The University of Chicago Urban Education Institute (UEI) is dedicated to creating knowledge to produce reliably excellent schooling for children growing up in urban America.
UEI operates the four campuses of the University of Chicago Charter School serving approximately 1700 students on the South Side of Chicago; prepares outstanding urban teachers and leaders through the University of Chicago Urban Teacher Education Program; undertakes rigorous research to improve policy and practice, anchored by the University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research; and provides tools, analytics and training to improve schools nationwide, primarily through UChicago Impact.
UEI's work is focused in four primary units:
School
We operate the University of Chicago Charter School, which comprises four charter school campuses (the first opened in 1998) that serve children from the South Side of Chicago. Admitted by lottery, nearly all of the children attending our schools are African American. Approximately 80 percent of those students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. To support and develop our students, UEI has created a school model that delivers ambitious extended instruction and comprehensive academic and social supports.
Applied Research
Founded in 1990, UEI’s University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research undertakes cutting-edge research on Chicago Public Schools to inform policy, practice, and the public. UChicago CCSR has found that sustainable school improvement depends on reliable, timely research on multiple academic and social indicators, not just test scores. UChicago CCSR produces regular reports aimed at improving educational methods and policy, while identifying critical academic and social indicators that educators and policy makers can track to measure progress towards graduation and college readiness. UChicago CCSR has fueled the direction of Chicago’s reforms over the last 20 years and has inspired the creation of organizations like it in New York City, Newark, Baltimore, Texas and Kansas City with over a dozen other cities or states considering replication.
Teachers and Leaders
Essential to the dramatic improvement of schooling is the preparation and support of exceptional teachers and school leaders. The University of Chicago Urban Teacher Education Program, started in 2003, prepares teachers of the highest caliber for Chicago Public Schools while empirically testing a model for urban teacher preparation. Our graduates engage in teaching as a highly intellectual career and are classroom-based instructional leaders and agents for educational equity in their schools and community. We develop teachers that have deep content area expertise, experience a full-year teaching residency prior to entering the classroom, and are carefully prepared for the distinctive challenges of teaching in an urban environment.
Tools and Innovation
UEI has developed a series of tools aimed at improving college readiness, teacher practice, school climate and technology in the classroom.
Under the newly developed UChicago Impact, LLC are two empirically based tools:
- 5Essentials is an evidence-based system designed to drive improvement in schools nationwide. The 5E system reliably measures changes in a school organization through its survey, predicts school success through analysis, and provides individualized actionable reports to schools, districts, parents, and community partners, and professional development to school leadership and teachers.
- Created at the University of Chicago, the STEP™ (Strategic Teaching and Evaluation of Progress) tool for preK to grade 3 is a developmental literacy assessment that includes a set of tools, tightly aligned with scientifically established milestones in reading development. It is used in schools throughout the country, including some of the most respected school networks, like KIPP.
6to16 is a classroom and online high school and college readiness program for grades 6 to “16” (the completion of the undergraduate degree) that is being used in schools in Chicago, Houston, New York, D.C. and the Bay Area.
UEI was established to create knowledge to improve the trajectory of children’s lives nationwide.
In the tradition of John Dewey – who joined the University faculty two years after its founding in 1892, and was one of America’s most influential education scholars - UEI brings together expert practitioners working at the classroom, school, and system level with distinguished researchers and scholars from across University disciplines to improve K-12 education for children in urban schools. As Dewey espoused, UEI “learns by doing.” We do not seek knowledge by watching from the sidelines. We are actively engaged and responsible for children's learning every day, we train and develop teachers and leaders who work in urban schools, and we undertake research designed to build knowledge to improve both practice and policy. In essence, UEI is designed to join research and practice to learn how to transform lives.
UEI also works in partnership with faculty from across the University.
The Committee on Education (COE) serves as the center of multi-disciplinary scholarship in education drawing together faculty members from economics, human development, mathematics, public policy, psychology, sociology and social services administration. COE contributes to the mission of UEI by addressing core questions about how children develop language, how they learn to reason mathematically, how schools function as formal and informal organizations, and how the political economy of schooling shapes the incentives, practices, and effectiveness of educators. Faculty members with appointments in other departments are also actively involved in education research and consultation with Chicago public schools.
UEI is a significant undertaking. We employ over 300 part- and full-time personnel and have an annual operating budget of approximately thirty million dollars.
Joining Forces
At the root of our model is one principle: reliably excellent schooling depends upon each of UEI’s components joining forces. If we are to systemically educate children growing up in urban America at high levels, reform must:
- Support the development of effective school models,
- Systematically train, support and place human capital (teachers and leaders) for urban schools,
- Support applied research that informs day-to-day practice in the classroom, and
- Employ tested tools and practices that help bridge the achievement gap.
Through our ground-level engagement and by sharing new knowledge and models with national implications, the Urban Education Institute can dramatically improve the outcomes of urban students on a national scale.
The Urban Education Institute is ready to be a resource. We invite you to:
Please contact Katelyn Silva at 773-834-8684.
