to more options, but low-income and black students continued to be more likely than others to attend poor-performing high schools, according to a study released on Thursday.

The analysis of data from the first year of the application process, called GoCPS, offers insight into what is preventing low-income black students from accessing highly rated schools...

Dispelling fears that a universal application system for high schools would drive more students to charters, a new study shows enrollment at neighborhood schools is up slightly.

Emily Krone Phillips is the author of the new book The Make-or-Break Year, which chronicles how Chicago Public Schools used the metric Freshman OnTrack to boost graduation rates. Now at the Spencer Foundation, she was previously at the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research, where the Freshman OnTrack research originated. I recently talked with Emily about dropouts and efforts to help students stay on track. Here's what she had to say...

Alan Quintana’s last year of high school at Sarah E. Goode STEM Academy looked a lot more like the second year of college, as he finished an associate degree in web development at Daley College.