Research That Improves Children’s Lives
Debate and scrutiny of ideas and practice are vital aspects of the Urban Education Institute’s work. In our quest to create knowledge on how to produce excellent schooling for urban children, we depend on University researchers at the Consortium on Chicago School Research and the Committee on Education to evaluate practice and pursue educational questions of national importance.
Likewise, University researchers depend on UEI practitioners who work with students to raise questions that stimulate new scholarship. This lively exchange is one of the distinctive features of the Urban Education Institute.
Consortium on Chicago School Research (CCSR):
Transforming Urban Classrooms with Rigorous Research
Since its inception in 1990, Consortium researchers have searched for solutions to the challenges of school reform. Our research informs how schools are created, how teachers are trained and how best practices are shared among schools run by the Urban Education Institute and across Chicago.
Our technical, rigorous research is trusted by practitioners in Chicago and nationwide. The Consortium’s rich archive of quantitative and qualitative data is the largest of any urban public school system, and our unique collaboration with the Chicago Public Schools has become a model for other districts nationwide.
CCSR research is improving student outcomes:
- By training leaders of 12 urban school districts nationwide on how to use high school and postsecondary data to help more students graduate and go on to four-year colleges.
- By convincing high school leaders that more students will graduate if they focus on grades and attendance during the critical freshman year.
- By encouraging counselors to help thousands of high school seniors complete their federal financial aid forms early after CCSR demonstrated that missed financial aid deadlines were a barrier to enrolling in four-year colleges.
- By persuading elementary principals to focus on essential ingredients of school improvement that transcend test score trends—issues such as trust, peer support, and shared leadership.
Our work does not argue for particular policies or programs. Rather, we help to build capacity for school reform by identifying what matters for student success and school improvement. Our research agenda is developed in collaboration with district leaders, reform groups, scholars, teachers, principals and philanthropic foundations. We are committed to sharing our findings publicly with researchers, policy makers, and educators.
CCSR studies fall into four main categories: long-term research on particular Chicago Public Schools practices or policies; statistical analysis and reporting of long-term trends in the Chicago Public Schools; individualized reports on conditions and attitudes at schools; and short-term evaluations and research assistance.
is executive director of CCSR.
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For more information on CCSR’s research or copies of our reports: ccsr.uchicago.edu
The Committee on Education: Research Across Disciplines
The Committee on Education, founded in 2006, brings together distinguished University faculty in fields such as psychology, mathematics, sociology, economics, and public policy to pursue fundamental questions of importance to education. Besides interdisciplinary exchange, the committee also provides a forum for University scholars and UEI practitioners to interact with the goal of fostering outstanding scholarship. While the Committee is an independent academic unit within the Division of Social Sciences, it is a key partner in the Urban Education Institute’s work. Timothy Knowles, Lewis-Sebring director of the Urban Education Institute, and John Q. Easton, director of the Consortium on Chicago School Research, both serve as ex-officio members of the Committee.
A tenet of the Urban Education Institute is to make sure that all the best practices emerging from research become available to those working with students and that the most important questions arising from practice stimulate new directions in research. The Committee plays an important role in this dynamic.
The Committee will lead the Urban Education Institute’s development of the Chicago Model for Urban Schooling. This is an effort to clarify the evidence-based practices, tools, and supports we combine in the University charter schools to make sure all children learn no matter what their circumstances. By making plain our ideas and the research they are based on, the Urban Education Institute aims to promote debate and scrutiny, evaluative research, and replication in other urban settings along with emulation by other leading universities.
, Lewis-Sebring Distinguished Service Professor in Sociology, is chairman of the University’s Committee on Education.
Read more about the Committee on Education: coe.uchicago.edu
