Education Week

With research identifying 9th grade success as pivotal for high school completion, the School District of Philadelphia (SDP) is now focusing on grade 9 as it works to support its goal of 100% of students graduating ready for college or career. At the Office of Research and Evaluation (ORE), we have worked closely with our external research partners over the past six months to identify a high quality indicator of 9th grade success that will help us discern how our students are doing and where supports are needed.

We worked with our research partners at the UChicago Consortium on School Research to establish a rigorous, evidence-based, on-track standard for our district and with our local partners at the Philadelphia Education Research Consortium (PERC) to examine how well we are meeting that standard, and how we might do better. This post describes both the work and the collaborative relationships that allow us to develop the evidence that we need to drive improvement in our schools...