Organizing Schools for Improvement: Lessons from Chicago

In 1988, the Chicago public school system decentralized, granting parents and communities significant resources and authority to reform their schools in dramatic ways. To track the effects of this bold experiment, the authors of Organizing Schools for Improvement collected a wealth of data on elementary schools in Chicago. Over a seven-year period they identified one hundred elementary schools that had substantially improved—and one hundred that had not. What did the successful schools do to accelerate student learning?
The authors of this illuminating book identify a comprehensive set of practices and conditions that were key factors for improvement, including school leadership, the professional capacity of the faculty and staff, and a student-centered learning climate. In addition, they analyze the impact of social dynamics, including crime, critically examining the inextricable link between schools and their communities. Putting their data onto a more human scale, they also chronicle the stories of two neighboring schools with very different trajectories. The lessons gleaned from this groundbreaking study will be invaluable for anyone involved with urban education.

History

Bryk, Anthony S.

Sebring, Penny Bender

Allensworth, Elaine

Luppescu, Stuart

Easton, John Q.

Americas

University of Chicago Press

In 1988, the Chicago public school system decentralized, granting parents and communities significant resources and authority to reform their schools in dramatic ways. To track the effects of this bold experiment, the authors of Organizing Schools for Improvement collected a wealth of data on elementary schools in Chicago. Over a seven-year period they identified one hundred elementary schools that had substantially improved—and one hundred that had not. What did the successful schools do to accelerate student learning? The authors of this illuminating book identify a comprehensive set of practices and conditions that were key factors for improvement, including school leadership, the professional capacity of the faculty and staff, and a student-centered learning climate. In addition, they analyze the impact of social dynamics, including crime, critically examining the inextricable link between schools and their communities. Putting their data onto a more human scale, they also chronicle the stories of two neighboring schools with very different trajectories. The lessons gleaned from this groundbreaking study will be invaluable for anyone involved with urban education.

The majority of Chicago Public Schools students are not attaining the ACT scores they are aiming for, which they need to qualify for scholarships and college acceptance. In this report, CCSR researchers look at the reasons behind students' low performance and what matters for doing well on this test. CPS students are highly motivated to do well on the ACT, and they are spending extraordinary amounts of time preparing for it. However, the predominant ways in which students are preparing for the ACT are unlikely to help them do well on the test or to be ready for college-level work. Students are training for the ACT in a last-minute sprint focused on test practice, when the ACT requires years of hard work developing college-level skills. This study relies on qualitative and quantitative data for a cohort of students who were CPS juniors in 2005. This includes test scores from eighth to eleventh grade, student transcripts, CCSR surveys, and multiple interviews of students and teachers at three Chicago high schools. The report also incorporated 2007 data on CPS juniors and teacher surveys.

From High School to the Future: ACT Preparation - Too Much, Too Late: Why ACT Scores are Low in Chicago and What It Means for Schools

Education & Teaching

Correa, Macarena

Ponisciak, Steve

Schools & Teaching

Consortium On Chicago School Research

"Teaching Adolescents To Become Learners" summarizes the research on five categories of noncognitive factors that are related to academic performance: academic behaviors, academic perseverance, academic mindsets, learning strategies, and social skills, and proposes a framework for thinking about how these factors interact to affect academic performance, and what the relationship is between noncognitive factors and classroom/school context, as well as the larger socio-cultural context. It examines whether there is substantial evidence that noncognitive factors matter for students' long-term success, clarifying how and why these factors matter, determining if these factors are malleable and responsive to context, determining if they play a role in persistent racial/ethnic or gender gaps in academic achievement, and illuminating how educators might best support the development of important noncognitive factors within their schools and classrooms. The review suggests some promising levers for change at the classroom level, and challenges the notion that hard work and effort are character traits of individual students, instead suggesting that the amount of effort a student puts into academic work can depend, in large part, on instructional and contextual factors in the classroom. In addition, the review also presents challenges for future research on noncognitive factors. This work was supported by Raikes Foundation and Lumina Foundation.

Teaching Adolescents To Become Learners The Role of Noncognitive Factors in Shaping School Performance: A Critical Literature Review

Johnson, David W.

Farrington, Camille A.

Nagaoka, Jenny

Roderick, Melissa

Keyes, Tasha Seneca

Beechum, Nicole O.

Students who attend preschool regularly are significantly more likely than chronically absent preschoolers, those who missed at least 10 percent of the school year, to be ready for kindergarten and to attend school regularly in later grades. The study, which followed 25,000 three- and four-year-olds served by Chicago Public Schools (CPS) school-based preschool programs, finds chronic absenteeism is rampant among preschoolers in Chicago. In 2011-2012, almost half of three-year-olds and more than one-third of four-year-olds were chronically absent. This report examines the extent of preschool absenteeism and the reasons preschool students are absent. It also examines the relationship between preschool absences and students' scores on measures of kindergarten readiness in math, letter recognition, and social-emotional development, as well as assessments of second-grade reading fluency. Ultimately, students who miss more preschool have lower kindergarten readiness scores, and students who are chronically absent in preschool are more likely to be chronically absent in kindergarten and have lower second grade reading scores. However, students who enter preschool with the weakest skills benefit the most from regular attendance.

Preschool Attendance in Chicago Public Schools: Relationships with Learning Outcomes and Reasons for Absences

Moore, Paul

Ehrlich, Stacy B.

Gwynne, Julia

Pareja, Amber Stitziel

Jagesic, Sanja

Sorice, Elizabeth

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