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National context: Schools across the United States have long grappled with the role and impact of school-based police officers, often referred to as school resource officers (SROs). Proponents for school-based policing believe that SROs contribute to school safety by preventing or addressing crime and violence in schools. Opponents of SROs in schools argue that the presence of SROs criminalizes students and increases the likelihood of school-based arrest, particularly for students of color. Policies around SROs vary in districts across the country. Chicago context: In the wake of George Floyd's murder in 2020, the Chicago Board of Education (CBOE) asked the district to develop a plan to phase-out the SRO program, which assigned two SROs to most Chicago Public Schools (CPS) high schools. In February 2024, the CBOE voted to remove all remaining SROs from schools starting in 2024-25. In May 2024, CPS proposed a Whole School Safety Policy that did not include SROs and focused on supports for physical safety, emotional safety, and relational trust in schools. The research: This brief examines what happened when Chicago Public Schools (CPS) began the process of removing School Resource Officers (SROs) from its high schools during the 2020-21 school year. These findings can inform conversations in Chicago, and across the country, about SROs and whole school safety practices and policies--while recognizing that questions about the presence of police and the experience of safety in schools are complex and reflect differences in lived experiences and perspectives across policymakers, practitioners, young people, families, and communities. The findings are part of a larger, ongoing study by researchers from the UChicago Consortium; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; and Lurie Children's Hospital's Center for Childhood Resilience. [This research brief received additional support from the Pritzker-Pucker Family Foundation and the Consortium Investor Council.]

This joint study by the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research and the To&Through Project points to important differences between the four-year and six-year completion rates for Chicago Public Schools (CPS) graduates who received bachelor's degrees. It investigates four-year and six-year college completion trends for 2004-14 CPS graduates, as well as patterns of bachelor's degree completion for students who attended different colleges and different high schools, students with different GPAs and ACT scores, and students with different races/ethnicities and genders. As college application deadlines approach for students across Chicago and across the country, the four-year and six-year college completion rates could guide students' and families' decisions on where to apply and enroll.

This annual report looks closely at how Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students are progressing on the path to and through high school and college. In particular, the report examines three key milestones--high school graduation, college enrollment, and college completion--and tracks how rates on these milestones have changed across time. These rates are then used to calculate an updated Post-secondary Attainment Index (PAI) which represents the proportion of current CPS ninth-graders who would complete any degree or certificate from a two-year or four-year college within 10 years, if current rates of attainment were to hold constant over the next decade. The 2021 PAI is calculated using the most recent available data: 2021 high school graduation rates, college enrollment rates for 2021 high school graduates, and rates of college completion for 2014 high school graduates.

Research studies show that students' grades are more predictive than test scores of their future academic success, including high school and post-secondary outcomes. Chicago Public Schools (CPS) recognizes the importance of grades through its longstanding "Bs or Better" campaign. Yet within CPS, boys' grades are consistently lower than girls' grades. CPS leaders and educators want to meet their goal of Bs or better and strong educational outcomes for all students, and they are in conversation about how they're supporting boys. This study aims to provide insights into this difference in boys' and girls' grades in Chicago by looking first at one grade level and one subject area--ninth-grade math (algebra and geometry)--using two school years of data, 2016-17 and 2017-18. The findings are specific to math students in these years, and also suggest what may (and may not) be driving differences in other grades and subjects. [Additional funding for this report was provided by the Hyman Milgrom Opportunity Fund at the University of Chicago and the Consortium Investors Council.]

Evidence in psychology and economics has converged on an understanding of what matters for students' learning and what influences their life trajectories. While earlier work focused on the role of large scale assessment test scores, more recent research emphasizes the importance of socioemotional skills, experiences, and mindsets--such as conflict resolution, conscientiousness, goal-setting, study skills, belonging, and adaptive self-beliefs--for thriving in adolescence and into adulthood. This updated scientific knowledge about socioemotional factors has mobilized action in educational policy. This report examines on what schools can do well to positively affect students' long-term trajectories. The findings show the value of taking a holistic view of adolescents, and that fostering students' engagement and a challenging, supportive environment for them are the most important things schools can do. The findings and interpretive summary offer insights on some of the most-discussed K-12 policies and practices today, including test scores, school quality metrics, school climate, and student voice.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the backgrounds, experiences, and supports of Chicago Public School (CPS) principals as they prepared for the principalship and to identify where gaps exist so that policymakers and principal preparation programs can better support leadership development. Researchers interviewed 20 early career school principals in CPS between 2020 and 2021 to learn about their backgrounds and the roles they had prior to the principalship, their formal and informal preparation experiences, and the kinds of learning opportunities and skills they wished they had before assuming the role. Findings indicate that it takes a wide range of skills to be a successful principal, including both interpersonal or "people" skills as well as intrapersonal or "emotional intelligence" skills, along with specific organizational leadership and managerial skills. Principals did not learn essential skills in one place or in one setting, but through a variety of on-the-job learning experiences -- in both education and non-education related positions. Principals who previously served as an assistant principal indicated that the role best prepared them to lead their own school. Some indicated feeling underprepared in certain aspects of the job and called for more pre-service supports and mentoring in areas such as school budgeting and navigating central office systems. Districts and principal preparation programs must consider that strong school leadership requires a wide range of skills, making it unlikely that a single program or professional development opportunity can teach all the skills and behaviors good principals need to succeed. A "one-size-fits all" approach to training principals may be insufficient, suggesting a more tailored approach to supporting prospective school leader development would be most beneficial.

This brief shares learnings from Building Equitable Learning Environments (BELE) district partnerships around the sixth Essential Action: Measure What Matters. This Essential Action focuses on achieving equitable learning environments through the routine collection and review of relevant student feedback data to co-design new practices and policies to improve learning environments. Although the following paper highlights a specific student feedback tool (Elevate), the authors believe these learnings are applicable to other student-centered data systems used by schools and districts alike to measure what matters. As a result of working directly with district and school partners, in addition to focus groups with BELE Network coaches and leaders, the authors found five key actions as necessary for supporting effective implementation of student-centered data systems to improve learning conditions and experiences at the classroom and school level: (1) center and share power with students through student experience data; (2) clearly and frequently communicate the purpose for student data systems; (3) use data to cultivate and model a culture of learning and growth for adults and students; (4) build on and nurture foundational trust and safety through practices that demonstrate respect and professional regard; and (5) demonstrate and facilitate effective implementation through district- and school-level support. Each section of this paper centers on a key action, interwoven with field examples ("In Action") of the condition's practical application in partner districts. [This report was produced with the National Equity Project, part of the Building Equitable Learning Environments (BELE) Network.]

The research in this brief takes place within the context of efforts to strengthen the principalship in Chicago Public Schools (CPS). Using eight years of data from CPS, 2012-13 to 2019-20, this brief describes Chicago's principals--their demographic characteristics, their backgrounds, their trajectories into the principalship, and how long they stay. The authors focus intentionally on the racial/ethnic diversity of the principalship since CPS is a district that primarily serves Black and brown students. In addition, this brief describes how their previous experiences in schools align with the schools they ultimately lead. The brief concludes by looking at exit rates among principals.

The elementary and middle years give educators a profound opportunity to impact students' long-term outcomes: in this research, students with strong grades and attendance in elementary school were more likely to graduate high school and enroll in college than their peers. Although some Chicago Public Schools (CPS) elementary schools use CPS's existing Elementary On-Track (EOT) indicator to identify and intervene with students, the practices around this indicator are still emerging, and there is an opportunity to accelerate on-track work in elementary schools. In this research report, the authors offer a simplified version of CPS's EOT metric that they call the "Condensed Elementary On-Track" (Condensed EOT). In order to be on-track in the Condensed EOT indicator system, students in grades 3-8 need to have: (1) at least a 3.0 GPA and (2) at least 90 percent attendance. The findings in this research suggest that elementary and middle school educators can and do provide critical supports that set students up for long-term success: Students with strong grades and attendance in elementary school were more likely to graduate high school and enroll in college than their peers. Following the disruptions caused by COVID-19, monitoring and responding to students' GPA and attendance is especially critical.

This research summary provides the key findings and interpretive summary--chapters 3 and 4--from the full report, "Reaching for Improvement: Teacher Evaluation and its Role in Instructional Improvement." The full report contains additional details on the context, methodology, and findings of this study. This document has minor differences to ensure clarity in its shorter form. This study examined teachers' experiences with instructional improvement in seven Chicago Public Schools from 2017-18 to ask: What organizational conditions and capacities supported evaluation-driven instructional improvement? [For the full Research Report, see ED623750.]

Despite the considerable resources dedicated to teacher evaluation reform, there is currently little evidence on the mechanisms by which evaluation translates into improvements in teachers' instructional practice. To address this need, this study was a two-pronged approach to examine the use of evaluation data for improvement within the Chicago Public Schools (CPS). The first is an evaluation-specific approach that looked explicitly at teachers' instructional improvement efforts across the district that were prompted by Recognizing Educators Advancing Chicago's (REACH) Students. The second is a comprehensive approach that looked more broadly at how teachers' instructional improvement efforts were prompted by both: (1) their school's unique Instructional Improvement Support System (IISS); and (2) their school's implementation of REACH--and the dynamics between IISS and REACH-driven efforts. Together, this two-pronged approach allowed the author to identify common organizational conditions and sources of support for evaluation data use across school contexts while also surfacing the variability in how schools support teacher learning generally. [For the Research Summary, see ED623751.]

The Common Core State Standards in Mathematics (CCSS-M) were released in 2010 with a goal to improve critical thinking skills and prepare all students to thrive in college, careers, and as informed citizens. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) followed in 2013. Using districtwide surveys of students in grades 6-8, conducted annually from 2011 through 2018; annual data on student achievement; surveys of teachers in the 2014-15 and 2017-18 school years; and interviews of teacher-leaders, school principals, and district officials, this study examines the results of district efforts to implement the CCSS-M and NGSS standards in Chicago. Findings include: (1) Math and science instruction improved in Chicago during the years of standards reform. In math, the largest improvements in instructional experiences and test gains occurred among students with the lowest tested skills; (2) Professional learning--defined broadly to include teacher collaboration, coaching, and workshops--was the most support that was most strongly associated with instructional change; (3) Collaboration around instructional improvement required dedicated time, multiple people with expertise, buy-in, trust, and administrator support; (4) Instructional resources provided by the district were helpful for implementing strong practices when they were instruction-ready, while other resources showed a null or negative relationship with practices; and (5) Instructional practices were significantly related to student achievement gains in both math and science. [This report was written with Jeanne Century, Debbie Leslie, Lisa Sall, and Nick Tallant.]

Evidence of the short- and long- term benefits of Pre-K is so compelling that K-12 districts, state education departments, and even federal officials have considered offering universal Pre-K at no cost to children and families. In Chicago, a plan published in March 2019 aimed to provide free Pre-K for all Chicago four-year-olds, regardless of income, by the fall of 2021. But while support for and enrollment rates in Pre-K have increased, attendance rates among students enrolled in Pre-K are lower than attendance rates in other elementary grades. Why are Pre-K students absent? While illness is a leading cause, logistical issues also pose challenges to families. Interviews with families suggest logistical challenges are greater for families in half-day programs. It can be difficult to pick students up in the middle of the day when parents are working. In addition, when a student is enrolled in a half-day program, families may be less inclined or able to spend limited resources and energy solving childcare issues, work schedule conflicts, transportation problems, a sick sibling, or other family commitments for a few hours of instruction. The researchers studied two initiatives that increased the availability of full-day Pre-K in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) to examine changes in attendance rates that occurred when students enrolled in full-day, rather than half-day, Pre-K programs: (1) CPS-Wide Full-Day Pre-K Expansion; and (2) The North Lawndale Cluster Initiative. The key finding from the report concludes when programs offered more full-day options, attendance rates increased, particularly for Black students. This suggests that full-day Pre-K better meets the needs of families' daily lives in ways that enable higher attendance, relative to half-day programs.

Despite evidence supporting the importance of school climate, little is known about how practitioners understand and use data from climate surveys to guide schoolwide improvement. The expanded use of school climate surveys underscores the importance of understanding how schools and districts are utilizing this evidence both to drive improvement and to simultaneously evaluate and hold schools accountable. This information is critical to ensuring that policymakers, states, and districts establish appropriate expectations and allocate adequate resources for the data's use in practice. This report explores how schools in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) understand and utilize data from one climate survey, the "5Essentials" Survey, in the context of CPS improvement efforts and accountability policies. Of the more than 50 existing school climate surveys, one of the few with extensive validation is the "5Essentials" Survey. Developed more than twenty years ago by researchers at the UChicago Consortium on School Research (UChicago Consortium), the "5Essentials" Survey is a comprehensive, evidence-based system designed to drive improvement in schools through the identification of strengths and needs associated with five critical domains of school organization. This report encompasses findings from a year-long qualitative study examining the processes and outcomes of practitioners' engagement with the "5Essentials" Survey in the context of school improvement. The study addresses two primary research questions: (1) How do schools understand and utilize data from the "5Essentials" Survey in the context of improvement efforts? and (2) What factors facilitate or impede schools' engagement with their "5Essentials" results? It is hoped that findings from this report will provide helpful information for policymakers, districts, and state and local education agencies considering the use of school climate surveys in accountability, reporting, and/or improvement.

The purpose of this annual report on the educational attainment of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students is to provide practitioners and other stakeholders with an understanding of how CPS students are progressing on the path to and through high school and college. In particular, it examines three key milestones--high school graduation, college enrollment, and college completion--and track how rates on these milestones have changed across time. Where possible, it disaggregates the data by race/ethnicity and gender, disability status, and, for the first time, English Learner (EL) status to understand which students face more barriers to educational attainment and where different strategies and supports are needed. Additionally, to assess the most recent available rates of high school and college attainment in tandem, the report calculates the Post-secondary Attainment Index (PAI), which represents the proportion of current CPS ninth-graders that would complete any degree or certificate from a two-year or four-year college within 10 years, if current rates of attainment were to hold constant during the next decade. [For the 2019 report, see ED615091.]

Given the positive influence of school climate on academic outcomes, several districts--including Chicago Public Schools (CPS)--incorporated climate surveys into their accountability systems, to signal the importance of school climate to schools. The "5Essentials" Survey, developed in Chicago, is currently administered to CPS students in grades 4-12 and staff serving grades pre-k-12. In 2014, after more than a decade in which the survey was administered voluntarily for formative feedback, the "5Essentials" Survey became part of the CPS accountability policy. This report focuses on answering two questions: Do the "5Essentials" predict school improvement in both high- and low-poverty schools? and Can schools expect similar improvements in student outcomes if they focus on developing and maintaining their climate and organizational strength, regardless of the economic context of the neighborhoods they serve? The authors found that the "5Essentials" predict school improvement in both high- and low-poverty schools, at both the elementary and high school levels. They further discovered that in cases where both high- and low-poverty elementary schools were strong on the "5Essentials," the "5Essentials" were more strongly related to improvement in high-poverty elementary schools than in low-poverty elementary schools. At the high school level, the amount that schools with strong "5Essentials" improved did not significantly differ between schools at different poverty levels. An important addition to these findings is that despite the greater improvement in high-poverty schools, findings still showed disparities in overall levels of improvement. Although improvement in high-poverty schools with strong "5Essentials" was often twice as much as that in similarly strong low-poverty schools, it was not enough to compensate for the disparities in where high-poverty schools started out relative to low-poverty schools. It is important, therefore, to emphasize that while school climate is a critical component to improving student outcomes, addressing greater systemic issues such as segregation plays a fundamental role in creating equitable education.

English Learners (ELs) are students from whom much is expected: they are tasked with mastering grade-level content while also learning English, a language in which they are not fully proficient. Mastering academic English--the set of language skills necessary for success in school--is a developmental process that takes at least five to seven years. Over time, most students who begin school classified as ELs demonstrate English proficiency and their status changes from that of an active EL to a former EL. Because of this, active ELs are concentrated in the early grades. Hence, schools and teachers need to focus educational resources in the early years to support ELs' instructional needs and set them on a path to academic success. To provide new and needed knowledge about what student and school characteristics are associated with EL success in pre-k and the early grades, this study examines attendance, grades, test scores, and English proficiency from two groups of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) ELs (14,058 students in pre-k and 16,651 students in the early grades K-3) to answer the following research questions: (1) What are the factors associated with stronger outcomes for ELs in pre-k and the early grades?; (2) To what extent can schools identify ELs who would benefit from additional support?

Students and families in Chicago are increasingly taking up school choice options offered by the school district. Prospective high school students and their families have 160 high schools to choose from. These options include a broad variety of schools in governance, size, academic approach, and programs offered. To streamline the school application process, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) launched GoCPS, an online application platform for high schools, in the fall of 2017. In 2018 and 2019, the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research (UChicago Consortium) released two studies that described the GoCPS process in detail, and showed patterns in applications, offers, and resulting enrollments in high schools. Those studies found the GoCPS system worked as intended, in terms of its technical specifications, and that almost all students received an offer to one of their top school choices. But the GoCPS system did not improve equity in the types of schools in which students enrolled, even though this was one of the goals of district leaders. The UChicago Consortium also conducted an evaluation of the North Lawndale Cluster Initiative (NLCI)--a strategy to improve outcomes in neighborhood schools in the North Lawndale area, run for CPS by the Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL). This study included focus groups with eighth-grade students about their experiences in the high school search and application process. This brief offers key insights from that qualitative study and illuminates how eighth-grade students in three CPS elementary/middle schools experienced the school choice process in Chicago, shortly after GoCPS was implemented. Specifically, this brief addresses how students navigated the school choice process, including their experiences researching, applying to, and selecting a school, and addresses the following research questions: (1) Choice Factors: What factors did students consider when choosing which high schools to apply to?; (2) School Exploration: How and from what sources did students learn about potential high schools?; and (3) Application Process: How did students experience the application process using GoCPS?

In 2013-14, Chicago Public Schools (CPS), the nation's third-largest school district, implemented several changes to the policies governing its pre-kindergarten (pre-k) application and enrollment process. Two policy changes that were central to the school district's strategy focused on increasing access to full-day pre-k for high-priority student groups: (1) increasing the overall number of full-day pre-k classrooms within school buildings; and (2) intentionally placing those full-day pre-k classrooms in neighborhoods with a large proportion of age-eligible, high-priority children and historically low rates of enrollment in CPS pre-k. This research examines whether and how access--defined as the distance to the closest school with full-day school-based pre-k and the number of full-day pre-k classrooms near potential students' homes--was related to pre-k enrollment and ongoing learning outcomes in early elementary school. In other words: Does the geographic placement of full-day pre-k classrooms within a school district matter? In prior work, it was found that after these policy changes in Chicago, there were more equitable patterns of pre-k access and enrollment. This brief presents new findings: Geographic placement of full-day pre-k matters not only for more equitable pre-k access and enrollment, but also for academic outcomes in early elementary school. Students--especially in high-priority student groups--who were eligible to enroll in pre-k after the policy changes had higher math scores and grades in early elementary school than did students eligible for pre-k before the policy changes. These benefits are partly explained by the fact that Black students and those living in lowest-income neighborhoods lived closer to full-day school-based pre-k options post-policy, which in turn was related to increased enrollment in full-day pre-k, higher kindergarten entry skills, and ultimately better 2nd grade academic outcomes.

Over the past decade, the college enrollment rate for Chicago Public Schools (CPS) graduates has steadily increased, but the college completion rate has remained relatively flat. At the same time, practitioners have realized that the "traditional" path through college--enrolling in one institution and remaining enrolled through graduation--is not the norm for most CPS graduates. In order to ensure more students who begin college finish with a diploma, there needs to have a better understanding of what happens to students between the point at which they first enroll and the point at which they exit post-secondary education. In this report, this question is unpacked by looking at six years of patterns of college enrollment, non-enrollment, and completion for the approximately 63,000 CPS students who graduated high school between 2010 and 2012. By examining the timing, type, and frequency of transitions students are experiencing, and how those differ by student groups, it is hoped to understand the ways in which high schools can better prepare students to navigate the post-secondary landscape, where higher education needs to adjust their structures and supports, and where research should delve deeper to better understand why students are making the transitions observed.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the shift to virtual learning created an unprecedented context for high school and college students who had to navigate new learning structures amidst immense health, financial, and emotional challenges. In the absence of reliable data, practitioners and policymakers have been forced to make assumptions about what happened to the class of 2020 and previous graduates of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) currently attending college. This brief provides data on the extent to which the patterns in college enrollment and retention for CPS graduates changed in 2020, after the pandemic caused a shift to a remote setting for high school and college students during the spring. Understanding what happened to enrollment and retention specifically for CPS graduates is critical as the district, higher education, and non-profit partners continue to support the graduating classes of 2019 and 2020, while also supporting the graduating class of 2021, who will go through the entire application and enrollment process during the pandemic.

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) have shown considerable improvements in student achievement over the last 20 years, but concerns about unequal educational opportunities across different communities in the city continues to be a pressing issue. The North Lawndale Cluster Initiative (NLCI) sought to improve academic achievement and educational attainment in a cluster of neighborhood schools in Chicago from 2013-14 through 2018-19, providing funding for four elementary schools and their neighborhood high school to provide vertically-integrated services from pre-k through high school. This evaluation describes the changes in student outcomes that occurred in the years of the initiative. All outcomes improved, and many outcomes showed substantial improvements, although only pre-k attendance was significantly higher compared to matched schools that served similar students. The analysis assessed the impact of funding a vertical integration cluster strategy in one neighborhood and should not be taken as an assessment of the effectiveness of the schools overall, or of individual programs. The bulk of the funding was used to expand pre-k from half-day to full-day programs, which showed significantly more improvement over time, relative to comparison schools. Outcomes in the elementary, middle, and high school grades generally improved at a similar rate as other district schools serving similar students. Furthermore, as described in the report, the potential gains that NLCI schools could have realized were limited by high student mobility rates and variability in the size and composition of the student population from year-to-year at the high school level.

As pre-kindergarten (pre-k) expands across the country, school districts are making choices about where to place pre-k classrooms and developing policies for how families can apply and who is enrolled. In doing so, districts are pulling policy levers that influence students' access to pre-k. Research shows that some families have less access to pre-k than others, which contributes to inequitable enrollment within districts. This study explores whether and how Chicago's school-based pre-k system was more equitable after the district implemented a set of policies focused on changing access to and "enrollment" in school-based pre-k. The outcomes from Chicago's efforts offer key insights for other school districts implementing similar efforts nationwide. [For the research report, see ED612485.]

As pre-kindergarten (pre-k) expands across the country, school districts are making choices about where to place pre-k classrooms and developing policies for how families can apply and which children are enrolled. In doing so, districts are pulling policy levers that influence students' access to pre-k. Research shows that some families have less access to pre-k than others, which contributes to inequitable enrollment within districts. This descriptive study explores whether and how Chicago's school-based pre-k system was more equitable after the district implemented a set of policies focused on changing access to and enrollment in school-based pre-k. Specifically, we compare patterns of enrollment and geographic access (i.e., distance from home to a school with pre-k and number of pre-k classrooms nearby), and use multilevel logistic regression analyses to examine how access was related to enrollment for different student groups before and after the policy changes. Results show that both access to, and enrollment in, full-day pre-k expanded substantially among Black students, lowest-income students, and students living in mostly-Black neighborhoods, even as overall school-based pre-k enrollment remained relatively constant. There was a modest association between access to and enrollment in full-day pre-k (but not any pre-k), and this relationship became stronger following the policy changes, especially for high-priority student groups. Findings demonstrate that the geographic distribution of school-based pre-k (particularly full-day) may be an important policy lever for addressing inequities in student access and enrollment in Chicago, and have implications for other school districts implementing similar efforts nationwide. [For the research snapshot, see ED612486.]

The "5Essentials Survey" is one of the few validated instruments to measure school climate. Schools that are strong in at least three of the five essential supports are up to 10 times more likely to experience substantial gains in students' math and reading scores. More than 6,000 schools nationwide have administered the "5Essentials Survey." Due to changes in education, including an increased emphasis on accountability policy and the role of the "5Essentials" data in accountability, it is time to re-examine the validity of the "5Essentials" in predicting school improvement and student outcomes. This study adds an important additional outcome for elementary schools--students' GPAs--and, even more importantly, also assesses the validity of the "5Essentials Survey" in high schools. The high school analyses encompass a range of outcomes: test scores, attendance, GPAs, Freshman OnTrack rates, and college enrollment. This executive summary provides an overview and key findings from the full report. [For "Supporting School Improvement: Early Findings from a Reexamination of the "5Essentials" Survey. Research Report," see ED608120.]

The "5Essentials Survey" is one of the few validated instruments to measure school climate. Schools that are strong in at least three of the five essential supports are up to 10 times more likely to experience substantial gains in students' math and reading scores. More than 6,000 schools nationwide have administered the "5Essentials Survey." Due to changes in education, including an increased emphasis on accountability policy and the role of the "5Essentials" data in accountability, it is time to re-examine the validity of the "5Essentials" in predicting school improvement and student outcomes. This study adds an important additional outcome for elementary schools--students' GPAs--and, even more importantly, also assesses the validity of the "5Essentials Survey" in high schools. The high school analyses encompass a range of outcomes: test scores, attendance, GPAs, Freshman OnTrack rates, and college enrollment. [For "Supporting School Improvement: Early Findings from a Reexamination of the "5Essentials" Survey. Executive Summary," see ED608156.]

Responding to an Illinois law that took effect in 2010, the Performance Evaluation Reform Act (PERA), Chicago Public Schools (CPS) created and implemented the REACH (Recognizing Educators Advancing Chicago's Students) educator evaluation and support system. REACH was piloted in 2012-13. It is still being implemented as of the 2019-20 school year and will continue to be implemented through June 2024, per the teachers' contract agreed upon in fall 2019. The evaluation system includes classroom observation ratings of teacher practice, as well as up to two student growth measures. This brief addresses the research question: What are teachers' and administrators' perceptions and opinions of REACH after five years of implementation? It draws from teacher and administrator survey reports of whether REACH influenced instructional change and student learning, the intended end goals of the policy. This brief is part of a series of three to extend previous research from the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research (UChicago Consortium) on early REACH implementation and the REACH evaluation system five years after the 2012-13 rollout. [For "Teacher Evaluation in CPS: What Makes Evaluator Feedback Useful? Research Brief," see ED608091. For "Teacher Evaluation in CPS: REACH Ratings and Teacher Mobility. Research Brief," see ED608092.]

Responding to an Illinois law that took effect in 2010, the Performance Evaluation Reform Act (PERA), Chicago Public Schools (CPS) created and implemented the REACH (Recognizing Educators Advancing Chicago's Students) educator evaluation and support system. REACH was piloted in 2012-13. It is still being implemented as of the 2019-20 school year, and will continue to be implemented through June 2024, per the teachers' contract agreed upon in fall 2019. The evaluation system includes classroom observation ratings of teacher practice, as well as up to two student growth measures. The stated goal of REACH is to provide valuable feedback to improve educators' professional practice and increase student learning. As with any professional evaluation system, a secondary use of REACH is to inform personnel decisions, such as classroom assignments, retention, tenure, remediation plans, and dismissal processes. In line with nationwide trends, almost all teachers in CPS received high evaluation ratings prior to REACH, and there was concern that such high levels of teacher performance were not translating into high levels of student learning. There was the potential that a more accurate rating system could make it easier to recognize and retain strong teachers while encouraging low-performing teachers to improve or exit. In light of this context, this brief answers the following research questions: (1) What proportion of teachers received high and low ratings under REACH, and how did that change over time? (2) How many low-rated teachers exited CPS or switched schools under REACH, compared to high-rated teachers?(3) How have classroom assignments within the school changed under REACH? This brief is part of a series of three to extend previous research from the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research (UChicago Consortium) on early REACH implementation and the REACH evaluation system five years after the 2012-13 rollout. [For "Teacher Evaluation in CPS: What Makes Evaluator Feedback Useful? Research Brief," see ED608091. For "Teacher Evaluation in CPS: Perceptions of REACH Implementation, Five Years In. Research Brief," see ED608094.]

Responding to an Illinois law that took effect in 2010, the Performance Evaluation Reform Act (PERA), Chicago Public Schools (CPS) created and implemented the REACH (Recognizing Educators Advancing Chicago's Students) educator evaluation and support system. REACH was piloted in 2012-13. It is still being implemented as of the 2019-20 school year, and will continue to be implemented through June 2024, per the teachers' contract agreed upon in fall 2019. The evaluation system includes classroom observation ratings of teacher practice, as well as up to two student growth measures. This brief addresses the research question: What feedback did teachers report as most useful? The data and analysis that answer this question provide insights that may help district leaders, principals, and teacher-evaluators make the most of classroom observations and ultimately drive improved teacher practice, student experiences, and student outcomes. This brief is part of a series of three to extend previous research from the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research (UChicago Consortium) on early REACH implementation and the REACH evaluation system five years after the 2012-13 rollout. [For "Teacher Evaluation in CPS: REACH Ratings and Teacher Mobility. Research Brief," see ED608092. For "Teacher Evaluation in CPS: Perceptions of REACH Implementation, Five Years In. Research Brief," see ED608094.]

Previous studies about ELs have reported data on active English Learners--defined as those students who have not yet reached proficiency on a state English test--at a specific moment in time. This study, for the first time, analyzed the long-term trajectories of 18,000 CPS students who began kindergarten as ELs and followed their progress all the way through eighth grade.

Chicago Public Schools (CPS) offers many options when it comes to high school enrollment. In fact, since the 2015-16 school year, about three out of every four incoming ninth-graders have chosen to attend a high school other than their assigned neighborhood school. Despite the widespread engagement in school choice, the high school application process was complicated. In an effort to simplify and streamline the process, the Chicago Board of Education voted on April 2017 to adopt a common application across all high school choice programs for incoming ninth-grade students with one deadline and a single best offer. The district expected that this common application would make the process simpler, more transparent, and more equitable for students and families. At the time when Chicago passed this measure, similar systems had already been approved and were in use in a number of other urban districts. Beginning in fall 2017, all high school program applications were moved to an online platform known as GoCPS. This new application system eliminated the need to apply school-by-school and program-by-program. In addition, all high school programs had a common deadline for applications and acceptances of offers. Importantly, the selection system alleviated the problem of some students accepting multiple offers to competitive programs while others remained on multiple waitlists with no offers. This report analyzes the first year of GoCPS implementation for students who enrolled in ninth grade in the fall of 2018. [Funding provided by the Consortium Investor Council.]

This action guide provides school leadership teams with a resource for integrating the social, emotional and academic needs of young people into the daily student experience, from the time a bus driver greets a student until the end of the day. It supports the school leader and her/his team in mapping out an approach for integrating the social, emotional, and academic needs of students into the way adults and students experience school each moment of each school day. As part of their academic mission, schools contribute to students developing social-emotional skills that are critical to success in school, career and life. These broader skills and competencies fall into three categories: (1) social and interpersonal (e.g., working on a team, resolving conflicts); (2) emotional (e.g., coping with frustration and stress, demonstrating empathy); and (3) cognitive (e.g., goal-setting, staying focused, persevering, etc.). Academic instruction creates an ideal context for practicing these broader competencies and skills, which research validates as important to success beyond school and malleable. Social, emotional and academic development (SEAD) requires rethinking the school experience for students and adults so that social, emotional, and academic dimensions of learning are mutually reinforcing in practice, and infused into every aspect of the school and student experience. Enacting SEAD in practice rests on a three-legged stool: Students need (1) explicit instruction in understanding and applying social-emotional competencies/skills; (2) embedded opportunities to practice these competencies/skills during academic instruction; and (3) a learning environment that is infused with healthy relationships and that models safety, belonging, and purpose so that students can invest their whole selves in learning. Integrating SEAD has two meanings in this context: addressing social, emotional, and academic dimensions of learning together because they are inextricably linked in students' experiences; and integrating a SEAD approach into overall school improvement strategies--not as a siloed initiative or an "add-on" program. The school principal and leadership team (including teacher leaders) are key levers of transformation for a school community. This action guide both challenges and supports school leaders in advancing SEAD to meet the excellence and equity mission of public education.

High school GPAs (HSGPAs) are often perceived to represent inconsistent levels of readiness for college across high schools, while test scores (e.g., ACT scores) are seen as comparable. This study tests those assumptions, examining variation across high schools of both HSGPAs and ACT scores as measures of academic readiness for college. We find students with the same HSGPA or the same ACT score graduate at very different rates based on which high school they attended. Yet, the relationship of HSGPAs with college graduation is strong and consistent, and larger than school effects. In contrast, the relationship of ACT scores with college graduation is weak, smaller than high school effects, and the slope of the relationship varies by high school.

Across existing research literature and among arts educators there is widespread belief that artistic disciplines including music, dance, theatre, visual arts, literary arts, and media arts have a positive effect on children's and adolescents' social-emotional development. This project investigates the relationship between arts education and social-emotional learning and develops a theory of action describing the nature of that relationship. This project consists of two components: a review of literature on this topic and an interview-based fieldwork component with educators, administrators, students, and parents in Chicago Public Schools. The authors propose a theory of action that describes how arts learning experiences have the potential to promote young people's development of social-emotional competencies. The theory emphasizes that the artistic and social-emotional aspects are always happening simultaneously and that, just as a student can learn good or bad piano habits, she can learn good or bad social-emotional habits. Just as the art practices must be cultivated into long-term art competencies through guidance and instruction, the social-emotional components of these activities must be cultivated into long-term social-emotional competencies. This report has three sections. The first describes the theory of action in greater detail, emphasizing the developmental effects of arts education. The second section surveys evidence in three areas of social-emotional development: self-management and discipline, interpersonal and relationship skills, and self-expression and identity. It also provides illustrative examples of the theory of action drawn from literature and our fieldwork interviews. The third and final section describes practical implications of this work and suggests areas for further research. Overall, this report emphasizes that arts education settings are sites of great potential. Learning literary or media arts, visual arts, theatre, dance, or music has great intrinsic benefits for young people, as they are exposed to creative humanistic experiences and the potential for rigorous skill development. [This report was prepared by Ingenuity.]

Extensive evidence demonstrates that high-quality early childhood education (ECE) positively impacts the learning trajectories of children. Yet many early childhood programs struggle to implement high-quality programming, failing to sufficiently advance children's early learning. A growing body of research demonstrates that strong organizational conditions are necessary to lift stagnant levels of quality in ECE settings. The Early Education Essentials measurement system, including teacher/staff and parent surveys and data-use and improvement tools, is now available nationwide for use in early childhood school- and community-based settings. The new research in Early Education Essentials: Illustrations of Strong Organizational Practices in Programs Poised for Improvement provides valuable qualitative descriptions of strong organizational environments and how they empowered leaders, teachers, and families to aspire to and realize higher-quality practices and better outcomes for young children. Key Findings: (1) Internal organizational conditions greatly affect what teachers do, what parents do, and how staff and families feel about the school/center. These actions in turn impact the quality of teaching and learning, and ultimately the outcomes children achieve; (2) Program leaders can bring coherency to the purpose and focus of ECE programs and minimize fragmented and task-based approaches. In strongly organized programs, leaders achieved coherency and quality by focusing on teachers' practice and working collaboratively with teachers, staff, and families; and (3) Policymakers seeking to retain staff and ensure high-quality programming within ECE schools/centers can prioritize policies that promote these essential organizational structures and practices over other program standards, which have not been linked to staff commitment, higher-quality teaching, or outcomes. [Co-written with Stacy B. Ehrlich and Amanda G. Stein.] [For "Early Education Essentials: Illustrations of Strong Organizational Practices in Programs Poised for Improvement. Snapshot," see ED612724.]

The new Early Education Essentials measurement system, developed by the Ounce of Prevention Fund (Ounce) and the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research (UChicago Consortium), offers the field a reliable and valid way to measure, attend to and strengthen these conditions critical to improvement. This innovative resource includes teacher/staff and parent surveys, as well as data-use and improvement tools. A team of researchers from the Ounce and the UChicago Consortium spent three consecutive days in four early childhood education (ECE) sites whose teacher/staff and parent survey responses to the "Early Education Essentials" surveys indicated that their essential supports were either very strongly organized or very weakly organized. Differences in their organizational climates and conditions were unmistakable. Well-organized programs created organizational contexts far more supportive of teaching, learning, and family engagement than programs that were weakly organized. This Snapshot highlights the study's overview, findings, and conclusions and implications. [This Snapshot was written with Stacy B. Ehrlich and Amanda G. Stein. For the full study, see ED593623.]

A successful freshman year of high school lays the foundation for the path to college: ninth-grade grades are powerful indicators of high school graduation, college access, and college degree attainment. However, the transition from eighth to ninth grade is a time when students' academic performance often declines. This report explores how Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students' grades declined during the transition to high school in more detail, and it considers how both eighth- and ninth-grade grades have changed since the original report was written. It examines GPA declines in arts and PE/health grades in addition to grades in the core subject areas, and it breaks down these declines by race/ethnicity, gender, and eighth-grade achievement and looks at how these patterns vary across schools. It also explores the relationships between failures in ninth-grade core and non-core courses, credit accumulation, and high school graduation. The report concludes by providing implications for high schools of the patterns in course performance and their relationship to high school graduation. This report is organized into the following chapters: (1) Changes in Core GPA between the Eighth and Ninth Grades; (2) Non-Core GPA Declines across the Transition; (3) Course Failure and High School Graduation; and (4) Implications. [This report was produced with the The To&Through Project and additional support was provided by the Consortium Investor Council.]

In the United States, a student's educational attainment is associated with nearly every social outcome we care about: income, employment, life-expectancy, and more. For this reason, it is important to understand how students in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) perform on key milestones of educational attainment, including high school graduation, college enrollment, and college graduation. This annual analysis of CPS students' attainment milestones gives Chicago's education stakeholders a high-level view of how the district performed on these education milestones in 2017, compared to rates from the past decade. This report is framed around the Bachelor's Degree Attainment Index (DAI), an estimate of how many of today's ninth-graders will earn a bachelor's degree within 10 years. The analysis looks at the district's progress on the three milestones that comprise the Bachelor's Degree Attainment Index (Bachelor's DAI)--high school graduation, college enrollment, and four-year college graduation--and also shows the progress for students by race/ethnicity and gender on these milestones. This report also looks at two additional indicators: Freshman OnTrack rates and two-year persistence rates in four-year colleges. Like previous annual reports on the district's educational attainment from the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research (UChicago Consortium) and the To&Through Project, this report is not meant to present new research findings on how policies or practices are impacting students. [For the 2016 Research Report, see ED589724.]

This research synthesis is designed to help teachers and principals support equitable outcomes for all students. It suggests ways teachers, administrators, and school support personnel can use insights from research to create pre-K-12 schools and classrooms that advance educational equity. The synthesis brings together the UChicago Consortium's ground-breaking research on the influence of school climate on student achievement, the importance of mindsets and developmental experiences, as well as other leading education research. It draws attention to the critical role of engagement and mindsets in student success; how teachers and administrators can create strong school climates that support students and engage families as partners; and how responsive classrooms can enable all students to have strong academic engagement.

This new working paper uses survey responses and student grades and test scores to examine how math instruction and student outcomes have changed in schools with differing levels of CCSS professional development since the implementation of the new Common Core Mathematics standards (CCSS-M) in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) in 2014-15. It found that elementary students and high school students reported increasingly higher average levels of academic demand, rigor, instructional clarity, and also teacher support from the pre-implementation period (2010-11 and 2011-12) to the early implementation period (2014-15, 2015-16, and 2016-17) in schools with limited, average, and extensive professional development. At both the high school and elementary school levels, improvements in instruction were significantly larger in schools with extensive standards-related professional development than in schools with limited professional development; however, patterns of improvement were different for elementary vs. high schools. Among sixth- through eighth-grade students, average math test scores, course grades and course passing rates also improved over time regardless of the level of standards-related professional development in their schools. Nevertheless, improvements in test scores and math course pass rates were significantly larger for students in schools with extensive standards-related professional development than for students in schools where professional development was limited. At the high-school level, improvements over time in average test scores, math course grades and pass rates were comparable for students in schools with differing levels of standards-related professional development. The study also examined whether improvements in math instruction differed for students enrolled in "Deep Support" schools--schools that received additional standards-related support in the form of professional learning communities and coaching--compared to students in schools that did not receive this kind of support. Among sixth- through eighth-grade students, improvements in academic demand and teacher supports were not as large in Deep Support schools as in non-Deep Support schools, although the differences were small. In terms of student outcomes, test scores improved at significantly higher rates for elementary and high school students in Deep Support schools (although the differences were small), but improvements in grades and course pass rates, at least at the elementary level were not as large in these schools. At the high-school level, improvements in math grades and pass rates were similar in Deep Support and non-Deep-Support schools. [Additional support was provided by the Consortium Investor Council.]

This is UChicago Consortium's first comprehensive brief on student teachers and the student teaching experience in Chicago Public Schools (CPS). It synthesizes findings from research done in partnership with researchers from National Louis University, University of Michigan, and Stanford University, using CPS teacher data, along with surveys of student teachers and their mentor teachers, to understand where student teachers were placed, who serves as mentor teachers, and what factors were good indicators of first-year teacher performance. Key findings include: (1) Student teachers' self-reports of their own level of preparation at the end of student teaching were not related to their performance in their first year of teaching; (2) Mentor teachers' instructional support and guidance mattered more than their own qualifications; (3) Student teachers were placed unevenly in schools across the district and were less likely to be placed in low-performing schools and more likely to train in schools that served fewer low-income students; (4) Student teachers were more effective in their first year if their mentor teachers had strong performance ratings, although other mentor characteristics such as National Board Certification status, tenure, and prior mentor experience showed no relationship to student teachers' subsequent performance; and (5) Mentor teachers' assessments of their student teachers' instructional practices were good indicators of student teachers' performance in their first year of teaching. [This policy brief was written with Kavita Kapadia Matsko, Matthew Ronfeldt, Hillary L. Greene Nolan, and Michelle Reininger.]

In the 2015-16 school year, 75 percent of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) ninth-graders opted out of their assigned high school. These students could choose from more than 300 programs at 138 public high schools. Selective enrollment high schools (SEHSs) were among the most high-profile and most sought-out options. SEHSs aim to provide high-achieving students with a challenging academic experience and admit students based on prior academic performance. While many of the SEHSs are consistently ranked as the top schools in Illinois by U.S. News and World Report, criticisms about these schools include concerns that they disproportionately serve affluent students and drain resources from neighborhood schools. This research asks two questions: (1) How does the admission policy in CPS affect the profile of SEHS students in Chicago? and (2) What effects do SEHSs have on students? Results find that applicants tend to prefer the same selective enrollment high schools. CPS uses multiple academic performance metrics and a proxy for students' SES for SEHS admissions, in part to create more diverse selective enrollment high schools. Although the common perception is that SEHSs benefit all students who attend them, the picture is more complicated, particularly for students who live in low-SES neighborhoods.

Across the country, urban school districts are opting to close under-enrolled schools as a way to consolidate resources. Motivated by a reported $1 billion deficit and declining enrollments in depopulating neighborhoods, the Chicago Board of Education voted in May 2013 to close 49 elementary schools and one high school program located in an elementary school--the largest mass school closure to date. In order to accommodate the nearly 12,000 displaced students, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) designated specific "welcoming" schools for each of the closed schools. In this report, the authors provide evidence of the short-term and multi-year impacts of the 2013 CPS school closures on students' academic, behavioral, and other relevant outcomes. Using a mixed methods design, they sought to answer two primary questions: (1) How did staff and students affected by school closings experience the school closings process and subsequent transfer into designated welcoming schools? and (2) What effect did closing schools have on closed and welcoming schools students' mobility, attendance, suspensions, test scores, and core GPAs? In answering these questions, they illuminate the voices and experiences of the staff and students most directly affected by closures across six welcoming schools. [Included are commentaries by Eve L. Ewing and Douglas N. Harris. Additional support for this report was provided by the Consortium Investor Council.]

High school course grades are a primary source of information about students' academic readiness, yet they are often viewed as inconsistent measures of student achievement-- influenced by idiosyncratic practices across schools and teachers, systematic differences in course content and structure, compositional effects of peers, and student demographics. Prior research has not quantified the extent of this variation relative to the influence of students' academic skills and effort, or examined multiple sources of influence simultaneously. This study employed cross-classified random-effects models with a dataset of 2.1 million grade records from 125,223 students and 11,000 teachers at 118 schools to identify sources of variation in students' grades. Grades varied based on which teacher students had for a given class and the conditions of the class (course subject, classroom peer achievement, time of day, class size and term). There were systematic differences in course grades by race and gender, even among students taking the same classes under the same conditions with the same test scores and attendance in the course. However, students' effort and skills, measured through attendance and test scores, dwarfed other sources of variation. Within- and between-student variation in attendance across classes also explained a substantial portion of variation by teacher, school and course conditions. Rather than finding large unexplained differences in grades based on which school a student attended, or which teacher they had, we found observable factors systematically explained differences in the grades that students received, particularly in students' aggregate grade point averages.

In districts across the country, school practitioners rely on early warning indicator systems (EWI) to identify students in need of support to graduate high school and be prepared for college. By organizing pieces of data on student performance into indicators, practitioners can develop and test school strategies to improve students' educational attainment with data that are readily available, making indicator systems a potentially powerful tool for supporting student outcomes. While the use of indicators for reaching school and district goals around students' educational attainment has been widely embraced, it is not always clear how to do so in ways that will lead to better educational attainment for students. Questions about how to use indicator systems effectively generally focus on: (1) "How" are indicators used to improve high school and college graduation rates, and (2) "Which" indicators should be the focus of an early warning or college readiness indicator system? These questions are intertwined. Decisions about which indicators are the best indicators to use depend on how they are being used, and questions about how to use indicators depend on the choice of indicators. This paper provides a brief overview of the current state of the use of indicators for improving students' educational attainment, considerations about which indicators to use when developing an indicator system, and some of the questions that have arisen as schools, districts, and states engage in these efforts. It is intended for people who are positioned between the research and practice spheres, such as district and state institutional researchers, or researchers at universities and research organizations who work closely with schools and districts. It may also be of interest to school and district administrators with a strong interest in developing and refining high school graduation and college readiness indicator systems, and an interest in the data and research behind such systems.

High-quality, well-implemented early childhood education (ECE) positively affects the learning trajectories of children who start school with lower skills than their peers, according to decades of evidence. Yet studies on ECE programs across the country reveal that too few offer high-quality programming. To date, the ECE field has focused most improvement efforts on "classroom" materials and interactions. Broadening these efforts to an "organization-wide" focus can better support quality improvement. The University of Chicago Consortium on School Research (UChicago Consortium) and the Ounce of Prevention Fund (Ounce) designed teacher and parent surveys, the "Early Education Essential Organizational Supports Measurement System" ("Early Ed Essentials"), to help ECE sites diagnose organizational strengths and weaknesses. The current study tested whether the newly-adapted and designed "Early Ed Essentials" teacher and parent surveys capture reliable and valid information about the organization of ECE programs--information that is also associated with existing indicators of program quality. [For the accompanying report, "Organizing Early Education for Improvement: Testing a New Survey Tool. Technical Report," see ED589706.]

High-quality, well-implemented early childhood education (ECE) positively affects the learning trajectories of children who start school with lower skills than their peers, according to decades of evidence. Yet studies on ECE programs across the country reveal that too few offer high-quality programming. To date, the ECE field has focused most improvement efforts on classroom materials and interactions. Broadening these efforts to an organization-wide focus could better support quality improvement. The UChicago Consortium and the Ounce of Prevention Fund designed teacher and parent surveys, the "Early Education Essential Organizational Supports Measurement System" ("Early Ed Essentials"), to help ECE sites diagnose organizational strengths and weaknesses. The current study tested whether the newly-adapted and designed "Early Ed Essentials" teacher and parent surveys captured reliable and valid information about the organization of ECE programs--information that is also associated with existing indicators of program quality. Key findings include: (1) "Early Ed Essentials" measures were internally reliable and the teacher survey measures differentiate well across ECE sites; (2) In order to capture parents' perspectives, a sixth essential called Parent Voice was created and was tested as part of the validation study; (3) Most, but not all, essential scores were significantly related to site-level outcomes. Ambitious Instruction and Parent Voice were not significantly related to either outcome measured. Sites with high and low "Early Ed Essentials" survey responses had qualitatively different climate, structures, and practices; (4) The qualitative voice of families contributed substantially to researchers' ability to describe and differentiate the climate and conditions of ECE sites with strong and weak essential supports; and (5) The survey development team will continue to refine the tool, including revising the parent survey. [This report was written with: Stuart Luppescu, Sangyoon Park, Elizabeth Frank, Holly Lewandowski, and Christopher Young.]

The UChicago Consortium, Network for College Success, and the To&Through Project's new paper, "Practice-Driven Data: Lessons from Chicago's Approach to Research, Data, and Practice in Education," shares key lessons learned from Chicago's approach to using data to foster ongoing improvement in students' educational attainment. This paper is designed to share the lessons we have learned about how, when, why, and under what conditions we have seen this practice-driven data approach support real and sustainable improvement. It is intended to share these lessons with advocates, policymakers, district and school leaders, and school support organizations, both locally and nationally, so they can develop the conditions that will support effective data use in schools and school systems. Taken together, these five lessons from Chicago form an approach to data use focusing stakeholders at various levels on the most important goals and features of an ecosystem of data use that has the potential to catalyze systematic improvement in student outcomes. First, it is important to build capacity to facilitate hard conversations and use data collectively to spur action, which requires an emphasis on trust, collaboration, and culture. Second, the wide availability of data and the scarce resource of time requires that educators and leaders prioritize research-based indicators that matter most for students' success. Third, educators can use relevant research evidence to make meaning of the data they use, and to develop shared ownership over the implications of the research. Fourth, using data effectively to guide practice requires that educators and leaders use the right data at the right time of the school year. Finally, there is no more important use of data in public schools than as a tool to identify and stop inequities that continue to leave the most vulnerable students further and further behind.

This study is the first in-depth look at Chicago's charter schools by the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research (UChicago Consortium). The authors examined four key dimensions of charter high schools in Chicago Public Schools (CPS): (1) school organization and policies; (2) incoming skills and characteristics of charter high school enrollees; (3) school transfers; and (4) student performance. The study relied primarily on data from 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013. Analyses of charter schools' organizational capacity examined teacher and student survey responses from these years. Analyses of students' incoming skills and characteristics, school transfers, and high school outcomes were based on students who were first-time ninth-graders in each of these years. Key findings include: (1) On average, CPS charter high schools looked similar to non-charter, non-selective schools on some dimensions of organizational capacity, such as leadership, but they looked quite different on other dimensions, such as instruction and preparation of students for the future; (2) Most CPS charter high schools enrolled students whose eighth-grade test scores were similar to or lower than students in non-charter high schools who came from their same neighborhoods and elementary schools, but whose eighth-grade attendance was higher; (3) Students who enrolled in a charter high school in ninth grade were more likely to transfer to another CPS high school than students enrolled in a non-charter high school, even after taking into account differences in incoming skills, experiences, and characteristics; (4) On average, charter school students performed better on some (but not all) high school outcomes than students enrolled in non-charter high schools, controlling for differences in incoming skills, experiences, and background characteristics; (5) On average, charter school students' performance on post-secondary outcomes was much higher than similar students who attended non-charter high schools; and (6) There was substantial variation among charter schools on key student outcomes, including test scores, college enrollment, and college selectivity. [Additional support was provided by the Consortium Investor Council.]