• High school curricular reform—Nationwide, there are calls to increase rigor in the high school curriculum, including initiatives for all students to enroll in a college-preparatory curricula; to increase the number of high-level academic courses; and to provide support courses, rather than remedial work, for students with weak academic skills. This study tests the efficacy of such curricular changes in CPS over the last decade. This work is supported by a grant from Institute of Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education

• Curricular reform and classroom practice in math and science—This research builds on CCSR’s study of high school curricular reform, adding science instruction and outcomes to the general curricular studies, and looking more deeply at classroom practice in math and science in the context of teacher, school, and departmental capacity. This work is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation.
• Focus on Freshmen—Prior work at CCSR has shown that it is crucial for students to make a successful transition to high school if they are to graduate. Even one or two course failures in the freshman year make a student vulnerable to dropping out. The "Focus on Freshmen" project is a longitudinal multi-method study which follow students from the eighth grade through the ninth-grade transition and into the tenth-grade year to better understand the challenges of high school, how specific school practices affect students' academic behaviors, and how some practices may adversely affect their performance. Our goal is to provide schools with evidence from which they can craft targeted solutions to improve course performance for both off-track students and students still on track for graduation. This work is supported by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
• Evaluation of the Excellence in Teaching pilot—With the Excellence in Teaching Pilot, Chicago Public Schools is implementing a new teacher evaluation system. Teachers undergo a rigorous observation process using Charlotte Danielson's Framework for Teaching. Principals use the Framework, which provides a common definition of excellent teaching, to guide their classroom observations as well as the required pre-observation and post-observation conferences. The 2008-09 school year is the first year of the pilot and includes 43 elementary schools across the city. The two-year CCSR study will provide valuable information to the district about the reliability and validity of the Framework tool, principal and teacher perceptions of the pilot system, the effectiveness of district support to pilot schools, and the system's potential to impact school-wide change around teacher professionalism and student learning. The evaluation is a mixed-methods study, including quantitative analyses and interviews with principals and teachers. The intent is to provide the district with formative and on-going feedback on their pilot implementation. This work is funded by the Joyce Foundation.
• The Essential Supports for School Improvement—This research examines the empirical evidence on the key elements of this framework—leadership, professional capacity, parent-community ties, climate, and instructional guidance—and how they link to improvements in student learning. CCSR released a report in September 2006 that provides initial evidence to support this framework as a guide for school improvement. A book on this large body of work will be published by the University of Chicago Press in 2009. The working title is Organizing Schools for Improvement. The book provides more detail on how specific combinations of supports affect gains in student learning, and on the relationship between the essential supports and community factors.
• Student mobility—This report will provide an in-depth analysis of mobility patterns in Chicago Public Schools from 1994-95 to 2006-07. We examine mobility trends for elementary and high school students and trends according to students’ age, gender, race/ethnicity, and socio-economic background. In addition, we also look at factors that may influence student mobility in Chicago, including residential moves, school quality and policies at the school district and federal levels. And finally, we examine whether these factors explain differences in mobility trends between African Americans and other students that have emerged since 2000-2001. This study is funded by a grant from the MacArthur Foundation.
  
• Chicago High School Redesign Initiative—Sue Sporte, David Stevens, Marisa de la Torre and Joe Kahne (Mills College) have been studying the Chicago High School Redesign Initiative (CHSRI), a collaborative effort of the Gates Foundation, local Chicago funders, and CPS to create approximately two dozen small high schools across the city. The purpose of this multi-year, multi-method project is to study both the implementation and impact of the initiative, including issues such as the development of school environments, efforts to improve instruction, and student outcomes. Two final reports will be released in fall 2008. Funded by grants from the Chicago Community Trust and the Spencer Foundation.
• Teacher mobility—Teacher mobility has long been an issue for large urban school districts, as schools with many low-income students often endure more teacher turnover than schools in wealthier communities. With this study we show how teachers’ personal characteristics interact with the structure of the school and with the work environment, to affect teacher retention. This study is funded by a grant from the Joyce Foundation

New Studies by the Chicago Postsecondary Transition Project:

Project Description
In 2004, the Consortium on Chicago School Research began a multi-year research project titled From High School to the Future. The project has both quantitative and qualitative components. The quantitative project tracks the post-high school experiences of successive cohorts of graduating CPS students and systematically analyzes the relationship between high school preparation, college choices, and postsecondary outcomes.  For the qualitative component, researchers followed a diverse group of students from three Chicago high schools from eleventh grade until two years after graduation and examined their college aspirations and post high school experiences. In addition researchers studied the differences in the educational demands of their classroom environments through a linked observation study of high school and college classrooms. Four of the following Postsecondary Projects -Advanced Placement Course-Taking Patterns, Rigor Report, IB Brief, and Senior Year Course-Taking in Chicago -utilize the qualitative data from these student interviews.

• The Rigor Report: The Instructional Challenge-This study seeks to better explain postsecondary outcomes by focusing on CPS students' academic preparation in high school, specifically students' experiences in their junior and senior year. We are using qualitative data from teacher interviews, student interviews, and classroom observations. Analysis for this project will pay particular attention to the relationship between curriculum, instruction, and classroom environment, as guided by teachers' goals for student learning. The goal of the study is to understand what constitutes high quality instruction at all course levels. 
  
  
• Advanced Placement Course-Taking Patterns in Shaping College Access-Advanced Placement (AP) course-taking has expanded rapidly throughout the country and in all segments of the high school population in recent years. The expansion has prompted a new understanding of the program as a policy strategy for increasing access to college for low-income and racial/ethnic minority students, as well as decreasing the achievement gap. This study takes a rigorous look at the effect the expansion of AP course availability has had on the educational outcomes of CPS students, comparing the graduating classes of 1998 (pre-AP expansion) and 2003.
  
  
• Improving Postsecondary Preparation in Urban Public High Schools: An Evaluation of AVID in Chicago - The ultimate goal of AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) is to improve students' chances of enrolling in a four-year college and completing a four-year degree. In this three-year study, we are seeking to understand the effect of student participation in the AVID program. The central focus of this evaluation is to assess whether AVID has a positive impact on students' qualifications and readiness for college as well as their effective participation in the college search and application process, which have been linked to improved college access and performance. Our evaluation uses quantitative methods and a quasi-experimental design to understand the potential for this national model in the new context of urban schools.
  
  
• Is Hard Work Paying Off? The Road to College for CPS Students in College-Preparatory Programs - The Potholes on the Road to College report identified the many ways in which students can lose their way in pursuit of a college degree. This brief builds on these ideas by describing how the college planning and enrollment process can be difficult even for those students who have had access to AP courses, the International Baccalaureate program, or selective enrollment high schools. This brief examines the recent expansion of these programs and schools, the college qualifications of their graduates, and the college enrollment and college match patterns among these highly-qualified groups of CPS graduates.

• Senior Year Course-taking in Chicago: Gearing up for College or Coasting to Graduation? - Do the classes CPS students enroll in their senior year meet their expectations? For this analysis, we will use quantitative data to examine the trends of course-taking patterns among CPS students during their senior year. In addition, we will use qualitative data from student interviews to examine how students made decisions in their junior year about what classes to enroll in their senior year and what were their expectations for these classes. We will then look at students' senior year interviews to find out if the classes met their expectations. We will ultimately explore how students' senior year coursework relates to their experiences in college courses.