CCSR: A New Model for the Role of Research in Supporting Urban School Reform

The Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago was founded in 1990, two years after the passage of the Chicago School Reform Act that decentralized governance of the city’s public schools. Since then, CCSR has distinguished itself as a unique organization, conducting research of high technical quality that is accessible to practitioners and policy makers and that is used broadly by the school reform community. Most importantly, CCSR is viewed as making important contributions to school reform, both through the findings and implications of specific research studies and more broadly by improving the capacity of the district to use data, build effective strategies, and evaluate progress. In this report, we argue that CCSR’s focus on building capacity for school reform both sets CCSR’s role apart from traditional approaches researchers have used to influence policy and practice and also represents a new model for conducting policy-relevant research. The report begins with a brief background of CCSR. We then describe how a focus on capacity building has been institutionalized in a specific set of organizational arrangements that allow us to establish coherence across studies, seek broad stakeholder engagement, and make findings accessible. We argue further that developing new roles for research is increasingly important in new policy environments that depend significantly on the capacity of teachers and principals to not only respond to incentives and accountability but also to manage decentralized decision making and school improvement efforts.

MELISSA RODERICK, PHD, is the Hermon Dunlap Smith Professor at SSA and a co-director at UChicago CCSR where she leads the organization's postsecondary research. Professor Roderick is also the co-director of the Network for College Success, a network of high schools focused on developing high-quality leadership and student performance in Chicago's high schools. JOHN Q. EASTON is the Executive Director of IES and a former Executive Director of UChicago CCSR. He has been affiliated with UCHicago CCSR since its inception in 1990 and led its first research study. PENNY BENDER SEBRING is a Senior Research Associate at the University of Chicago and Founding Co-Director of UChicago CCSR. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Chicago Public Education Fund, and she is chair of the Policy Advisory Board of the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University. The University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research (UChicago CCSR) builds the capacity for school reform by conducting research that identifies what matters for student success and school improvement. Created in 1990 after the passage of the Chicago School Reform Act that decentralized governance of the city's public schools, UChicago CCSR conducts research of high technical quality that can inform and assess policy and practice in the Chicago Public Schools. UChicago CCSR studies also have informed broader national movements in public education. UChicago CCSR encourages the use of research in policy action and improvement of practice but does not argue for particular policies or programs. Rather, UChicago CCSR helps to build capacity for school reform by identifying what matters for student success and school improvement, creating critical indicators to chart progress, and conducting theory-driven evaluation to identify how programs and policies are working.