Innovative UChicago research creates impact, improvement in CPS schools
In 2014, the University of Chicago’s Urban Education Institute and Network for College Success launched an innovative initiative to provide educators, policymakers and families with research, data and resources on the milestones that matter most for college success.
Fewer mandates, more empowerment of leaders
Over the last several years our team has been exploring the integral role of early learning leaders, both elementary school principals and center directors. In this guest post, Anisha Ford discusses new research on how these leaders impact their program climate. In 2019 we’ll continue digging into this important topic, including exploring how to best prepare center directors.
New study finds strong school climate key to effective early learning
A new study says programs with strong organizational structures hold the key to effective early-childhood education, and lists exceptional administrators and collaborative teachers as the two most important components of those structures.
The study was conducted by researchers with the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research (UChicago Consortium) and the Ounce of Prevention Fund, or Ounce, a Chicago-based nonprofit that advocates for and provides high-quality early-childhood education...
To keep high school students on track, there’s no time like the beginning
Ten years ago, Elizabeth Dozier, an assistant principal at Harper High School in an impoverished Chicago neighborhood, took a big risk. She hung a giant board in the main hallway showing each ninth-grader’s academic progress under three headings: green for on-track, yellow for close to on-track and red for off-track.
That was a violation of Chicago school board policy. Many educators and parents would have been aghast to see students publicly labeled like that...
School attendance is key
When I was a prekindergarten teacher, my young students always provided an exciting share of challenges. There were children who cried when their parents left in the morning and those who were always last to be picked up. There were loud children and shy children, potty mishaps, and naptimes that left me exhausted. But the issues that concerned me most weren’t the things that happened inside my classroom, but what happened outside – especially when children regularly missed days of school.