Results of "My Voice, My School Surveys" are Available for 600 Chicago Schools

Nearly 600 Chicago schools on Wednesday gained access to customized reports produced by the Urban Education Institute at the University of Chicago to help schools organize, prioritize, evaluate, and achieve sustainable improvement.

The reports are also available to the public at https://cps.5-essentials.org/2012/.

Based on teacher and student responses to Chicago Public Schools’ 2012 “My Voice, My School Survey,” the reports show how schools stack up on the Five Essentials for school improvement.  Using more than 20 years of data on Chicago Public Schools, researchers from the University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research have found that schools strong on at least three of five essential elements are 10 times more likely to improve in math and reading. The Five Essentials are:

• Effective leaders: The principal works with teachers to implement a clear vision for success.
• Collaborative teachers: The staff is committed to the school and works as a team.
• Ambitious instruction: Classes are academically challenging and engaging.
• Supportive environment: The school is safe, orderly, and supportive.
• Involved families: The entire school builds relationships with families and the community.

The Five Essentials provide schools with evidence on which areas to target in order to maximize the likelihood of accelerating learning and test score gains.  They also demonstrate that teachers and student voice can play a crucial role in school reform: What they say about their schools reliably predicts whether those schools are likely to improve or stagnate.

The reports are available for 590 schools, or 87% percent of Chicago Public Schools. They reflect the perspective of 74 percent of students in grades six through 12 and 65 percent of teachers across all grades. Neighborhood, charter, selective enrollment and magnet schools all are represented.

Parents, community members, and others interested in the state of public schooling in Chicago can use the reports to:

• Learn what areas they can target to help improve their local schools.
• Better understand how it feels to be a teacher or student in a CPS school.
• Begin a dialogue with school leaders.

Principals, teachers and others working towards school improvement can use the reports to:

• Discover which areas to target in order to maximize the likelihood of improving learning.
• Identify positive developments that test scores—often a lagging indicator of improvement—have not yet captured.
• Communicate with the public regarding their schools’ strengths and challenges.