What’s inside the new playbook 

This playbook is packed with research, tips, and tools for parents, caregivers, and Local School Council (LSC) members: 

• What effective principal leadership looks like
• Key questions families can ask school leaders
• Ways to use public data about your school (ex: 5Essentials Survey data, the To&Through Milestones Tool, CIWP, and more) 

Did you know? 

Research shows that effective principals… 

Key Points 

Key Points 

Each learning condition is accompanied by a self-reflection tool designed to help teachers approach this work with an open, improvement-focused orientation. 

Teacher Self-Reflections include questions that: 

Each Observation Checklist offers a set of questions that a colleague might consider while sitting in on a class; including: 

• 3-5 questions aligned with each learning condition principle
• 1-3 questions for the observer to ask students 

Who are these resources for? 

Cultivate data can be used to elevate student voice and develop meaningful adult-student partnerships that inform school improvement. 

Participatory Data Analysis Protocols include: 

• Guidance for engaging students in Cultivate data analysis and improvement planning
• Additional questions to consider asking students
• Links to additional planning resources 

Who are these resources for? 

Each Learning Condition Guide: 

• Outlines the core principles of the learning condition
• Shares key research
• Provides practice ideas and scripted activities
• Suggests reflection questions Links to additional resources 

Who are these resources for? 

Morning after morning in her junior year, Carmelia McKeehan thought about making the short walk to Farragut High School on Chicago’s Southwest Side, only to retreat to her bedroom, twiddling away hours on YouTube still in her pajamas. 

She didn’t realize just how many days she was absent last school year — until a worried school counselor printed out her attendance record to share with her mother...

"Using the Freshman On-Track Indicator to Improve High Schools in Chicago" is Chapter 5 of Measuring to Improve: Practical Measurement to Support Continuous Improvement in Education (Continuous Improvement in Education Series) edited by Paul G. LeMahieu, Paul Cobb, and Anthony S. Bryk.  The full book is available from Harvard Education Press.

Does student–teacher match quality exist? While prior research documents disparities in teachers’ impacts across student types, it has not distinguished between sorting and causal effects as the drivers of these disparities. I develop a flexible disparate value-added model (DVA) and introduce a novel measure of teacher quality—revealed comparative advantage (CA)—that captures the degree to which teachers affect student outcome gaps.