If publicly available data are any indication, English learners (ELs) are perpetually lagging behind their native English-speaking peers academically. Indeed, report after report show that ELs consistently under-perform when it comes to statewide tests, graduation rates, course grades, and more. Notably, though, new research suggests the bleak tale of the languishing EL may be misguided.

Today, we unveil the 2020 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings, ranking the university-based scholars in the U.S. who did the most last year to shape educational practice and policy. Simply being included in this list of 200 scholars is an accomplishment, given the 20,000 or more who might qualify. The list includes the top finishers from last year, augmented by "at-large" nominees chosen by the 29-member selection committee (see yesterday's post for a list of committee members, an explanation of the selection process, and all the salacious methodological details).

In Austin on Chicago’s West Side, a high school built for 1,000 students now houses just 58. Three-quarters of a mile away, another high school has just over 200 students in a campus for 2,000.

The problem isn’t just high schools, nor just in Austin. In Chicago, which is experiencing a slow population leak, the district has lost 54,100 public school children in the past decade. That has left 145 district-run schools less than half-full, according to new capacity data...

Catastrophic financial problems and outrage over corruption led to a decade of change in local politics.

Many high-profile, old-school practitioners of the “Chicago way” resigned, were voted out, or went to jail. The biggest names on those lists were Mayor Richard M. Daley, Cook County Assessor Joe Berrios and Gov. Rod Blagojevich...

Briana was a Research Analyst.  Before joining the UChicago Consortium Briana worked in New Orleans public education for nine years, serving as a middle- and high-school science teacher, school district data analyst and database architect, and policy researcher at Tulane University’s Education Research Alliance.

A coalition of students, advocacy groups and a largely black and Hispanic California school district filed suit against the University of California system on Tuesday to stop it from using standardized test scores in its admissions. The move, if successful, could shake up the testing industry and radically reshape college admissions.

Thanks to the Sun-Times for publicizing one of the most important but least-known findings in education, just confirmed by the University of Chicago’s Consortium on School Research, in the recent editorial “When Chicago schools meet immigrant families halfway, kids learn”.

As reported, the Chicago research showed that development of the child’s first language means better English and better school performance in general...

For years, the academic performance of English learners in Chicago has looked grim, with research showing they lag far behind students who entered school as native English speakers. But a new report calls into question that conventional wisdom.

Educators and policymakers have long thought that children who entered school still learning English lagged behind their fellow students—an idea backed by years of data.

But according to new research from the University of Chicago, many English learners eventually match, or even exceed, the academic achievements of their peers...