UEI Results
UEI's work across four units brings into focus what matters most for dramatically improving education across urban America. Learn more about our successes in each unit:
UChicago Consortium on School Research »
UChicago Urban Teacher Education Program »
UChicago Charter School »
UChicago Impact »
The University of Chicago Consortium on School Research
Our applied research has informed policy and practice across Chicago’s schools.
- Chicago Public Schools (CPS) adopted UChicago Consortium's “Freshman On Track indicator” to measure whether students are making progress toward high school graduation. Since 2007, CPS students "on track" to graduate has risen from 57 percent to 84 percent, an increase of 27 percentage points in less than a decade. In that same time, CPS graduation rates improved from 53 percent to 70 percent. ontrack.uchicago.edu
- The Consortium's research on the 5Essentials for school improvement led CPS to revamp its school improvement planning process for every elementary school in Chicago.
- UChicago Consortium research on college access for urban students led to an extensive CPS program that included tracking systems to monitor the completion of financial aid forms and the proportion of students at each high school entering and graduating from college.
- UChicago Consortium research showing that most students displaced by school closings transferred from one low-performing school to another resulted in former CPS CEO Huberman to enact a "Student Bill of Rights" that states that no school can be closed unless all students can go to a higher performing school nearby.
Districts nationwide and the U.S. Department of Education are using UChicago Consortium research.
- In response to UChicago Consortium research, the federal government streamlined the FAFSA, making it easier for families to overcome the biggest barrier to college: paying for it. In Chicago alone, the number of high school seniors successfully applying for federal aide has risen from approximately 65 percent in 2007 to 87 percent in 2010.
- Districts and the DOE are using the UChicago Consortium's “Freshman On Track” indicator as part of its own work to improve high school graduation rates.
- Over the last 10 years, at least 13 cities have replicated the Consortium’s model for place-based research partnerships, including Boston, New York City, Newark, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., New Orleans, Houston, Kansas City, and San Francisco.
The University of Chicago Urban Teacher Education Program
- 90 percent of UChicago UTEP graduates are still teaching in Chicago or other urban school districts after five years in the field. This retention rate far exceeds the national average for all public school teachers, which is approximately 50 percent.
- Nearly half of all UChicago UTEP graduates who are five years into their teaching careers are now in instructional leadership positions, having taken on roles as department chairs, content area coaches, clinical instructors, and other leaders mentoring and supporting new generations of teacher candidates.
- Four graduates have been awarded the $175,000 Knowles Teaching Fellowship (2011, 2012, 2013, 2014).
- In 2011, Eliza Ramirez, from cohort 3, was honored with the Golden Apple Award for Teaching Excellence.
- In 2010, UChicago UTEP was awarded an $11.6 million grant by the DOE to refine and expand. By the last year of the grant, UChicago UTEP will be supporting approximately 300 teachers a year. This expansion represents a significant contribution to the teaching force of Chicago Public Schools.
The University of Chicago Charter School
- 100 percent of the graduating class have been accepted to college for five years in a row ( 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 )
- UChicago Charter has a 75+ percent college-enrollment rate compared to 60 percent in Chicago Public Schools.
- In 2014, two of the nation’s leading economists and education scholars—Harvard University’s Richard Murnane and University of Cali - fornia-Irvine’s Greg Duncan—showcased the UChicago Charter North Kenwood/Oakland Campus as one of three of the nation’s most promising educational solutions in their book, Restoring Opportunity: The Crisis of Inequality and the Challenge for American Education »
- To date, three Woodlawn Campus students have been selected to receive Posse Scholarships, reserved for students who possess extraordinary academic and leadership potential.
- In 2011, the Woodlawn Campus had its first Gates Millennium Scholar, a scholarship that provides full financial support for students’ post-secondary education.
- In 2012, of the 443 district or charter schools that had at least one student selected for selective enrollment high schools, only 16 (only 2 of which were not selective enrollment or magnet schools) equaled or surpassed the Carter G. Woodson Campus in the number of students accepted into selective enrollment high schools. Carter G. Woodson was the only South Side non-selective or non-magnet school with this level of acceptance.
UChicago Impact
UChicago Impact's empirically-based tools and supporting services (STEP, 6to16, and 5Essentials) are being used to improve schools across the nation.
- More than 2.8 million students nationwide have used UChicago Impact’s tools and supporting services. UChicago Impact currently works in 60 major cities across 33 states and 4,500 schools—including some of the highest performing school systems and charter management organizations nationwide.
STEP has made a positive difference in the 85 Chicago schools that have leveraged it.
- There was a 14 percent increase in third grade ISAT reading proficiency scores in schools that used STEP compared to a 6 percent increase in schools that did not.