Alizé Hill is a PhD student at the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration, as well as a Committee on Education Fellow. She spent her undergraduate career exploring various forms of research as evidenced by her involvement in multiple research labs including, the Affect and Cognition Lab (AcLab), the Behavioral Analysis of Beginning Years (B.A.B.Y.) Lab, and the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research.

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 is an intern Research Assistant for the To&Through Project, where she conducts 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.

As a Research Analyst at the UChicago Consortium, Thomas works on The To&Through project to conduct statistical analysis and develop data tools for students, teachers, and administrators in CPS. Before coming to the UChicago Consortium, Thomas created software to improve data collection and storage in various contexts, including an initiative with the Department of Homeland Security on the allocation of diesel fuel for disaster relief and the database management of a high-frequency trading firm.

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.

In an interview with the RoundTable on July 1, Dr. Devon Horton, School District 65’s new Superintendent, outlined a Miracles framework that he plans to implement this coming school year at the District. He said the District does not currently have a strategic plan, its five-year strategic plan ended last month, and he wants to start out with a “cohesive approach to improving the District.”

As educators across the country begin to plan for next school year, we are not only beginning to reckon with the logistics of creating a physically safe school environment, but also with the challenge of helping our students make meaning of their experience with a global pandemic, economic insecurity, attacks against Black bodies, and racial injustice. Amidst this uncertainty and tumult, many are grappling with their own role and the role of unjust systems in society.

If you’re a rising high school senior gearing up for the grueling college application process this fall, you might well breathe a sigh of relief at this recent news:

Your odds of sidestepping the 4-hour ACT or SAT are better than 50-50...